If you ask an AI chatbot what its favorite color is, chances are it’ll say blue. What’s going on? This hour, we look at why so many people love the color blue, and what blue means in art and culture and our lexicon. Plus: Why are Democrats blue and Republicans red? And, the universe is getting less blue? GUESTS: Kory Stamper: Lexicographer, and author of True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color–from Azure to Zinc Pink Kushin Mukherjee: Postdoctoral scholar in the Cognitive Tools Lab at Stanford University Einav Rabinovitch-Fox: Historian, Visiting Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University, and Managing Editor at the Cleveland Museum of Art Ivan Baldry: Professor of Astrophysics at Liverpool John Moores University Music featured (in order): Blue (Da Ba Dee) – Eiffel 65 Am I Blue – Dinah Washington Blue – Joni Mitchell Blue Skies – Eva Cassidy Blue Money – Van Morrison I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues – Alessia Cara Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In April, 2010, we did a segment on the concept of the mesofact, a certain kind of data point that feels fixed even though it’s actually always slowly changing. And we’ve gone back to the idea every now and again ever since. This hour, a look at three things about the world that changed pretty dramatically while you were thinking about other stuff. Hey, did you know there’s a fifth ocean now? Hey, did you know that you can put hot food right into your fridge now? Hey, did you know that goldfish are actually pretty smart? Those kinds of things. GUESTS: Andrea Barnes: A writer at Wirecutter covering large cleaning appliances and laundry Liam McCabe: A writer at Wirecutter covering home improvement Cait Newport: An associate professor at the University of Oxford, where she leads the Animal Perception and Cognition Group Alex Tait: The Geographer at the National Geographic Society Music featured (in order): Things Change – Venus It Ain’t Necessarily So – Jaimee Paul Rock the Boat – Hues Corporation Washing Dishes – G. Love and Special Sauce Money for Nothing – Dire Straits Goldfish – Fionn Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A study shows that AI chatbots often engage in sycophantic behavior. Just like some humans. This hour, we take a look at sycophants in literature and in politics. And we talk about sycophancy and artificial intelligence. GUESTS: Mark Parker: Professor Emeritus of English at James Madison University and co-author of Sucking Up: A Brief Consideration of Sycophancy Virginia Heffernan: Writes a regular column for The New Republic and the Substack “Magic + Loss.” She is co-host of the podcast “Omnishambles” Malihe Alikhani: Assistant Professor at Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences, and a resident Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution with a focus on AI policy Music featured (in order): Overture to Rigoletto – Giuseppi Verdi, Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmoniker I Believe in You – Peggy Lee Don’t Cry – Seal You Fascinate Me So – Mabel Mercer What You Want To Hear – Sub-Radio Flattery – Rosemary Clooney, Jose Ferrer 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 April 8, 2026.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 — calls about grammar, gardening, long-distance dialing, autotune. Anything. Everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we’re doing another one. In other words: Give us a call during the 1 p.m. EDT hour about whatever you want to talk about. 888-720-9677.‌ Music featured (in order): Light the Way – Leon Bridges 47th Street – Lalah Hathaway, J. Ivy Twiggy – Remi Wolf Sweet Surrender – Halie Loren Inspira – Lauren Henderson, Sullivan Fortner Back in Love – Suki Waterhouse Reminder – Margaret Glaspy Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Furious is a Hulu Original crime drama-thriller series created by Elizabeth Meriwether, who also created New Girl and The Dropout and other things. It is inspired by the 1987 thriller Black Widow, which is also about a female serial killer and the female cop (a DOJ data analyst in 1987 and a new FBI agent here) who’s trying to catch her. Furious stars Emmy Rossum, Lola Petticrew, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, and more. And then: Last weekend was the highest-grossing weekend in the history of the domestic box office. That weekend was led by Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which had the biggest domestic opening ever, and by The Odyssey, which is a three-hour adaptation of Homer that gets closer to $1 billion every day. Also this year, two small horror movies, Obsession and Backrooms, have made more than $390 million each. And the new Toy Story and the new Mario movie and the Michael Jackson biopic have all made $1 billion each. Which is to say: People are going back to the movies! Which is great! Mostly. Right? GUESTS: Irene Papoulis: Taught writing for a long time at Trinity College Lindsay Lee Wallace: A writer and journalist whose latest work includes the cover stories for the four most recent issues of Bat Conservation International’s Bats magazine Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University Music featured (in order): Wonderful