Are you and Idiot Savant?

[NoJo]

Somebody called me "Rain Man" the other day, due to my obsession with numbers and tiny details. I laughed and laughed and laughed at this, for about 83.5 seconds. I wonder how many other literotica authors are also "Idiot Savants"? Take this test and find out:

1. Which famous Sondheim song lyrics contains 114 'e's and 78 'n's?

2. Which Hollywood actor had a pair of sunglasses that had a small crack in the right lens at the 1997 Oscars?

3. There's a car parked outside my house. What is its license plate, and why?

4. Why do birds suddenly appear?

5. How do the black socks of Harvey Keitel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu differ?

6. In a local cafe, which waitress serves 10% more peas on the bald man's plate than average?

7. When I do this with my hands, how come everything seems nearer?

8. Whose literotica member Id is 7248?

9. There are literally thousands of brands of cigarette in the world. But which packet has a picture of a weasel besides?


Scoring:
negative infinity to 0: You're normal. Certificates available on request.
1 or more: You are either me, or pretending to be me to get sympathy.

 

[Guest]

1. Which famous Sondheim song lyrics contains 114 'e's and 78 'n's?
Goth chicks are cool

2. Which Hollywood actor had a pair of sunglasses that had a small crack in the right lens at the 1997 Oscars?
Elvis

3. There's a car parked outside my house. What is its license plate, and why?
License place is for identifying the registered owner.

4. Why do birds suddenly appear?
Maybe you blinked


5. How do the black socks of Harvey Keitel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu differ?
Cotten and nylon

6. In a local cafe, which waitress serves 10% more peas on the bald man's plate than average?
Me

7. When I do this with my hands, how come everything seems nearer?
Because they just are

8. Whose literotica member Id is 7248?
Debra

9. There are literally thousands of brands of cigarette in the world. But which packet has a picture of a weasel besides?
Luckystrike


Scoring:
negative infinity to 0: You're normal. Certificates available on request.
1 or more: You are either me, or pretending to be me to get sympathy.
Boo-hoo

 

[dr_mabeuse]

My brother in law is a fairly high-functioning Autistic. He is a savant for sports and can tell you just about anything there is to know about teams and championsips in everything from hockey to baseball to horse-racing. (Unfortunately he can’t pick winners. He invariably roots for the team that has the best record or the most recent win.) He usually sits and watches two TV’s showing sports and has a radio plugged into his ear listening to another game.

He also has that calendrical ability to tell you what day of the week any date falls on.

He had a habit of suddenly stalking into the living room and playing a big, full chord on the piano, cocking his head towards it, nodding to himself and then just stalking back out. It was a different chord every time as far as we could tell, and no one knew why he did this. Then one day my wife realized that what he was playing was the chord they used in different hockey arenas to signal the end of a period, that big air-horn like blast.

Sure enough, he knows them all as far as we can tell. He hears them once and he knows the chord.

He also seems to know the pitch of each baseball announcer's voice. People speak at different pitches, especially professional announcers, and he can duplicate not only the pitch but the musical intervals they use when they get excited. He often walks around mumbling or singing them to himself.

Outside of that, he couldn't care less about music.

---dr.M.

 

[shereads]

The president can quote all the stats of the Texas Rangers, for what it's worth, but I bet he can't do that thing with the piano.

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[cheeryorchid]

savant-i-o-u-s-l-y---eh- I don't know

I don't think I am savant. I have a touch of OCD for numbers. I remember phone numbers, numbers in general. I'll look at numbers over and over to see if they are right. Went to a bingo parlor one time you know with those cards with like 12 cards on one big card. Got two of those big cards. Couldn't play because I'd still be looking for N45 for the 3rd time in case I missed it while they are 3 letters past me.
I don't think they call that savant though......

I'm Just Anal! .

Oh and to the bearer of this thread. .... you now have that song stuck in my head "why do birds suddenly appear...." maybe I'll go hit a chord of it on the piano.


