Ahoy, ahoy!

This week’s Noseletter will, as usual, be a little of this and a little of that.

What a difference a day makes.

We recorded an episode about divas on Tuesday. We started with opera divas and moved out from there into the current “diva moment” when Taylor, Beyoncé, Dolly, Cher, Britney, Madonna, and Barbra are in the spotlight. (Also Lizzo, but for less desirable reasons.) (For most pop culture divas, one name is sufficient.) (Is Barbie a diva? No. Barbie is an icon, like Jackie and Di.)

By the time the episode hit the airwaves, Tay-Tay had been named Time’s Person of the Year, which would have been a nice cherry on top of our diva sundae.

Actually, Time would have done well to make “The Diva” their POTY.

The OMSOTCMS.

Illeana Douglas was not the POTY but she if the Official Movie Star of The Colin McEnroe Show. It’s not clear to me who else would have been in the running, but we’re very happy with our choice. Illeana and I are pictured here at The Kate in Old Saybrook, kicking off her bicoastal promotional tour for Connecticut in the Movies: From Dream Houses to Dark Suburbia. I suppose I’m prejudiced, but, factoring for that, I think this is a great book and one that would make many a holiday gift recipient happy.

Illeana appeared on our show for the first time in 2016. We got along great, and she’s made multiple appearances since then. It occurred to me at The Kate that we had not actually seen each other in person in seven years.

Post Naughty Week Letdown.

We had a lot of fun (and got very tired) producing Astronaughty Week, a string of five shows dealing mostly with scenarios about extraterrestrial life.

The spokesmodel for the series was Declan the Dog, pictured here. One social media friend interpreted this picture as implying that Declan’s butt is a toxic zone.

That might be kind of a HIPAA issue, but I will say that Declan is extremely naughty. In the time it took to write this, he chased a coyote across a series of neighborhood backyards before giving up.

An Actual Award.

We were proud to be part of Connecticut Public’s winning of a national Edward R. Murrow Award a couple months ago.

The entry covered many aspects of CT Public’s coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shootings. The end of the entry was a wrenching conversation between me and Scarlett Lewis, mother of the remarkable boy Jesse.

If I may be serious here, I struggle a bit with the question of who won this award. Yes, we made a plan and set up the interview. But it’s really Scarlett who paints the picture of mystery and grief. It’s her courage and honesty that people react to.

Thank you, Scarlett. Thank you, Jesse, for the story you left behind.

Number of times The Nose has covered this year’s Time Person of the Year, Taylor Swift: ≥6 (seems low, to be honest)

Number of times this very Noseletter mentions this year’s Time Person of the Year, Taylor Swift: 6

Number of footnotes in this very Noseletter: 0 (just the third time that’s ever happened)

And finally and for the last time … number of days without an astronaut appearing on the show: 9 (!)

This week, Taylor Swift was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Next week, her record-setting concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, comes to streaming rental. The Nose covered The Eras Tour in October.

On Wednesday, the National Board of Review named Martin Scorsese’s 206-minute epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, the best film of 2023. On Tuesday, Killers of the Flower Moon hit streaming rental. The Nose covered it in November.

And: Are you going out to catch Die Hard this week in its 35th anniversary theatrical re-release? We talked to Slate’s Stephen Metcalf and NPR’s Bob Mondello about Die Hard as part of a show about big, dumb action movies (not that Die Hard is a big, dumb action movie, necessarily) back in 2017.

Saturday at noon: What is a diva? And how has the term evolved? This hour: divas, from opera divas to the top of the pop charts.

Monday at 1 pm and 9 pm: How do the kitchen tools we own vary by demographics? This hour, we talk with a data journalist who answered that question. And, a look at the history and evolution of kitchen tools and gadgets. Finally, a cooking expert tells us what tools are actually helpful.

Tuesday at 1 pm and 9 pm: What does it mean to treat something as sacred? This hour, we look at the idea of sacredness — in both religious and secular spaces — and ask how we can identify and make places for the sacred in our everyday lives, through reading, music, and even baseball.

Wednesday at 1 pm and 9 pm: Amanda Mull writes The Atlantic’s Material World column, about American consumerism. This hour, we talk with Mull about the state of online shopping and returns, the changing quality of what we buy, and the experience of shopping in person.

Thursday at 1 pm and 9 pm: A listener told us we should do a call-in show dedicated to endorsements from listeners. What a great recommendation! So we’re doing just that.

Friday at 1 pm and 9 pm: Our mostly weekly pop culture roundtable, The Nose, tackles all the nonsense news the week throws its way. This hour, and apropos of Cat’s Corner above, The Nose investigates the glut of cult documentaries and docuseries that are out right now. God help us. Or Mother God help us, or whatever.