How to show (text-properties-at (point)) in minibuffer?

[dont . spam . earl]

Hi all,

I'm customizing my shell mode and noticing some regions have unexpected faces. 
To debug this, I want the minibuffer to list the faces at the current point 
(from 'text-properties-at) and automatically update as the point moves. I've 
tried this a few ways but haven't gotten it to work.

I tried customizing the mode-line-format variable, yielding this line in my 
.emacs file. It didn't work:
  '(mode-line-format (quote ("%e" mode-line-front-space mode-line-mule-info 
mode-line-client mode-line-modified mode-line-remote 
mode-line-frame-identification mode-line-buffer-identification "   " 
mode-line-position (vc-mode vc-mode) "  " mode-line-modes mode-line-misc-info 
mode-line-end-spaces (:eval (text-properties-at (point))))))

This also doesn't work:
(setq global-mode-string
          (append global-mode-string
                          (list '(:eval (text-properties-at (point))))))

Any suggestions on how to do this?

Thanks!

Earl