Comments on: The Gershwins and multiple talents

By: Michael Adams

Michael Adams — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 21:38:54 +0000

Nietzsche always sounded more like a bi-polar, to me, rather than Asperger’s. Asperger people may be labeled A—ho-es, but they are mostly pretty rational.

Washington, now there’s an interesting question. He wrote for himself a little book of manners and relating. That could have been, maybe, a rational attempt to overcome his natural inability to relate to people. I remain a bit skeptical on that one, however.

By: Surellin

Surellin — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:33:12 +0000

Victor Hugo, too, was a painter as well as a writer. He had quite a reputation as an artist – it may be that he would be remembered for his art even if he had not written a word. I’ve only seen a few of his watercolors myself, but I see that one can buy reproductions of his oils even now.

By: rickl

rickl — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 12:36:19 +0000

I’m moderately intelligent. My IQ is somewhat above the norm but nothing spectacular.

But I don’t resent or begrudge geniuses. That seems to be an increasingly rare trait nowadays.

By: njartist49

njartist49 — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:18:43 +0000

Maybe Asperger’s Syndrome is a feature, not a bug of intelligence. Intelligence is a hungry beast that must be satisfied: too many stop at the easy, at the mediocre; they do not ask questions or seek the next valley or mountain within their discipline. Too many artists find their first voice and stay at that level: I once read an article in the American Scholar (no, I am not Phi Beta Kappa – whatever – I found the journal in a used bookstore) that declared it was difficult to convince intelligent people not to repeat themselves.

The mediocre are afraid of the intelligent – yet I don’t claim to be a genius; just interested in the next question.

I am not being sarcastic

By: SteveH

SteveH — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:30:08 +0000

What about the very odd combo skill for arguably one the best vocalist who ever lived…. Karen Carpenter as an accomplished drummer. It was in fact what she considered her foremost talent.

By: Rob De Witt

Rob De Witt — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:23:51 +0000

Neo,

You’re right, I forgot about Hedy Lamarr. Pretty amazing stuff, all right.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:18:58 +0000

The Judge: why, thank you (blushing)!

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:17:44 +0000

Rob De Witt: I've got a much better one---Hedy Lamarr!

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress known primarily for her extraordinary beauty and her celebrity in a film career as a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age". However, Lamarr was also an inventor and mathematician who co-invented -- with composer George Antheil -- an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day.

By: The Judge

The Judge — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:01:33 +0000

Thanks, Neo. This is another example of why this is one of the few sites I visit with regularity.

I would contend that your love for politics and artistic expression in its many forms, and the ability to write eloquently about them makes you multiply talented. Maybe this entry was, in essence, a well crafted way of exploring why you are the way you are.

By: Rob De Witt

Rob De Witt — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:12:55 +0000

One little-known fact which seems to escape these lists of multi-savants is that ventriloquist Paul Winchell was the inventor of the first artificial heart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Winchell

Now there’s a combo.