The Colin McEnroe Show

Until theatrical autobiographical monologue develops a large roster of superstars, everybody will be compared to Spalding Gray, whether or not that makes sense on a case-by-case basis.

The monologue is, I suppose, as old as human speech, but Gray refined it and married it to performance art around 1980.

Twenty or 30 years ago there was a Doonesbury strip featuring the president of Walden College and a rich uncle pennybags donor who wanted to give the college a new gym or fieldhouse. And the president tried, gently and awkwardly, to nudge the rich man toward the idea of a new African American Studies Center which the college actually needed. The last frame was the rich guy in full tantrum mode, fists clenched, screaming "I WANNA DONATE A GYM!"

You could argue that one of the big breaks in the history of knowledge is happening right now, as we move from being storers of knowledge to being adept searchers for what is stored.

There's a basic shift in the notion of what education is. Most of us moved through an education pipeline in which existed some vague notion that you were better off loading a lot of stuff into your head. It would help you think. It would give you points of reference. You should know a lot of things.

I heard two New York congressmen on NPR this morning talking about last night's co-called Date Night in which Republicans and Democrats had to find people from the opposite party to sit with.

Steve Rushin is fearful of robots. First they replaced his father's pin-setting job. Now they're coming for him.

Finally, Colin and David Edelstein agree on something - Winter's Bone for Best Picture!

America's Greatest Living Film Critic knows his movies. We talked with him about the surprises in the 2010 Oscar nominations and which awards he thinks are a lock. 

Edelstein also dropped some references to a few really interesting movies, a few of which you can find on the sidebar.

The Hartford Symphony Orchestra has named Carolyn Kuan its new music director.

Kuan visited our studios last year when she was touring Hartford as a candidate. She's the 10th music director for the HSO and the first woman to hold the position.

She sat down with us again to talk about her vision for the HSO's future. Kuan gave her thoughts on music, Mozart, symphonic performance and how she plans to make the HSO more accessible to patrons increasingly distracted by digital white noise.

I grew up in an environment where it was difficult for me to be a snob even if I wanted to.

The Town of Enfield seems intent on teaching a living class in First Amendment issues.

Last spring the town wound up in federal court over its plan to hold graduation exercises in a mega-church.

Now Enfield is back in the headlines after the town council majority threatened the town library director with defunding if he went forward with a scheduled showing of the Michael Moore movie "Sicko."

We planning our shows and then having to adjust them based on sudden political developments. Today, however, our planned show is about narcissism, and it's pretty easy to incorporate politics into that.

While he was working on a book called "The Narcisism Epidemic," researcher Keith Campbell, one our guests today, started getting calls from friends and relatives who had, essentially, new narcissist  sightings.

My favorite was an SUV, parked in a no parking zone, facing the wrong way, blocking a stop sign, and wearing a bumper sticker that said "I heart Me."

Tony Bagels and Vinnie Carwash.

Why is Enfield constantly the battleground for First Amendment issues? (Remember this was the town that gave us the graduation-in-a-church case.)

This weekend, anybody famous who isn't on the Mall with John Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be in Connecticut instead. Or maybe both places at once. Glenn Beck will be in West Hartford. Barack Obama will go through Bridgeport. And Bill Clinton will visit the University of Hartford.