To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio

Barbara Moss needed a new face. Her mouth was so deformed she could pop a baby's fist between her teeth and out again without opening her jaw. As a girl, she prayed for just a little bit of beauty. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, one woman discovers her true face. Also, why men really can't help but ogle a beautiful woman – new research might get guys off the hook.

SEGMENT 1:

Barbara Moss grew up dirt poor in rural Alabama with a grotesquely deformed face. In her memoir, "Change Me into Zeus's Daughter," she chronicles her quest to claim a little bit of beauty. She talks about her story with Anne Strainchamps.

SEGMENT 2:

Psychiatrist Hans Breiter tells Steve Paulson that men's brains may be hard-wired to appreciate female beauty and explains some of the science that makes him think so. Also, Jeanne Boylan, America's most innovative forensic artist talks with Jim Fleming about the importance of not contaminating eye witness memories, and gives examples from one of her most famous, and tragic, cases - the disappearance of Polly Klaas. Boylan's book is "Portraits of Guilt."

SEGMENT 3:

Historian Donald Sassoon tells Jim Fleming that the Mona Lisa is a great painting, but that other factors conspired to make it an international icon. La Giaconda became a symbol of the Renaissance, and during the nineteenth century, the painting caused a furor when it was stolen from the Louvre and recovered two years later. Now Mona Lisa inspires tourists and helps peddle all sorts of products. Sassoon's book about her is "Becoming Mona Lisa."

Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 02-01-13-B.

................................................................

Books:

• Jeanne Boylan, Portraits of Guilt (Pocket)
• Barbara Robinette Moss, Change Me Into Zeus's Daughter: a memoir (Touchstone)
• Donald Sassoon, Becoming Mona Lisa (Harcourt)

Music:

• -Kiwi/ Beppe Gambetta/ Good News From Home/ Green Linnet
• -The Summer of My Dreams/ Stuart Duncan/ Stuart Duncan/ Rounder Records
• -More Pretty Girls Than One/ Del McCoury, Doc Watson, and Mac Wiseman/ Mac Doc & Del/ Sugar Hill
• -Sugar Craft/ Medeski Martin & Wood/ Combustication/ Bluenote
• -Mona Lisa/ Nat King Cole/
• -Giromina/ Beppe Gambetta with Carlo Aonzo/ Serenata/ Acoustic Music Records

Distribution dates:

................................................................

Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

our shows :: about us :: search :: home