As I type this, four states remain uncalled, including two battlegrounds. It could take days or longer to determine the final popular vote tally. Control of the U.S. House of Representatives is still to be determined.

But that’s nothing like the uncertainty we were expecting to reign over the day and days after Election Day.

Put another way: Donald Trump is projected to have won the presidency. And pretty decisively.

In some ways, we’ve been here before.

In other ways, though, things seem pretty significantly different this time around. Just as an example, Connecticut seems to have swung toward Trump by 10 points or more as compared to 2020.

This hour, we start to pick up the pieces after a long and consistently, persistently surprising election that has come to its inevitable end.

GUESTS:

• Bill Curry: Playing the part of Bill Curry
• David Folkenflik: NPR’s media correspondent
• Azar Nafisi: The author of six books, including Reading Lolita in Tehran; her newest is Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times

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 Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Election Day we do a show where we ask people across Connecticut to do a simple thing: Go vote in your town before 1 p.m. Then call us between 1 and 2 p.m. and tell us how it felt, what you saw, whom you spoke to. Say whatever you want to say about the experience of voting.

This hour we hear from Citizen Observers about their experiences at the polls.

GUESTS: 

• Lara Herscovitch: Singer-songwriter-poet, performer, advocate, former CT State Troubadour, and children’s book author
• Logan Tomlinson: Student at the University of New Hampshire
• Kate Rushin: Poet, writer, and educator
• Francesca Fontanez: Associate Social Media Editor here at Connecticut Public
• Charles Barber: Nonfiction author and writer in residence at Wesleyan University
• Betsy Kaplan: Senior Producer emeritus of The Colin McEnroe Show
• Dr. Ulysses Wu: System director of infectious diseases and chief epidemiologist at Hartford HealthCare
• George Noujaim: Owner of Noujaim’s Bistro in Winsted
• Terry Cowgill: Was an op-columnist at CTNewsJunkie for 12 years who now has a Substack "Red Meat For Mushy Moderates"
• Susan Clinard: Owner of Clinard Sculpture Studio in West Haven

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour we took your calls about anything you wanted to talk about.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Four days left. Four (4!) days until Election Day. We’re feeling the stress, the anxiety. And we’re guessing you are too.

In one of our show meetings, we got to talking about the benefits of, uh, smoothing out your brain a bit in times like these.

So this hour, we gather a number of folks you know from The Nose and talk about ways to quiet your mind over these last few days, bits of culture you can consume — from The Great British Bake Off to Love Is Blind, from horror movies to Jane Austen to giving fantasy football a try — to get your brain a break over the weekend.

For the full list of shows and movies and books and everything else recommended in this show and in the prep leading up to it — it’s a long list! — subscribe to The Noseletter before November 2.

GUESTS:

• Jim Chapdelaine: An Emmy-winning musician and a patient advocate for people with rare cancers
• Taneisha Duggan: Associate producer at Octopus Theatricals
• Sam Hadelman: Works in music public relations and hosts The Sam Hadelman Show at Radio Free Brooklyn
• Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian and writer and the host of the Nobody Asked Shawn podcast
• Carolyn Paine: An actress, comedian, and dancer; she is founder, director, and choreographer of CONNetic Dance
• Lindsay Lee Wallace: Writes about culture, health care and health equity, and other stuff, too
• Tracy Wu Fastenberg: Development officer at Connecticut Children’s
• Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University

The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, SpotifyAmazon 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.

This hour we talk with experts in ballot design about how to put together a ballot that's accessible to everyone, and all of the things to keep in mind, from font size to the length of candidate's names. Plus, a look at the evolution of ballots throughout history.

GUESTS: 

• Whitney Quesenbery: Executive Director of the Center for Civic Design
• Alicia Cheng: Head of Design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and author of This is What Democracy Looked Like: A Visual History of the Printed Ballot

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This hour, we look at how political campaigns use music, from the history of political jingles to how Harris and Trump are using music in the 2024 election.

GUESTS:

• Dana Gorzelany-Mostak: Associate professor of music at Georgia College; she is the founder of Trax on the Trail and the author of Tracks on the Trail: Popular Music, Race, and the US Presidency
• Charlie Harding: Music journalist, songwriter, producer, adjunct professor of music at New York University, and the co-creator and co-host of the Switched on Pop podcast
• Eric Kasper: Professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the author of Don’t Stop Thinking About the Music: The Politics of Songs and Musicians in Presidential Campaigns
• Justin Patch: Associate professor and chair of music at Vassar College and the author of The Art of Populism in US Politics: Pro-Trump DIY Popular Culture

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, Eugene Amatruda, and Jonathan McNicol contributed to this show, which originally aired August 22, 2024.

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Food is an important part of the campaign trail, from tamales to McDonald's. This hour is all about how food is used in politics, including in the White House. Plus, the delicious return of the election cake.

GUESTS: 

• Alex Prud'homme: Journalist and author of several books, including Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House. He also co-wrote My Life In France with Julia Child
• Linda Civitello: Food historian and author of books including Baking Powder Wars and Cuisine and Culture

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 election stress, acclimating ourselves to the cold winter, the difference between comedy and journalism, Declan the Dog, Colin’s use of the phrase “and stuff like that” … Anything. (Seemingly) everything.

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

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton follow-up is here, and it’s a concept album — a musical adaptation, written with Eisa Davis, of the 1979 film The Warriors and the novel that preceded it.

This hour, a look at Warriors, the album, and The Warriors, the movie, and more.

GUESTS:

• Walter Chaw: A writer, editor, and instructor and the author of A Walter Hill Film
• Sam Hadelman: Works in music public relations and hosts The Sam Hadelman Show at Radio Free Brooklyn
• Craig Jenkins: A critic for Vulture and New York Magazine who writes about music and television and comedy and video games
• Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University

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

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It’s our annual Halloween special, a look at the year in horror!

We delve into the economic- and artistic wherewithal of the genre surrounded by a larger Hollywood in flux, with particular looks at breakouts like Osgood Perkins’ Longlegs, Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow, Damien Leone’s Terrifier 3, and maybe the most divisive movie of the year, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance.

Plus, for its 25th anniversary, an appreciation of The Sixth Sense and the long shadow its twist ending still seems to cast over the career of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.

GUESTS:

• Miriam Balanescu: A culture writer and editor
• Tim Grierson: Senior U.S. critic for Screen Daily, the author of This Is How You Make a Movie, and co-host of the Grierson & Leitch podcast
• Lindsay Lee Wallace: Writes about culture, health care and health equity, and other stuff, too
• Christian Zilko: Staff editor at IndieWire

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.