Delaney just turned a year old. She has a form of blindness known as Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis. This week, we meet Delaney’s family and hear about new experimental treatments that might restore Delaney’s vision. (Find out more about Delaney’s condition at The Foundation Fighting Blindness.)

• We hear the stories of two families who’ve never met, but they’ve got a lot in common. The Leahy’s have a son named Patrick. He’s thirty-three. And the Brooks’ have a daughter, Delaney, who’s just a year old. Both Patrick and Delaney have a form of blindness known as Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis. We meet the Leahy’s and the Brooks’ and we’ll talk with the two families about how their children’s blindness has changed their lives
• We also hear about a new, experimental treatment that might be able to cure the type of blindness shared by Patrick and Delaney. Dr. Steve Rose of The Foundation Fighting Blindness and Dr. Bill Hauswirth share the latest news on gene therapy trials currently underway to restore sight to malfunctioning retinas
• We talk with writer Madison Smartt Bell about his latest project, a book that takes readers on a series of guided walking tours that weave their way through the very heart of Charm City
• Plus, a radio postcard from Baltimore’s annual Great Halloween Lantern Parade

Friday (10.26.07) at Baltimore’s 14 Karat Cabaret Club, it’s another installment in the ongoing poetry and music series “Shattered Wig Nite.” These get-togethers always have an experimental edge to them, and tonight is no exception… Musical improvisers Shelly Blake-Plock and Eve Risser share the bill with poets Stephanie Barber and Joseph Crespo, and the show gets underway at 9 o’clock. The 14 Karat Cabaret is at 218 W. Saratoga Street, and more information is online at www.normals.com.

You may remember hearing the music of operatic Appalachian oddballs Lurch and Holler on a past episode of our show, and it turns out they’ve now accepted an unusual assignment from the Baltimore Museum of Art: With banjo, piano, singing, and the reading of letters, Lurch and Holler will be dramatizing the story of the famous art-collecting Cone Sisters. It’s happening in the museum’s Woodward room this Sunday afternoon (10.28.07) at 1 o’clock.

And if that’s not strange enough for your tastes, there’s this occasion for you to ponder: a charity event that plasters the walls of the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall with artistically decorated brassieres… On Tuesday, October 30th, Lifebridge Health hosts the second annual BraVo event, the proceeds of which are destined for prostheses, wigs, medications, and other items for breast cancer survivors. More information is at www.bravolifebridge.org.