The Colin McEnroe Show

Romance novels have long had a reputation for being flimsy, sexist, trashy bodice-rippers. But there’s lots more to the genre than meets the eye. This hour, we look at what makes romance novels work – and why so many of us are devouring them. GUESTS:  Olivia Waite: The New York Times Book Review’s romance fiction columnist who writes queer and historical romance, fantasy, and critical essays on the genre’s history and future Jason Rogers: Olympic medalist, journalist covering masculinity, and the founder of a now-defunct romance book club for men Tony Horvath: Creative director for the long-time romance-novel publisher Harlequin, where he oversees production of about 80 book covers a month Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour: invisibility. We learn about the science of invisibility and whether we’re getting close to having the technology to turn invisible. We also talk about invisibility in pop culture and science fiction and debate questions we all have about what would happen if someone could turn invisible. GUESTS:  Gregory Gbur: Author of Invisibility: The History and Science of How Not To Be Seen, and a Professor of Physics and Optical Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte Lisa Yaszek: Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech Sophia Brueckner: Futurist artist, designer and engineer, Associate Professor at the School of Art and Design, and Co-Director of the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing at the University of Michigan Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode!Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, an invention that transformed care for traumatic injuries. Charles Barber’s new book, In The Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took on the US Army, details how Frank Hursey discovered that a mineral called zeolite could help stop excessive bleeding, and the challenge he and his partner, Bart Gullong, faced in getting the invention to take hold in trauma care. GUESTS:  Charles Barber: Nonfiction author, Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University, and Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. His new book is In The Blood: How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took on the US Army  Bart Gullong: Co-founder and former CEO of Z-Medica, who worked to get QuickClot widely adopted Frank Hursey: Founder of On-Site Gas, Co-Founder of Z-Medica, and the inventor of QuickClot Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Colin McEnroe and Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For this week’s Nose, the straightness is the difficulty of the lack of a bend. Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against the Andy Warhol Foundation, saying that Warhol could not use a photographer’s portrait of Prince as the basis of his own image of Prince. In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan writes that the ruling, “will impede new art and music and literature. It will thwart the expression of new ideas and the attainment of new knowledge. It will make our world poorer.” And: Jury Duty is “a documentary-style comedy series that chronicles the inner workings of an American jury trial through the eyes of one particular juror.” The catch is that that one particular juror doesn’t know that everyone else involved is an actor, and the whole trial is fake. Eight half-hour (!) episodes of Jury Dutyare available to stream on Amazon FreeVee. Carolyn Paine’s endorsement: The Comeback on Max Mercy Quaye’s endorsement: When the Heavens Went on Sale: Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach by Ashlee Vance Bill Yousman’s endorsements: The Guest by Emma Cline Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane Colin’s endorsement: Tina Turner Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Tina Turner, Queen of Rock & Roll, Dead at 83 Legendary singer “died peacefully” Wednesday after a long illness Helmut Berger, Actor Known for His Work With Visconti, Dies at 78 He first made his mark in “The Damned” as a character one critic said personified “the outright perversion” of Nazism. He and the director became lovers. I swear, our profane society is a disgrace ‘Caligula’ Director Tinto Brass Slams ‘Caligula – The Ultimate Cut’ Screening in Cannes, Says He Is Taking Legal Action Against Penthouse Films The looming existential crisis for cable news The number of cable subscribers, dropping for years, just took a record-breaking plunge. Sooner or later, it will hurt news channels’ bottom line. Is E.T. Eavesdropping on Our Phone Calls? Cell phone towers leak radio waves into space, but they’ll be tough for aliens to detect The First Social-Media Babies Are Growing Up—And They’re Horrified How would you feel if millions of people watched your childhood tantrums? Natalie Portman Called Out The Double Standards Women Face At Cannes A Day Before Jennifer Lawrence Was Critiqued For Wearing Flip Flops On The Red Carpet Instead Of Heels “The expectations are different on you all the time, and it affects how you behave — whether you’re buying into it, whether you’re rejecting it, or whether you’re doing something in between.” How Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer Recreated A Nuclear Explosion Without Using CGI How