There are thought to be about 17 million living flies for every human alive on Earth.

They’re predators and parasites and pests, but they’re pollinators too. They help us solve crimes, heal wounds, and understand genetics and evolution. And they literally help at least one artist paint his paintings.

Also this hour: A look at David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of, you guessed it: The Fly.

GUESTS:

• Jonathan Balcombe: Author of Super Fly: The Unexpected Lives of the World’s Most Successful Insects
• John Knuth: An artist
• Gale Ridge: Associate scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
• Jacob Trussell: Author of The Binge Watcher’s Guide to The Twilight Zone; he published the piece “Only Jeff Goldblum Could Make Us Fall in Love with ‘The Fly’” at Film School Rejects

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.

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Colin McEnroe and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired August 19, 2021.

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

This hour, the conversation winds around to CDs, records, and consuming music, Buddhist monks, our show, young listeners … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

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, Dylan Reyes, and Eugene Amatruda contributed to this show.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wikipedia has lately been under attack, accused of bias and spreading propaganda. And for years students have been told not to trust the source. But are any of those claims fair? This hour, we take a look at the free online encyclopedia, how it functions, and its role in the modern world. We'll ask: can we trust the information we find there? And we'll celebrate the joys of falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.

GUESTS:

• Stephen Harrison: Writer and tech lawyer. His new novel, The Editors, is inspired by Wikipedia

• Amy Bruckman: Regents' Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and author of Should You Believe Wikipedia?: Online Communities and the Construction of Knowledge

• Annie Rauwerda: Writer, comedian, and Wikipedia influencer, who created “Depths of Wikipedia.” She was named “Wikimedian of the year” in the media category for 2022, and is currently working on a book about Wikipedia

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 May 14, 2025.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Historian Timothy Snyder is the author of the books On Freedom and On Tyranny. This hour we listen back to the conversation we had in March about the latest in our country, and what we can learn from history.

GUEST:

• Timothy Snyder: Holds the inaugural Chair in Modern European History, supported by the Temerty Endowment for Ukrainian Studies, at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He is the author of books including On Freedom, On Tyranny, Our Malady, and more

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 on March 26, 2025.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we have every year for at least the last 12 years, to round out the year, we round up the best jazz of the year.

GUESTS:

• Jen Allen: A pianist, composer, arranger, and educator; her new album is Possibilities
• Noah Baerman: A pianist, composer, and educator; in 2025, he has released a four-volume series of albums called Right Now
• Gene Seymour: A film, television, and music critic

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/donate

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lists feel especially suited to the digital age, but humans have been creating lists for a long time.

So why are we drawn to lists?

This hour, the art and the utility of the list.

GUESTS:

• Matthew Dicks: A West Hartford elementary school teacher and the author of Twenty-One Truths About Love

• Dan Kois: Editor and writer at Slate, where he recently wrote the list “The 50 Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time”

• Ann Powers: NPR Music’s critic and correspondent

• Liam Young: Author of List Cultures: Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamia to BuzzFeed

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, Jonathan McNicol, and Cat Pastor contributed to this show, which originally aired October 4, 2022.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the night of December 4, we went to Watkinson School in Hartford, put 11 performers together on the stage there, and let them rock their way through 27 holiday- and holiday-adjacent classics.

We’re turning that two-hour performance into two radio shows over the two holiday weeks. Part onepremiered on Christmas Eve.

And this hour, live from the Foisie Family Amphitheater at Watkinson, it’s part two of our annual holiday spectacular!

GUESTS:

• Jim Chapdelaine: Guitar and vocals, The Shinolas
• Atla DeChamplain: Vocals, Atla & Matt
• Matt DeChamplain: Piano, Atla & Matt
• Lorne Entress: Drums and vocals, The Shinolas
• Latanya Farrell: Vocals
• Jim Henry: Guitar and vocals, The Shinolas
• Paul Kochanski: Bass and vocals, The Shinolas
• Steve Metcalf: Piano
• Molly Sayles: Drums, Atla & Matt
• Tyler Sherman: Bass, Atla & Matt

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, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, Megan Fitzgerald, and Lily Tyson contributed to this show.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the night of December 4, we went to Watkinson School in Hartford, put 11 performers together on the stage there, and let them rock their way through 27 holiday- and holiday-adjacent classics.

Our plan is to turn that two-hour performance into two radio shows over the two holiday weeks.

This hour, live from the Foisie Family Amphitheater at Watkinson, it’s part one of our annual holiday spectacular!

GUESTS:

• Jim Chapdelaine: Guitar and vocals, The Shinolas
• Atla DeChamplain: Vocals, Atla & Matt
• Matt DeChamplain: Piano, Atla & Matt
• Lorne Entress: Drums and vocals, The Shinolas
• Latanya Farrell: Vocals
• Jim Henry: Guitar and vocals, The Shinolas
• Paul Kochanski: Bass and vocals, The Shinolas
• Steve Metcalf: Piano
• Molly Sayles: Drums, Atla & Matt
• Tyler Sherman: Bass, Atla & Matt
• Cynthia Wolcott: Vocals

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, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, Megan Fitzgerald, and Lily Tyson contributed to this show.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.