The Colin McEnroe Show

News outlets and opinion writers have called it: The traditional dinner party is dead. But are dinner parties really so bad? Or are we just bad at hosting them?

This hour, the history of dinner parties and some advice from people who turn party-hosting into an art form.

GUESTS:

• Rand Richards Cooper: Fiction writer, contributing editor at Commonweal, and the restaurant critic for the Hartford Courant

• Nandita Godbole: Author of several cookbooks including Masaleydaar: Classic Indian Spice Blends; she also writes the blog Curry Cravings

• Julia Skinner: Culinary historian and food writer whose work includes the book Our Fermented Lives

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 October 26, 2023.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you share a name with someone more famous then you? Is it impossible to look yourself up on the internet? Are you the least famous "Alexa"? Then you have a “name doppelgänger”!

This hour, we explore cases of shared names, from the many Dan Sullivans dotted across Alaska to the federal “no fly list”.

GUESTS:

• Laura Wattenberg: Naming expert, author of The Baby Name Wizard, and the creator of namerology.com.
• Matt Viser: Staff writer at The Atlantic.
• Darryl Campbell: Aviation correspondent at The Verge and author of the book “Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software”.

Music featured (in order):

• You and I – Stevie Wonder
• 27 Jennifers – Mike Doughty
• Call Me By Your Name – Sophie Castillo
• 3 Dan’s – Starboi Ebrima
• North to Alaska – Johnny Horton
• I’m Not That Guy – David Saint Val

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Painter Frederic E. Church was born in 1926 on Temple Street, Hartford. In the 200 years since then, his paintings have travelled the world and helped define American art. This hour, we'll speak with Victoria Johnson, author of a biography all about Church.

Plus, we’ll be joined by Betsy Kornhauser, former curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to explore Church’s current legacy.

GUESTS:

• Victoria Johnson is a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College and the author of “Glorious Country: How the Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America and America to the World”.

• Elizabeth Kornhauser is Senior Curator and Chair of the Frederic Church Bicentennial Committee at The Olana Partnership. She is Curator Emerita at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and former Chief Curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

Music featured (in order):

• String Quartet No. 12, “American”: IV. Finale – Antonin Dvorak, as performed by the Cleveland Quartet

• Color and Light – Sunday in the Park with George OBC

• Everytime I See River – Van Morrison

• When I Paint My Masterpiece – Emmylou Harris

• Both Sides Now – Joni Mitchell

• Painter Song – Norah Jones

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, which originally aired on June 23, 2026.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See 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 parenting, poison ivy, papal missives, lake scum, oligarchy, cerebral atrophy … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one.

Music featured (in order):

• Water – Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band

• Click Clack Symphony – RAYE, Hans Zimmer

• Dreamer’s Holiday – Champian Fulton

• Coyote Summer – Aesop Rock, Blockhead, Hanni El Khatib

• The Music Never Stopped – Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble

• Lasso the Moon – Ashe

• The Greatest Show on Earth – U2

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/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Social Reckoning is the fourth movie written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. It’s his follow-up to The Social Network, and it stars Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison, and Bill Burr, with Jeremy Strong this time playing Mark Zuckerberg.

And: War is a legal drama anthology series created by George Kay, who also created Hijack and Lupin, among other things. Its first season covers a high-stakes celebrity divorce, and it stars Dominic West, Sienna Miller, Pip Torrens, Nick Mohammed, Celia Imrie, and more.

GUESTS:

• Mercy Quaye: Founder and president of The Narrative Project
• Lindsay Lee Wallace: A writer and a noted chiropterology journalist, among other things
• Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University

Music featured (in order):

• In the Hall of the Mountain King (from The Social Network) – Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
• Why Are You on Facebook? – Van Morrison
• The Sharing Song – Jack Johnson
• oh baby (edit) – LCD Soundsystem
• The End – Nancy Sinatra
• See You On The Radio – Grayson Hugh

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we’re joined in studio by seven-time Grammy Award-winning local musician Paul Winter.

Winter is known for his annual solstice concerts and his “earth music," which features music from around the world, as well as the sounds of animals like wolves, whales, or wood thrushes.

You can find details about his Winter Solstice Celebrations around New England here.

GUEST:

• Paul Winter: Saxophonist, composer, and bandleader of the Paul Winter Consort

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, Dylan Reyes, and Isaac Moss contributed to this show, which originally aired on November 21, 2025.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may know the Schuyler sisters, Angelica and Elizabeth (and Peggy!), from Hamilton. But the musical just scratches the surface of their fascinating lives. This hour, Amanda Vaill joins us to talk about her new book, Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution.

GUEST:

• Amanda Vaill: Author, journalist and screenwriter. Her newest book is Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution

MUSIC FEATURED (in order):

• Symphonie en ré (Presto) – André-Modeste Grétry

• The Schuyler Sisters – Hamilton

• Burn – Hamilton

• Helpless – Hamilton

• Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story – Hamilton

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 and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired December 17, 2025.

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.

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Samuel Moyn joins us to talk about how older people are hoarding political power and resources, what that means for all of us, and how we could forge a new path with better representation for people of all ages.

GUESTS:

• Samuel Moyn: Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. His latest book is Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It

Music featured (in order):

• End Of The Line – The Traveling Wilburys
• Old Folks Boogie – Little Feat
• It Was a Very Good Year – Frank Sinatra
• Ballad of the Sad Young Men – Shirley Bassey
• When You Are Old – Gretchen Peters
• NEW BLOOD – ZAYDE WOLF

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See 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 oil prices, land acknowledgements, cybernetic limbs, blank checks, talking to strangers … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one.

Music featured (in order):

• Save Your Love For Me – Steven Feifke Big Band, Alita Moses
• My Life Story of Love – Steve Wonder
• Proof of Love – Lau Noah, Michael League
• Hear Me Now – Wynonna, Iron & Wine
• Champagne – Remi Wolf
• Feels Like Forever – Evangeline, Vulfmon
• TOGIAIM – Joy Oladokun

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/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, The Nose looks at two current bits of pop culture with men’s names that start with the letter T:

Tony is the fifth movie co-written and directed by Matt Johnson and the second released commercially this year. It is kind of vaguely a biopic, coming-of-age dramedy about Anthony Bourdain. It stars Dominic Sessa, Emilia Jones, Stavros Halkias, Leo Woodall, and Antonio Banderas.

And: The fourth season of Ted Lasso just ended this week. It is a reboot/refresh/restart of the Apple TV sports dramedy that originally ran for three seasons from 2020 to 2023. The Season Four premiere was the biggest launch for an Apple TV series.

GUESTS:

• Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian and writer who claims to be the rightful heir to the Murray’s Hair Pomade fortune
• Carolyn Paine: An actress and comedian; she’s the founder and director of CONNetic Dance and the creative producer and choreographer for The Bushnell’s Digital Institute
• Irene Papoulis: Taught writing for a long time at Trinity College
• Gene Seymour: A “writer, professional spectator, pop-culture maven, and jazz geek,” and he writes the That Gene Seymour Substack
• Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University

Music featured (in order):

• The Parting Glass – boygenius, Ye Vagabonds
• Magic Mountain – Eric Burton and War
• Brain – The Action
• Kansas City – The New Basement Tapes
• Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think) – The Specials
• See You On The Radio – Grayson Hugh

Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.