to Quit Cars They crowd streets, belch carbon, bifurcate communities, and destroy the urban fabric. Will we ever overcome our addiction? Surgeon General Warns That Social Media May Harm Children and Adolescents The report by Dr. Vivek Murthy cited a “profound risk of harm” to adolescent mental health and urged families to set limits and governments to set tougher standards for use. Max Announces an Expanded Roster of 4K Programming Available To Stream on Its Ultimate Ad-Free Tier on May 23 Netflix begins its password sharing crackdown in the US and global markets BuzzFeed cooks up new AI-powered recipe generator, Botatouille Artificial ‘culinary companion’ will suggest meals based on what you have in your refrigerator and has a chatbot feature Against the Cult of “Sticking the Landing” The ‘Succession’ finale may be great—or it may be deflating. But it likely doesn’t matter either way. A TV show is mostly remembered for what happens before the finale, not during it. Barbiemania! Margot Robbie Opens Up About the Movie Everyone’s Waiting For Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet Puriteens, anti-fans, and the culture war’s most bonkers battleground. Where have all the Disney villains gone? The live-action Little Mermaid is a reminder of what movies like Encanto and Frozen II don’t have: a bad guy. GUESTS: Carolyn Paine: An actress, comedian, and dancer, and she is founder, director, and choreographer of CONNetic Dance Mercy Quaye: Founder and principal consultant for The Narrative Project Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s currently a debate in America about what students should be learning about U.S. history. Some say we don’t revere American exceptionalism enough. Others say we're giving ourselves an A+ by excluding the tests we failed. Humorist Alexandra Petri says both sides are wrong. We just don’t know enough about the things we need to know, such as how inventor Nikola Tesla fell in love with his pigeon or about the secret tapes of Nixon yelling at his dog Checkers. This hour, an irreverent look at how we teach, learn and remember U.S. history. GUESTS:  Alexandra Petri is a humorist, a columnist for the Washington Post and the author of Nothing Is Wrong and Here is Why, which was a Thurber Prize finalist. Her new book is Alexandra Petri’s US History: Important American Documents Mike Pesca is host of the podcast The Gist, author of the Substack column Pesca Profundities, and the editor of Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs In Sports History Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Cat Pastor, Lily Tyson, and Jonathan McNicol contributed to this show.  The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The writer and public intellectual Martin Amis died May 19. He was 73. Amis broke into the literary scene in the 1970s, and by the time his London trilogy — Money, London Fields, and The Information — came out in the 1980s and 1990s, people had started to think of him as “the author” and “the standard for authorhood.” This hour, an appreciation of Martin Amis and a look back at his 2018 appearance on this show. GUESTS: Martin Amis: The author of 15 novels, two short story collections, a memoir, and seven books of nonfiction Dan Kois: An editor and writer at Slate and cohost of the podcast The Martin Chronicles; his most recent book is the novel Vintage Contemporaries The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe, Cat Pastor, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, parts of which originally aired in a different form March 8, 2018.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In record producer and neuroscientist Susan Rogers’s This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You, she writes, “The music that delivers the maximum gratification to you is determined by seven influential dimensions of musical listening.” Those seven dimensions are authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre. This hour, we talk with Rogers about some of those seven dimensions, the role of the listener in music, and why we are drawn to some songs and not others. GUEST: Susan Rogers: Multi-platinum record producer, cognitive neuroscientist, and co-author of This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired October 15, 2022.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows a couple times a month where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to a bit of trivia about the John Wayne version of True Grit, paupers and banking in the 1840s, the draft, job descriptions for politicians, prejudices against classic rock … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week’s Nose got a couple other cans, ya know, and came back and switched the labels and the cans around. The Long Goodbye is a satirical neo-noir mystery feature film adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel. It is the eighth feature directed by Robert Altman and the second-to-last screenplay by the science fiction writer Leigh Brackett (who also wrote The Empire Strikes Back and the 1946 version of The Big Sleep, among others). It stars Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe in 1970s Los Angeles. This year is The Long Goodbye’s 50th anniversary. Plus: A look at the value and the art of rewatching and rewatchability. Raquel