Should people use the Oxford comma? Is there a correct number of exclamation points per email? If someone ends a casual text with a period, does that mean they’re mad at you? This hour: punctuation and how we use it. We talk about the history of punctuation marks, timeless punctuation debates, and how writing for texts and emails has changed the way we use punctuation. GUESTS: Raquel Benedict: The most dangerous woman in speculative fiction; she’s the host of the Rite Gud podcast Claire Cock-Starkey: Author of Hyphens and Hashtags: The Stories Behind the Symbols on Our Keyboard Julia Pistell: Founding member of Sea Tea Improv and one of the hosts of the Literary Disco podcast The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired November 3, 2021.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, a look at the myth of Sisyphus, and how we invoke it today. Plus, we'll hear from a musician who has found inspiration in the story, and we'll discuss when it's time to give up. GUESTS: Joel Christensen: Professor of Classical Studies and Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at Brandeis University. His newest book is The Many-Minded Man: The Odyssey, Psychology, and the Therapy of Epic Noah Baerman: Pianist, composer, and educator. He is director of the Wesleyan University Jazz Ensemble and artistic director of the nonprofit Resonance Motion. His most recent album is Live at the Side Door Joshua Rothman: The New Yorker’s Ideas Editor, who writes the weekly column “Open Questions” Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode. Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired on November 21, 2024.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We’ve been doing these shows 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 temporary tattoos as an “I’m Spartacus” type of protest, Americans emigrating elsewhere, MobLand and Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren’s accents, why people are intimidated by classical music … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Subscribe and get notified when we go live. Or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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, Megan Fitzgerald, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Note: This episode contains strong language. Easily the hardest part of turning something like our live event celebrating the chemistry between Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick (and lyricist Hal David) into a radio show is figuring out what NOT to include. Onstage at Watkinson School in Hartford, we went nearly 80 minutes. The finished radio version runs just 50 minutes. So we thought we’d present to you here separately some of that excised half hour. This podcast extra includes four full song performances that didn’t make it into the radio show plus some odds and ends from rehearsals at soundcheck that we particularly enjoyed. GUESTS: Lou Bocciarelli: Bass Atla DeChamplain: Vocals, Atla & Matt Matt DeChamplain: Piano, Atla & Matt Latanya Farrell: Vocals Steve Metcalf: Piano Molly Sayles: Drums This show was produced, mixed, and edited by Dylan Reyes. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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 Jonathan McNicol contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With rare exceptions, The Nose doesn’t usually cover movies from the previous Oscar season once the actual Oscars have happened. But major world events are the sort of things for which one might break with tradition, and with the death of Pope Francis on April 21, we thought we might make an exception. Conclave is a 2024 political thriller melodrama based on the 2016 Robert Harris novel. It’s set at the Vatican and tells the story of the death of one pope and the election of the next. Conclave was nominated for eight Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Ralph Fiennes, and Best Supporting Actress for Isabella Rossellini. It won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. And: MobLand is a British crime drama television series. It was originally developed for Showtime as a spinoff origin story for Ray Donovan. But it eventually morphed into the standalone gangster story that has become the most-watched series launch ever for Paramount+. It stars Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Paddy Considine, and Helen Mirren. GUESTS: Taneisha Duggan: Director of arts, culture, and entertainment for the city of Hartford Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian, writer, and the host of the Nobody Asked Shawn podcast Lindsay Lee Wallace: Writes about culture, health care and health equity, and other stuff, too Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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 Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, it’s our show on the relationship and chemistry between Burt Bacharach and Dionne Warwick (and the lyricist Hal David) recorded live onstage at Watkinson School in Hartford. It’s an hour of music, conversation, and demonstrations of how GPS can help you find the way to San Jose. GUESTS: Lou Bocciarelli: Bass Atla DeChamplain: Vocals, Atla & Matt Matt DeChamplain: Piano, Atla & Matt Latanya Farrell: Vocals Steve Metcalf: Piano Molly Sayles: Drums The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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, Maegn Boone, Meg Dalton, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, Megan Fitzgerald, Dylan Reyes, and Lily Tyson contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we look at the political erasure of history, and its impacts. Plus, we talk about why artists destroy their own work or the works of others. And, the history and evolution of erasers. GUESTS: Jason Stanley: Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. His latest book is Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future Preminda Jacob: Associate Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she is also an Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies Caroline Weaver: Former shopkeeper at CW Pencil Enterprise, a pencil shop in New York City. She is founder of The Locavore Guide and author of The Pencil Perfect: The Untold Story of a Cultural Icon Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since we just spent a number of years thinking about viruses, here’s a question: Should we be pretty worried about funguses, too? This hour, a look at the real-life fungal infection of ants that inspired the video game and HBO series The Last of Us, which is now back for its second season. Plus, we talk with a local mushroom farmer and an author who writes fungal fiction and looks at the role of fungi in our world. GUESTS: William Beckerson: Post-doctoral research Fellow with the National Science Foundation Patricia Kaishian: Mycologist and visiting assistant professor of biology at Bard College Chris Pacheco: Owner of Seacoast Mushrooms in Mystic, Connecticut Jeff VanderMeer: Author of a number of books, including the Southern Reach Trilogy, which includes Annihilation; he co-founded The Sunshine State Biodiversity Group The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired February 6, 2023.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour we took your calls about anything you wanted to talk about. You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Subscribe and get notified when we go live. Or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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, Jonathan McNicol, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The movie musical died a long, slow death a long time ago. Right? Well, except that there’s Wicked. And Spielberg’s West Side Story. And Hamilton and In the Heights and Tick, Tick… Boom! And Encanto and Moana 2 and Mufasa. Oh, and Elvis and A Complete Unknown. And those are just from the last five years. And I could keep going. This hour, a long look at the long-dead movie musical. Long live the movie musical. GUESTS: Jeanine Basinger: Founder of the Department of Film Studies at Wesleyan University and the author of many books on film; her latest is Hollywood: The Oral History Steve Metcalf: Founder and director of the Garmany concert series at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, 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 March 5, 2020.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year marks 100 years since F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby was first published. And it turns out that it took a while for the novel to catch on in the United States, where it is now considered a classic. This hour, we revisit the novel and its cultural impact. GUESTS: Rob Kyff: Teacher and author of Gatsby’s Secrets. He also writes a nationally syndicated column on language Maureen Corrigan: Book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, and a Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is the author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures Sara Chase: Actress who created the role of Myrtle Wilson in the Broadway production of The Great Gatsby Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote a column proclaiming that "America Is Not Made for People Who Pee." It hit a nerve. People responded with stories that all seemed to agree with him. So, why don't we complain about locked doors, long lines (for women), or the lack of a public toilet where one should be? Lezlie Lowe might say that we don't like to talk about bodily functions that are perceived as kind of, well, gross. This hour, we talk about public toilets, including one that people like. GUESTS: Lezlie Lowe: Teaches journalism at the University of King's College and is the author of No Place To Go: How Public Toilets Fail Our Private Needs Evan Madden: Sales manager for The Portland Loo Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode. Colin McEnroe, Cat Pastor, and Lily Tyson contributed to this show, which originally aired on April 15, 2021. Our programming is made possible thanks to listeners like you. Please consider supporting this show and Connecticut Public with a donation today by visiting ctpublic.org/donate.The Colin McEnroe Show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.