The Colin McEnroe Show

Native Americans exerted their political power in the 2020 election. A record-breaking six Native-Americans were elected to Congress and Native American votes tipped the scales in Arizona - which went blue for only the second time in seventy years. And U.S. Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM) is on President-elect Biden's short list to be Secretary of the Interior.  Native Americans made big gains in the 2020 election. Yet, Native Peoples are still largely invisible in American culture. Centuries of "colonialism" that separated Indigenous People from their families, their culture, and their land, led to intergenerational trauma from which they are still recovering. Yet, they remain resilient against continued attacks on their land and a trail of broken promises.  Today, we look at the emerging power of Native Americans in the context of centuries of systemic racism and cultural erasure.  GUESTS:  Sara Sinclair is an oral historian of Cree-Ojibwa descent. She is the editor of the Voice of Witness oral history collection How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America. Sara teaches in the Oral History Masters Program at Columbia University. Robert Ornelas is T/ijua Apache. He worked at the New York City Ballet and as a substance abuse counselor Tara Benally is of Hopi descent. Her family was raised by Navajo. She is a field director at Utah Rural Project Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2001: A Space Odyssey. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. A Clockwork Orange. The Shining. Full Metal Jacket. Spartacus. Eyes Wide Shut. This hour, a careful consideration of the filmmaker Steven Spielberg called "the best in history": Stanley Kubrick. GUESTS: James Hanley - Co-founder of Cinestudio at Trinity College David Mikics - Author of Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker Lila Shapiro - Senior reporter at New York magazine and Vulture, where she published "What I Learned After Watching Eyes Wide Shut 100 Times" Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired in a different form September 2, 2020.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is yodeling, anyway? Some consider it singing, some say it's an ululation, and still others consider it merely a means to herd animals. Whatever yodeling is, one's thing clear: Yodeling has been around for thousands of years and shows no signs of disappearing. This hour we speak with a musicologist, a DJ, and a professional singer about this age-old vocal practice. We'll trace yodeling's history from its humble, utilitarian roots to its place in modern day pop music and beyond. GUESTS: Bart Plantenga - Amsterdam based writer, radio DJ, and expert on yodeling; author of several books including Yodel in Hi-Fi: From Kitsch Folk to Contemporary Electronica Timothy Wise - Senior lecturer in musicology at the University of Salford, England; author of Yodeling and Meaning in American Music Roger Tincknell - Massachusetts-based cowboy yodeler, musician, and traveling performer Chion Wolf - Host of WNPR's Audacious with Chion Wolf Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe contributed to this show, which originally aired October 10, 2017.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Each state's slate of electors will cast their votes for president and vice-president today. President Trump won't win today. Nor will he win in the final Congressional certification on January 6, despite talk among some Republican legislators about plans for some type of electoral coup during the final vote count.  Trump and his supporters are retreating deeper and deeper into an alternate reality where they can collectively will things to be the way they want them to be. At some point, Americans will have to start sharing the same reality again or reckon with the outcome.  If we downplay anti-democratic behavior by a sitting president and leaders of a major political party, even if they didn't pull it off, we normalize it and invite future attempts by someone more competent.  Also this hour: the ongoing assault against Voice of America. GUESTS: Dahlia Lithwick writes about the courts and the law for Slate and hosts the podcast Amicus. Margaret Sullivan is a media columnist for The Washington Post and the author of Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy @sulliview Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mank is David Fincher's feature film portrayal of the writing of Citizen Kane. Gary Oldman plays the title character and Kane screenwriter, Herman J. Mankiewicz. Mank hit Netflix last Friday, and it's already got lots of Oscar buzz. The Godfather: Part III is a movie that was actually nominated for seven Oscars 30 years ago (it didn't win any), and it's the third film in a series that had already won nine Academy Awards, including two Best Pictures. Part III, though, has always been thought of relatively poorly. And so, for its 30th anniversary this month, Francis Ford Coppola has rejiggered it and rereleased it as The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. This new version is four minutes shorter, starts with a different scene, ends slightly differently ... and is ultimately the same movie. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Stream Taylor Swift's New Album, 'Evermore' Taylor Swift Had A Powerful Message For People Who "Don't Care" About Following COVID Guidelines"If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there's going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that." Bob Dylan Sells His Songwriting Catalog in Blockbuster DealUniversal Music purchased his entire songwriting catalog of more than 600 songs in what may be the biggest acquisition ever of a single act's publishing rights. Harrison Ford to reprise Indiana Jones role for fifth and final movie Disney Just Announced So Much More 'Star Wars'Breaking down the many Force-related developments from Thursday's Investor Day Steven Soderbergh Teases Plans for Limited-Edition Box Set Featuring Seven Remastered FilmsAnd it could be released sooner than you think. GUESTS: Nick Davis - A filmmaker and the author of the forthcoming Competing with Idiots: Herman and Joe Mankiewicz, a Dual Portrait Taneisha Duggan - Producing associate at TheaterWorks James Hanley - Co-founder of Cinestudio at Trinity College Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are we on the verge of societal collapse? We tend to worry about the big explosive stuff like nuclear war, asteroids, and solar flares when we consider end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios. The reality is that most "fallen" civilizations gradually decline over many decades with a banality that can barely register.  