Esquire's "What it Feels Like" 2005

[ClaytonN]

Is an awesome read. Stuff like "What it feels like to drown", "What it feels like to be a math savant", and "What it feels like to get high with Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg".

Great, great stuff.

[istewart]

Were you reading this before your manicure or before your facial?

[ClaytonN]

For example, here is the savant one:

Daniel Tammet, 26:
"I don't 'do' math. When i start calculating a sum, I start to picture two fuzzy shapes, the image is fuzzy at first, gradually becoming clearer and clearer, until a third shape emerges: the answer. I just sort of "see" it.

"Growing up, I was confused by the arithmetic worksheet at school because the numbers were all printed the same size and color. To me, the sheet seemed covered in errors. Nines are always big and blue for me, and it's a strange sensation when I see them printed small or in black in the newspaper. Same tiwh 6's, which I experience as tiny black holes. And 89 is a soft, falling movemeny in my mind's eye, like drifting snow, while 351 is much lumpier, like a spoonful of porridge."

"Scientists think it was the series of severe epileptic seizures I had as a child that changed the way my brain worked, bringing me into the interior landscape filled with color, shape, motion, and texture. I have what's called savant syndrome, the condition portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in rainman. I'm one of fewer than fifty living savants worldwide. Which means that while I find everyday stuff like riding a bike or simple electrical wiring tough - really tough - I can also mentally calculate 82 to the 4th power or recite the number pi to 22,514 decimal places from memory. So it isn't all that bad.

"My visual memory experiences are just as strong in language as in math. For example, the word Wednsday is a solid blue. I'm currently creative my own language calle manti, based on how I see the world around me. The word complex, for example, is patsine, based on a baltic word for braid. I also speak French, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, and Esperanto. Despite my syndrome, my friends don't treat me differently, except they won't let me play cards with them"

[ClaytonN]

[ QUOTE ]
Were you reading this before your manicure or before your facial?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I read it after Santana raped the Yankees thoroughly.

[MrTrik]

Go Twins!

[asofel]

I posted something about this guy in OOT a while back. I find him, and others like him, incredible. I can't imagine really what it must be like to be in his head. I mean, can you imagine correctly reciting 22k digits??? wtf!

that's funny about his friends not letting him play poker with them either....i wonder how this guy would do at Gin...i know ungars memory and intellect contributed greatly to his dominance at it...