The Colin McEnroe Show

Dust is a fascinating substance. Our bodies are always shedding dust from our skin, hair, and nails, leaving little bits of DNA wherever we roam. Dust floats unseen through the air around us. It's light. It's hard to see unless it lands on a contrasting surface or crosses the path of a ray of sunshine. It can travel far and wide.   Earth collects more than 100 tons of cosmic dust a day. A speck of it might be in your rug. The unseen dust deeply embedded in our homes over many years becomes an archive of every "geochemical" substance that's ever entered our home.  All of history is recorded in the dust we create: the pollution we make, the fires we start, the chemicals we use, the volcanos that erupt. Scientists can learn about the Roman Empire through the dust that has been compressed each year for thousands of years into layers of ice sheets in Greenland.  Today, we talk about the science and politics of dust. We also talk to a cleaning expert who will take your questions about dust and an artist who makes dust bunnies--bunnies sculptures from dust. GUESTS:  Jay Owens - Geographer and research director at Pulsar Platform. She writes a newsletter about dust she calls, “Disturbances.” (@hautepop) Jolie Kerr - Cleaning expert and advice columnist for The Inventory and the host of the podcast “Ask a Clean Person.” She’s also the author of My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag...and Other Things You Can't Ask Martha. She’s the resident cleaning expert for the New York Times. (@joliekerr) Suzanne Proulx - Artist, sculpture and Assistant Professor, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.  Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scientists say humans don't know how to breathe very well. We don't breathe deep enough, we breathe too much, and we breathe through our mouths instead of our noses. Our bad breathing can lead to conditions that we don't typically associate with the way we breathe, such as asthma. We can't take all the blame. The tradeoff of humans evolving to have bigger brains hundreds of thousands of years ago, is that our brains squeezed our noses, sinuses, tongues, and jaws into smaller spaces. That's why humans are the only species of 5,400 mammals to have misaligned jaws, overbites, underbites, and crooked teeth. We inhale and exhale about 25,000 breaths per day, but we don't think about how we're breathing or how it makes us feel until COVID-19 and police brutality make it hard to breathe. We're finally paying attention. The science, art, and politics of breathing. GUESTS: James Nestor - A journalist and author; his most recent book is Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art Dahlia Lithwick - A senior editor for Slate and the host of Amicus 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.

We've done this show every year since 2013. We almost certainly didn't do it 2012. But we did in 2011. And there's good circumstantial evidence that we did it in 2010 too, but no actual record of that possibly inaugural episode survives. Point is: Our song of the summer show is a bit of a tradition. It's a tradition that... makes some people angry, we realize. It's a tradition that we're not sure has ever made anyone happy. And that all has to do with how we define the term. We use the Amanda Dobbins definition: Let's be clear about how this works: There is no such thing as a 'personal' song of summer. We do not anoint multiple songs of summer. There can only be one; the Song of Summer, by its very definition, is a consensus choice. It is the song that wrecks wedding dance floors. It is the song that you and your mother begrudgingly agree on (even though your mom has no idea what rhymes with 'hug me' and won't stop yelling it in public). It does not necessarily have to hit No. 1 on the charts, but it should probably be on the charts because it must be widely played. It must bring people together. It must be a shared enthusiasm. And so, our job here is to try to predict a thing that you and your mom will agree on like three months from now. Try not to get too annoyed with us. GUESTS: Abby Govindan - A standup comedian based in New York City Sam Hadelman - Host of The Sam Hadelman Show at Radio Free Brooklyn Brendan Jay Sullivan - A writer, producer, and DJ best known for his work with Lady Gaga 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.