We often remember the decline of civilizations as the fault of poor leaders or natural disasters but it's more like death from a thousand cuts from conditions like inequality, corruption, and political dysfunction. That's (partly) what happened to the Roman Empire.  And most civilizations don't "collapse." They adapt and transform and take their culture with them. The Maya civilization is the archetype of a “collapsed” civilization, ingrained through popular and scholarly literature. That's not really what happened and millions of Maya descendants are alive to talk about it.  Today, we talk about societal collapse and whether we'll know if we're in it.   GUESTS: Martin Rees is the Astronomer Royal and a member of the House of Lords.  He’s the co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. His latest book is On the Future: Prospects for Humanity.  Patrick Wyman is the host of the “Tides of History,” and the former host of “The Fall of Rome,” podcasts. His book, The Verge, will be published in 2021.  Patricia McAnany is a Maya archaeologist and the Keenan eminent professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the co-editor with Norman Yoffe, of Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seventeen AFC East championships. Nine Super Bowl appearances. Six Lombardi trophies. Twenty seasons pairing maybe the greatest head coach in the history of the NFL with maybe the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. At the same time, there are words like "spygate." "Deflategate." And even "solicitation in Florida." This hour, a look at one of the all-time great (and all-time most divisive) sports dynasties: the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick/Robert Kraft New England Patriots. GUEST: Jeff Benedict - Special features writer for Sports Illustrated and the author of 16 books; his latest is The Dynasty Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In May, I discovered (along with the rest of the internet) a video on YouTube of a guy in his loft in Surrey, England ... solving a Sudoku puzzle. It was intense, a roller-coaster ride, and, ultimately, sublime. Those are not words you might expect someone to use to describe watching a stranger solve a little number puzzle, but here we are. Since I found that video, I've watched that YouTube channel, Cracking the Cryptic, practically every day. Sometimes the videos are riveting. The rest of the time, they're soothing. The channel's 300,000 subscribers and 50 million cumulative views would seem to indicate that I'm not alone in using it as a way to both exercise and relax my mind during this pandemic period. This hour, a look at Sudoku, specifically, and logic puzzles more generally. GUESTS: Simon Anthony - A former U.K. team member in the World Sudoku and World Puzzle Championships and a host of Cracking the Cryptic Jason Rosenhouse - Professor of mathematics at James Madison University and the author of a number of books about math and related topics, including Games for Your Mind: The History and Future of Logic Puzzles Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired August 26, 2020.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Roger Cohen, a former columnist and current Paris bureau chief for The New York Times, longs for a return to decency - a moral shift away from a Trump Presidency characterized by retreat, self-obsession, and a lack of respect for truth or decency. He welcomes the tenor he anticipates President-elect Biden will bring to the White House, but cautions against a return to the status quo. Too much has changed that still threatens liberalism and the Western alliance.  Also this hour: The Trump Administration is not happy that the FDA failed to approve a coronavirus vaccine before the UK did it first. The President's prior interference in FDA decisions led to public resistance against any vaccine they feared was tainted by politics. Are they doing it again?  Lastly, there's a national run on Christmas trees this year akin to the run on toilet paper in the spring. Even people who don't usually purchase a real tree seem to want one this year.  GUESTS:  Roger Cohen runs the Paris bureau for The New York Times. He's also the author of several books, including his family memoir, "The Girl From Human Street: Ghosts of Memory in a Jewish Family." Dan Diamond investigates health care politics and policy for Politico. He co-authors “Politico Pulse,” and hosts Politico’s “Pulse Check” podcast.   Kathy Kogut is president of the Connecticut Christmas Tree Growers Association Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Warner Bros. announced Thursday that all of its movies for all of 2021 will be available to stream on HBO Max the same day they debut in cinemas. The movie theater chains see this as "doomsday for the theatrical experience." And: Three strange, metal monoliths having been discovered in recent weeks, one each in Utah, Romania, and California. The ones in Utah and Romania have since disappeared, and the one in Utah had stood undiscovered for at least four years before it was found. Finally: The Undoing is a six-part HBO miniseries starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant. Its finale aired Sunday. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: David Prowse, Man Behind the Darth Vader Mask, Dies at 85 'Juno' and 'Umbrella Academy' Actor Elliot Page Comes Out as Transgender in Heartfelt Letter"I love that I am trans. And I love that I am queer," Page writes. Elliot Page Will Continue to Star in 'Umbrella Academy,' Netflix Changes Credits on His Past Films John Cleese Sparks Backlash Over Transphobic Tweets in Defense of J.K. Rowling Harry Styles Clapping Back At Candace Owens Is The Content I Needed Today Music Legends Eric Clapton, Van Morrison Team for Anti-Lockdown Single 'Stand and Deliver' Disney+ redesigns Black Panther's opening logo in honor of Chadwick Boseman's birthday I raised my kids on Pixar -- and it has ruined classic cinema for themHaving grown up on Toy Story and Up, this generation has zero tolerance for slow pacing or only mild amusement "Look At What We Love. It's on Fire": Stephen Colbert on Trump Trauma, Leadership, and LossThe late-night host is ready for a little less excitement: "If Joe Biden is a pair of khaki pants inside a manila envelope, that would be great." GUESTS: Rebecca Castellani - Handles social media marketing and event planning for Quiet Corner Communications Carolyn Paine - An actress, comedian, and dancer; founder, director, and choreographer of CONNetic Dance Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.