And Doc M. I agree with you. I loved hearing about your brother. Beautiful minds are amazing things. I'm never ceased in fascination, and desire to learn more from them and with them. I work with them everyday.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I am really bad at math and numbers and remembering anything.

But I'm really good at spades and I can keep track of nearly every card that's played. I do have to try though. I hum really oddly when I play. And I can't play by different rules than the ones I first learned to master. (jacks are high, not jokers I hate that rule!)

Haven't played in ages so I don't know anymore. And everybody wants to play with the jokers. I can't do that it throws me off.

And I hate Eucher.

 

[Liar]

I'm an Idiot Average. To my knowledge, there is nothing that I master to that savant-degree.

On the other hand, I'm not really hopeless at anything either. Except golf. My golf sucks.

 

[snooper]

Idiot savant?

Well I can do five elevenths of that with ease; it's the last six elevenths I find difficult, nay impossible.

 

[NoJo]

My brother in law is a fairly high-functioning Autistic. He is a savant for sports and can tell you just about anything there is to know about teams and championsips in everything from hockey to baseball to horse-racing. (Unfortunately he can’t pick winners. He invariably roots for the team that has the best record or the most recent win.) He usually sits and watches two TV’s showing sports and has a radio plugged into his ear listening to another game.

He also has that calendrical ability to tell you what day of the week any date falls on.

He had a habit of suddenly stalking into the living room and playing a big, full chord on the piano, cocking his head towards it, nodding to himself and then just stalking back out. It was a different chord every time as far as we could tell, and no one knew why he did this. Then one day my wife realized that what he was playing was the chord they used in different hockey arenas to signal the end of a period, that big air-horn like blast.

Sure enough, he knows them all as far as we can tell. He hears them once and he knows the chord.

He also seems to know the pitch of each baseball announcer's voice. People speak at different pitches, especially professional announcers, and he can duplicate not only the pitch but the musical intervals they use when they get excited. He often walks around mumbling or singing them to himself.

Outside of that, he couldn't care less about music.

---dr.M.

Doc, that had me LOLing. Great stuff.

I was like that about cars, Marvel comix and birds, but mainly as a kid. I still find myself occasionally shouting "Get thee hence, foul spawn of evil!" (Dr Strange, Strange Tales #162) apropos of nothing, though I sold my comic collection years ago.

I'm not really what one would call autistic, but I'm definitely slightly obsessive about numbers. I don't know whether the expression "Anorak" has made it to the U.S: They're trainspotters, men who stand at the end of railway platforms in anoraks with notebooks and binoculars, noting train numbers. England has an inordinate number of "twitchers" too -- obsessional birdwatchers. I don't know why, but I think mild autism a very English trait. If you ever get a chance to see "Nuts in May", a film by Mike Leigh, you'll see a very funny portrayal of an Anorak.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Are you and Idiot Savant?

Folks tell me I've got the first part under control.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I've got something like the opposite of that. The whole absent-minded professor thing. I forget things in an instant and people that know me have gotten used to me forgetting their names and having to ask again. However, I do very well in my sciences and studies and I focus gloriously on my writing, both nonerotic and erotic, so...

Guess that just makes me a different kind of idiot.

 

[oggbashan]

I have an instinct for statistics.

I can feel the 'rightness' of a column of figures, a balance sheet, standard deviations etc. - without working them out. When I have to work them out I am just as useless as most people except that I know when my answer feels 'wrong'.

Is it instinct or just good teachers when I was young? I don't know.

Og

 

[shereads]

I've got something like the opposite of that. The whole absent-minded professor thing. I forget things in an instant and people that know me have gotten used to me forgetting their names and having to ask again. However, I do very well in my sciences and studies and I focus gloriously on my writing, both nonerotic and erotic, so...

Guess that just makes me a different kind of idiot.

Did you smoke a lot of laughing tobacco a long time ago? Or recently? (Don't answer; the Justice Dept. may want to deport you someday, and they can use this.)

I ask because I've been experiencing a strange phenomenon that started with names and now includes lots of words: I can type them, but if I'm speaking I can't think of them.