Illusions – Eartha Kitt Have You Seen Her – The Chi-Lites That's Why God Made the Movies – Paul Simon Dinner and a Movie – Phish See You On The Radio – Grayson Hugh Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What can you say about the sun? It sits at the center of our solar system and has, over time, been at the center of religions, scriptures, songs, art, and countless other aspects of our culture. We’ve relied on its light, heat, and gravity for as long as we’ve been around, and we continue to find ways to harness its energy for our daily needs. This hour, we look at the place our sun holds kind of literally at the center of all of human history and ask what the future holds for our nearest star. GUESTS: Christina Agapakis: Creative director at Ginko Bioworks Sarbani Basu: William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Astronomy at Yale University John Grim: Senior lecturer and research scholar teaching in the joint MA program in religion and ecology at Yale University School of the Environment and Yale Divinity School John Perlin: Physicist at UCLA Santa Barbara and the author of Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy 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, Greg Hill, Betsy Kaplan, Jonathan McNicol, and Chion Wolf contributed to this show, which originally aired August 11, 2016.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it mean for a work to be incomplete? This hour, we look at a wide span of unfinished projects, from posthumous novels to highways to nowhere. Guests: Alex Belth is the editor of Esquire Classic and author of the substack “Dig This with Alex Belth” Jacob Proctor is the Gilbert and Ann Kinney New York Collector at the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art and the curator of “Best Laid Plans: Unrealized Projects from the Archives of American Art” Ian Coss is the host of “The Big Dig” podcast from GBH News Music featured (in order): Our Prayer – The Beach Boys Unfinished House – Cautious Clay I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – The Beatles Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell The End Has No End – The Strokes Tea for Two – Tea for Two (1950) OST Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Anthony Fauci recently invoked the Fifth Amendment in a Senate Hearing. This hour: we take a look at our Constitution's Fifth Amendment to learn why it exists and what it means for all of us. GUESTS: Akhil Reed Amar: Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. His latest book is: Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840–1920, which was a winner of the annual Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Prize James Duane: Teaches at Regent Law School. He is the author of You Have the Right to Remain Innocent: What Police Officers Tell Their Children about the Fifth Amendment. His YouTube video “Don't Talk to the Police” has over 21 million views Clay Risen: Reporter and editor at The New York Times, and the author of Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America Music featured (in order): A Fifth of Beethoven – Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band Take the Fifth – Spoon When You Say Nothing At All – Alison Krauss Take the Fifth Amendment – Joe Tex Lawyers, Guns and Money – Warren Zevon Exhuming McCarthy – R.E.M. 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 Todd Blanche, Open AI’s Hugging Face hack, the Iran war, hopium, Connecticut’s highways at night, POSSLQs … 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): ÉPiPHANiE – DOMi & JD BECK Do You Want This – Cosmo’s Midnight, Vancouver Sleep Clinic Anything Could Happen – Laila! I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) – Meshell Ngegeocello, Cynthia Erivo Fire on the Water – Bonobo, Arooj Aftab I’m Just An Old Chunk of Coal – Paul Carrack 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, Robyn Doyon-Aitken, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the 38th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is the 15th movie in the Multiverse Saga and the second movie in the MCU’s Phase Six. I didn’t really follow most of that, but this next bit will be a little clearer, I think: Brand New Day is the 11th theatrically-released feature-length Spider-Man movie, and it’s the eighth movie to feature Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. In any case, between this and The Odyssey, people are going back to the movies. So that’s good. And: A new study has found that people were speaking about 28% fewer words per day in 2019 than they were in 2005. And that was before COVID! So what are we losing if we aren’t using our speaking voices as much anymore? GUESTS: Sam Hadelman: Director of public relations at Dark Matter Media Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian, writer, and the host of the Fantasy Filmball podcast 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 Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University Music featured (in order): oh yeah? – Steve Lacy Wolf Like Me – TV on the Radio Your Most Valuable Possession / Regrets – Ben Folds Five Talk It Over – Grayson Hugh See You On The Radio – Grayson Hugh Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.