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To The Best Of Our Knowledge

the Legend of Sarah Winchester

Sarah Winchester (born 1840) was the heiress to the Winchester Estate with a 50% holding of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company. She used her vast fortune to construct a mansion for 38 consecutive years.

Popular legend held that she was cursed by all those who were killed by Winchester rifles. The only way to alleviate her suffering was to continue to add on to her mansion, filling it with strange sealed rooms and staircases and corridors leading nowhere. Pamela Haag tells her tale and gives it some meaning beyond a mere ghost story.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Tyler Boudreau on "Packing Inferno"

Tyler Boudreau is a 12 year veteran of the Marine Corps who ultimately resigned his commission due to reservations over the legitimacy of the Iraq war.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Susan Krieger on "Things No Longer There"

Susan Krieger tells Jim Fleming how much she can actually see and what sight and vision have come to mean to her.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Wesley Stace on Songwriting and Novels

Singer/Songwriter John Wesley Harding (AKA novelist Wesley Stace) talks to Anne Strainchamps about his double life as a musician and a novelist. Harding has transformed one of his songs into a novel called “Misfortune.”

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ryan Nerz on "Eat this Book"

Ryan Nerz talks with Steve Paulson about competitive eating as a bona fide sport modeled on the world wrestling federation.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Sonic Sidebar: Antarctica in Fiction and Art

Polar science becomes art in the hands of novelist Lucy Jane Bledsoe ("Big Bang Symphony") and musician Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky). Here are some of their impressions of the continent they can't forget.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Ron Collins on "The Trials of Lenny Bruce"

First Amendment lawyer Ron Collins talks with Steve Paulson about the renegade comedian and junkie Lenny Bruce who was repeatedly arrested for obscenity.

To The Best Of Our Knowledge

Scott A. Lukas on "Theme Park"

Scott A. Lukas is a cultural anthropologist and a former trainer at Six Flags Astroworld in Houston.  He's also the author of "Theme Park," which chronicles the evolution of the theme park.

Scott Lukas' website.

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