This sentence, written to Lucifer Carroll, would come out like this if I were trying to speak it aloud:

"This, um...word string...that writer with the devil name? Alice in Wonderland? C'mon, you know the one I'm talking about, help me out here...Dammit!"

I can almost feel the synapses short-circuiting.

Does this mean that verbal skills are divided between written and spoken? Or did I just smoke too much in the 80's?

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Did you smoke a lot of laughing tobacco a long time ago? Or recently? (Don't answer; the Justice Dept. may want to deport you someday, and they can use this.)

I ask because I've been experiencing a strange phenomenon that started with names and now includes lots of words: I can type them, but if I'm speaking I can't think of them.

This sentence, written to Lucifer Carroll, would come out like this if I were trying to speak it aloud:

"This, um...word string...that writer with the devil name? Alice in Wonderland? C'mon, you know the one I'm talking about, help me out here...Dammit!"

I can almost feel the synapses short-circuiting.

Does this mean that verbal skills are divided between written and spoken? Or did I just smoke too much in the 80's?

Ah, yes. That's me. Sad, ain't it. It's got really pronounced when I came to college. Because of the "synaptic short-circuiting" I shunned the traditional laughing tobacco and booze runs for fear that if I did I'd wake up completely unable to talk or remember anything at all.

It's frustrating often, but it hasn't hindered me on the job. I can do mathematics and science like a pro. It's just when I talk I go, "Yes well you see taking the radius of this plant's vacuole we can see that it is overfilled with what's that liquid again...crap, okay we drink it, comes in oceans, falls from the...ah fuck, what's that blue thing up there called again?" Same as you.

Personally I blame the permanent insomnia I have adopted because I'm a night person and school and jobs are day things.

 

[CharleyH]

Scoring:
negative infinity to 0: You're normal. Certificates available on request.
1 or more: You are either me, or pretending to be me to get sympathy.

Well, I don't know about the savant part, but I sure as hell am an idiot because I am answering your questions this early in the morning, with only three coffee's down and before looking at the answers.

My take:

1. Sondheim:
I have no freaking idea, but now I can’t get West Side Story out of my mind. Worse yet, I keep saying “I feel pretty, oh so pretty and witty and wise,” over and OVER again. Thanks a lot Joe!

2. Sunglasses? Jack Nicholson would be the only actor who would ever wear sunglasses in accepting an award, and since he won one that year . . .

3. There's a car parked outside my house. What is its license plate, and why? All I know is it's British because you live in England.

4. Why do birds suddenly appear?
This one’s easy: just like me, they long to be, close to you.

5. I didn’t know Keitel wore socks?

6. Waitress serves 10% more peas on the bald man's plate? YUK! I've never heard of any decent restaurant serving peas. Where the hell do you eat?

7. When I do this with my hands, how come everything seems nearer? Masturbation has the effect of making you feel close to yourself.

8. If not you, then member number 7248 on page 6998, is member 7248.

9. Cig with a picture of a weasel besides?

A weasel besides what? I only know Canadian brands, and currently that would be all Canadian brands pictured with a politician.

Ok, now a proven idiot, I will go read some smart assed answers.
But first a question: Why not ten question?

 

[Liar]

5. How do the black socks of Harvey Keitel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu differ?

One is an archbishop, the other is a pair of socks?

 

[Guest]

idiot minus savant

went out on the web to do some reading on idiot savants.. the thread got me thinking...

'self, you should really understand more about this phenomenon.'

so i googled

clicked on a url

and promptly got infected with trojens virus that hijacked my IE and popped up many screens with
"You are an idiot!"

ain't it ironic?

 

[Guest]

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I guess that means he's only an idiot.

Lime

One more question for all you savants - What's Cheney's secret location?

I know this one. It's in...*whimper* why? Okay, you know that place with all the mountains and really comfortable areas where you can duck hunt...

Sigh. Damn you college sleep patterns.

 

[Liar]

I guess that means he's only an idiot.

Lime

One more question for all you savants - What's Cheney's secret location?

Hell?

not very poltically,
#L

 

[minsue]

Hell?

not very poltically,
#L