Benedict’s endorsements: Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum Nocebo on Shudder Helder Mira’s endorsements: Hawkeye by Fraction and Aja Jury Duty on Freevee Documentary Now! Season 4 on Netflix Gene Seymour’s endorsements: Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse by Ahmad Jamal Ain’t But a Few of Us: Black Music Writers Tell Their Story edited by Willard Jenkins Colin’s endorsement: The Battered Bastards of Baseball on Netflix Some other stuff that happened this week, give or take: Doyle Brunson, the ‘Godfather of Poker,’ has died at 89 End of a love affair: AM radio is being removed from many cars Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, Tesla and other automakers are eliminating AM radio from some new vehicles, stirring protests against the loss of a medium that has shaped American life for a century Tony Awards Broadcast Can Proceed After Striking Writers’ Union Agrees The Tony Awards, a key marketing opportunity for Broadway, can go ahead in an altered form after the striking screenwriters’ union said it would not picket this year’s broadcast. TV Isn’t About to Get Worse. It Already Is. The problems that Hollywood’s writers are protesting can be seen on our screens. YouTube Bringing Unskippable 30-Second Ads To The Living Room Supreme Court Rules Against Andy Warhol in Copyright Case The question for the justices was whether the artist was free to use elements of a rock photographer’s portrait of the musician Prince. ESPN Plans to Stream Flagship Channel, Eyeing Cable TV’s Demise Internal project code-named ‘Flagship’ lays out shift in coming years, as talks with leagues and cable partners have begun At 81, Martha Stewart lands ‘historic’ Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover “The whole aging thing is so boring," Stewart proclaimed. Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Released A Statement After Escaping A “Near Catastrophic Car Chase” With Paparazzi “This relentless pursuit, lasting over two hours, resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road, pedestrians, and two NYPD officers." Montana becomes first US state to ban TikTok Greg Gianforte, the governor, signed legislation prohibiting mobile app stores from offering the video-sharing platform by next year Disney’s Expensive ‘Star Wars’ Galactic Starcruiser Hotel to Close After Less Than Two Years The immersive and pricy hotel in Florida is being sent to a galaxy far, far away. Limiting what novelists can write about won’t help readers An influencer’s AI clone will be your girlfriend for $1 a minute CarynAI is the first AI companion product from a new startup called Forever Voices, allowing users to chat with a digital version of the fastest growing Snapchat star Arnold Schwarzenegger Gets Candid on Career, Failures, Aging: “My Plan Is to Live Forever” The action icon — set to make his series TV debut in Netflix’s ‘FUBAR’ — sounds off on his ‘Terminator’ and ‘Conan’ futures, identity politics and why emotions are overrated: “We have to work our ass off and stop worrying about feelings.” The Dave Matthews Guide to Living and Dying The troubadour of mellow vibes has been one of the biggest acts in music for three decades. Now 56, Matthews has been singing about mortality for a long time, and he’s confronting its specter in new and surprising ways. A Few Thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s Plan to Retire The director has said that his tenth film will be his last. What does this mean for his cinematic legacy? The 23 Best ’90s Movies Once is enough: 18 movies you’ll never want to rewatch They may be beautifully shot, brilliantly acted, thought-provoking films, but you’re not going to reach for them again on movie night How to Spin Bad News, Featuring Jonathan Majors and Johnny Depp This Viral Debate Over Young Al Pacino And Robert De Niro’s Hotness Has Caused Me To Rethink Everything If you’re on Twitter, you may have seen it; if you’re not, prepare for the most important debate of your life. GUESTS: Raquel Benedict: The most dangerous woman in speculative fiction and the host of the Rite Gud podcast Helder Mira: Multimedia producer at Trinity College and co-host of the So Pretentious podcast Gene Seymour: A “writer, professional spectator, pop-culture maven, and jazz geek” The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. 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.

At the beginning of the year, the company behind the public effort to de-extinct the wooly mammoth announced it will also be de-extincting the dodo. The announcement stirred up a lot of excitement and questions about whether we can – or should – bring back species once they’re gone. So this hour we're talking about de-extinction! We’ll hear about what it takes to bring back extinct animals, efforts to build a safety net for plants that might go extinct in the future, and walk through some fun de-extinction thought experiments. GUESTS: Helen Pilcher: a science and comedy writer with a PhD in cell biology who wrote Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-extinction Ben Lamm: CEO of the de-extinction company Colossal, which he co-founded with George Church. Carlos de la Rosa: President and CEO of the Center for Plant Conservation Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.