Bksm1217

TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE

from Wisconsin Public Radio

December 17, 1995 Programs

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1100 - 1159

Russia

1200 - 1259

Extra-Terrestrials

1300 - 1359

Artistic Collaboration

PROGRAM RUNDOWN

Russia

SEGMENT 1:

Journalist Adam Hochschild tells Steve Paulson why the Russian tradition of a strong (or tyrannical) leadership makes some Russians nostalgic for the good old days of Stalin. Hochschild is the author of "The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin." Also, Michael Buroway, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley, talks with Judith Strasser about the fate of skilled labor in the new non-Communist Russia.

SEGMENT 2:

Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko has been a literary superstar for fifty years. The author of some fifty books of poetry and three novels ("Don't Die Before You're Dead" is the new one), Yevtushenko reads from his work and talks with Steve Paulson.

SEGMENT 3:

Writer and reporter William Safire tells Jim Fleming about his new novel, "Sleeper-Spy," which is proof, he says, that the end of the Cold War in no way means the end of the espionage thriller.

12-17-A

PROGRAM RUNDOWN

Extra-Terrestrials

SEGMENT 1:

Jill Tarter is the lead scientist of Project Phoenix, the privately funded group which took over NASA's Search for Extra- Terrestrial Intelligence (the SETI project) when government funding was canceled. Tarter tells Steve Paulson that the group is scanning the skies for radio signals at that part of the spectrum where nature is quietest and Earth's technology is almost perfect.

SEGMENT 2:

An excerpt from Ray Bradbury's "The Martian Chronicles;" and, M.I.T. radio astronomer John Ball tells Steve Paulson about his theory that gamma ray bursts may be messages from advanced extra-terrestrial civilizations. Also, physicist Edward Harrison, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society for the past forty years, tells Judith Strasser about his recent speculation that our universe may have been created - not by God - but by super-intelligent beings Harrison calls "angels."

SEGMENT 3:

Physicist Lawrence Krauss thinks Star Trek is a terrific teaching tool. He's even written a book called "The Physics of Star Trek." Krauss talks with TTBOOK's own Trekkie, Jim Fleming, about the science behind inertial dampers, worm holes, and time travel and explains that the transporter (even though we all really want one!) is unlikely ever to exist.

12-17-B

PROGRAM RUNDOWN: HOUR 3:

Artistic collaboration

SEGMENT 1

Gail Levin teaches art history at Baruch College and the graduate school of the City University of New York and is an expert on the work of Edward Hopper. Her new book is "Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography," based on diaries kept by Hopper's wife. Levin tells Jim Fleming that Jo Hopper was an artist in her own right who sacrificed her own career to support her husband's. Also, Christo and his wife, Jeanne- Claude, tell Judith Strasser that their work has always been a joint effort and involves more than wrapping things. They describe several of their projects and explain why only Christo's name is famous.

SEGMENT 2:

Margaret Maron writes mysteries set in the art world. She tells Jim Fleming about her latest - "Fugitive Colors" - and explains how she uses her own experience as an artist's wife to fill in the background.

SEGMENT 3:

Much celebrated and still controversial writer Norman Mailer has just published a biography of the painter Pablo Picasso called "Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man." Mailer tells Steve Paulson that Picasso always felt a social inferior in Paris while believing in his own superiority as an artist.

12-17-C