Social structures, in almost all cases, are defined by some form of hierarchy. Whether in academics, sports, religion, business, or politics, there's usually someone at the top and others whose goal it is to get there. But while it's easy to think that we've designed our world to be this way, the truth may be that we had no choice. Among our primate ancestors and other social animals  we can see similar hierarchies in place: Alpha males dominating the troop while subordinates fall in line, pecking orders among various birds and dominance hierarchies among wolf packs. Even insects such as bees and termites form their own systems of social ranking.  Are hierarchies mandated by evolution? Is there something in nature -- in our genes, even -- which gives rise to the stratified society we live in? Though it sounds like a notion proposed by those with power in defense of their rank, the reality is that it may be a hard truth of human nature. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. GUESTS: Melvyn Fein - Professor of Sociology at Kennesaw State University, editor of The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology, author of Human Hierarchies: A General Theory Christopher Boehm - Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology, former Director of The Goodall Research Center at The University of Southern California Dornsife, author of Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior Steven A. Peterson - Director of the School of Public Affairs at Penn State Harrisburg, focusing on the intersection of biology and politics, co-author of Darwinism, Dominance and Democracy MUSIC: “Hierarchy” by The Noisettes “High School Hierarchy” by Alexander Tso “I’m In Charge” by Dee Jones Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No one likes a cloudy sky. A cloud on the horizon is seen as a harbinger of doom. We feel like clouds need to have silver linings. But here's our thesis: Clouds are unfairly maligned. Consider this: From almost any vantage point (literally — any vantage point in the universe), clouds are planet Earth's defining characteristic. They're what changes, what moves. They're what's going on on our pale blue dot. Clouds are, after all, the vehicle that spreads the sun's energy across the planet, an "expression of the atmosphere's moods." This hour, an appreciation of clouds. GUESTS: Gavin Pretor-Pinney - Founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society, author of The Cloudspotter's Guide and The Cloud Collector's Handbook David Romps - Assistant professor of Earth & Planetary Science at the University of California, Berkeley; runs The Romps Group, which studies clouds and climate Karolina Sobecka - An interdisciplinary artist and designer whose work has focused repeatedly on clouds Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Betsy Kaplan contributed to this show, which originally aired on July 6, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No Country for Old Men. Fargo. The Big Lebowski. Raising Arizona. Barton Fink. Miller's Crossing. Blood Simple. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Over the past 36 years, Joel and Ethan Coen have reliably been among the most recognizable voices in moviemaking. This hour: a Noseish look at the work of the Coen brothers. GUESTS: Tom Breen - Film critic and the host of WNHH radio's Deep Focus Skip Lievsay - Sound editor, mixer, and designer for film and television; he won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing for Gravity, and he's done the sound on every Coen brothers picture Adam Nayman - The author of The Coen Brothers: This Book Really Ties the Films Together Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Eugene Amatruda, and Betsy Kaplan contributed to this show, which originally aired November 21, 2018.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It took two years for the word AIDS to get from coinage to dictionary. It took COVID-19 thirty-four days. The pandemic has inspired a thousand new or repurposed words, slang, nicknames, and neologisms. It has changed the way we speak.   We made technical medical language part of everyday conversation. We created new words to describe  emotions that had no words. We repurposed old words or combined two words to express a way of life we never expected. Lockdowns. WFH. Pancession. Doomscrolling. We made phrases to unite us, others to make us laugh, and some to explain our confusion. Workers became essential and advertisers made them heroes.    Do you speak Corona? GUESTS: Peter Sokolowski is a lexicographer and editor-at-large at Merriam-Webster; he's also a musician and public radio jazz host at NEPR, and he's the author of a chapter in The Whole World in a Book (@PeterSokowski)  Tony Horne is a linguist, lexicographer, and a language consultant in the faculty of Arts and Humanities, at King’s College, London (@tonythorne007)  Justin Peters is a correspondent for Slate and the author of  The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet (@justintrevett) Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The leagues are working in earnest toward starting back up. The NBA has a plan. Major League Baseball can't seem to work one out. Major League Soccer might beat them both back onto the field. How is this all going to work? What are sports going to look like when they start playing games again? Should they start playing games again? Plus: One of the ways we've dealt with a sportsless world these last few months -- betting on esports. And, in case you didn't know there were multiple crises on at once: a look at sports in the time of protest. GUESTS: Marc Carig - Senior writer for The Athletic, where he covers Major League Baseball Ben Cohen - Sports reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the author of The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks Seth Schiesel A freelance writer for The New York Times and Protocol Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A group of health officials gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss infectious disease learn that forty-seven people at an internment camp in Indonesia have died from acute hemorrhagic fever. This is how Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, begins his new novel that in many ways, predicts the pandemic we're currently experiencing. He joins us to talk about it.  Before we get to the fiction of pandemic, we speak with an epidemiologist about the reality of our current pandemic.  GUESTS:  Michael Mina is an assistant professor of epidemiology and faculty member at the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (@michaelmina_lab) Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker. His book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2007. His most recent book is The End of October, a novel about a pandemic. (@lawrence_wright) Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've all seen any number of emails and Tweets and Facebook posts this week from companies supporting protests and the like. Entertainment industry firms have jumped on that bandwagon too, but The Washington Post's Alyssa Rosenberg has a different idea about how those particular players might be able to help: by shutting down all the police movies and TV shows. And: Comedian Sarah Cooper has found an elegant, perhaps surprisingly effective way to lampoon the president. She just lip syncs to his own words. And finally: The Vast of Night is the feature film debut of writer and director Andrew Patterson. He financed its $700,000 budget himself, and after its premiere at last year's Slamdance Film Festival, Amazon acquired it. The Twilight Zone-style sci-fi mystery debuted on Amazon Prime last weekend. Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Christo, Artist Who Wrapped and Festooned on an Epic Scale, Dies at 84Mountains, museums, bridges and Central Park were just some of what he used to make astonishing and popular art with his wife and collaborator, Jeanne-Claude. Bruce Jay Friedman, 90, Author With a Darkly Comic Worldview, DiesAn unusual case in American letters, he moved easily between literature and pop culture, including movies like "Stir Crazy" and "Splash," to great acclaim. The Remaking of Steve BuscemiSteve Buscemi has seen it all. He was hit by a car and a bus as a kid, was once stabbed in a bar fight, volunteered as a firefighter during 9/11, and somewhere along the way became one of the most accomplished film actors of his generation. And then tragedy struck: In 2019, Buscemi lost his wife of over 30 years. In a rare interview, Hollywood's most beloved misfit opens up about anxiety, loss, and the hard work of getting through it all. Why Your Local Comics Shop Matters Now More Than Ever Feeling Lucky at 90: The Clint Eastwood Passion ProjectOne of Hollywood's most enduring icons enters his 10th decade on the planet this week. After more than 50 films, 38 directed by the man himself, what's left to say about Clint Eastwood? Two fans look at old favorites and a few less heralded works to paint a picture of sustained, often unpredictable artistry. Necco Wafers make their triumphant return 2 years after the factory that made them closed its doors HBO's 'Watchmen' Was Ahead of its Time -- By 9 Months GUESTS: Mercy Quaye - Founder and principal consultant for The Narrative Project and a columnist with Hearst Connecticut Media Group Brian Slattery - Arts editor for the New Haven Independent and a producer at WNHH radio 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.