Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 14, 1990 TAG: 9004140201
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANA E. LUNDIN LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
Vos Savant wears the title of the World's Smartest Person; her IQ has been measured at 230 (a score of 100 is considered normal) on the Stanford-Binet test.
She calls the moniker "my personal albatross."
Notwithstanding, that descriptor has enabled her to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the highest IQ ever recorded, which in turn led to "Ask Marilyn," a question-and-answer column she writes for Parade magazine.
And now her book, "Brain Building: Exercising Yourself Smarter" (Bantam; $18.95), has just been published. The book consists of a number of exercises to help increase mental prowess, much as working out the body develops physical strength.
"If we have a great body, we can say, at the most: Look at me," said vos Savant, between sips of cappuccino and bites of cinnamon toast. "But if we have a great mind, we can say something much better. We can say: Listen to me. That's real power."
To vos Savant, smart is not only powerful, it is sexy.
"If women would tune into that, they would find where the real power is," she said.
Intelligence has always been intriguing throughout literature, said Dr. William G. Durden, Ph.D., director of the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University.
"There's a long tradition in literature that the somewhat smart, quiet type, where there appears to be depth with a certain charm, has always been an intriguing character," said Durden in a telephone interview.
"I don't know if you call that sexy, but it's certainly intriguing."
Admittedly, appearance is the first element people see in others, said the 43-year-old vos Savant. But the attraction is not always enduring.
"Outward appearance is not only superficial, it's fleeting also, and so even if the looks don't flee, the interest does very quickly," she said.
Others share her viewpoint.
Said Steve Pastis, president of Orange County Mensa, an organization for people with IQs in the top 2 percent, said, "If I went to the beach and started reading some physics book or some philosophy book, it wouldn't be as effective as the well-tanned surfer in terms of attracting women.
"But I do think in order to have a relationship that means something for me, an intelligent woman is extremely important. The other things fade away, the attraction that comes from appearance, because it only exists on one level," he said.
Lendon Best, a member of the San Diego-based Camelopard (Latin for giraffe) Society for people with high IQs, also agrees with vos Savant.
"I would say, while most of the men in these high-IQ clubs certainly appreciate an attractive appearance, most of them have long since realized: What do you do afterward when you discover your companion with a great body can't carry on a conversation?" he said.
"That's not to say beautiful women can't carry on a conversation. Many of them can and are willing to use their brains, but too many women in past generations got the impression they would drive men away if they displayed their intelligence, and they put on a pretense of being dumb," Best said. "Today women are beginning to find they don't mind if men know they have minds. They've had them all along."
Vos Savant is hardly oblivious to the headiness of physical attraction. She had received several calls from a Salt Lake City doctor who was interested in meeting her. She did not return the calls, but her curiosity was piqued enough to send her to look up a biography and photograph.
"I didn't want to call back, " recalled vos Savant, "but then I remembered some of the photographs that were taken of me, and I thought this person should have a second chance."
Then she went to the library and looked up an issue of Vanity Fair featuring a picture taken by renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz of Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the first permanent artificial heart that bears his name.
"It was a marvelous photograph of him," remembered vos Savant. "I stole the magazine from the library. I thought, `Oooh, I really like this man.' I took it home and called back."
Vos Savant and Jarvik were married in 1987.
For his part, Jarvik said he was not at all intrigued by her appearance when he first tried to obtain vos Savant's unlisted telephone number through a connection he had at a New York City television station.
"I had no notion of looks," explained Jarvik, who then turned to his wife and said, "I actually thought you looked kind of bad. I thought, despite the fact you looked bad, you should be very interesting."
Jarvik has been accompanying his wife on her cross-country tour to promote her book.
"I think one of the reasons it behooves people to increase their mental alertness and to just tune in and keep themselves interesting is it makes their relationships better with the people they care about," he said.
Jarvik agreed with vos Savant that keen intelligence and sharp mental skills is the "long-term sexy thing."
"If the person you're spending your energy with isn't interested and interesting, and the connection isn't there underneath on an intellectual level, the other things are just so trivial," he said. "There isn't anything, really."
But Durden isn't so convinced a well-developed mind carries the ultimate power in relationships. He thinks it may be something more ethereal, more mystical, that binds people together.
Vos Savant herself is engrossed not only with how people think, but how they act and feel.
"They're so interesting," she said. "They're infinite layers. It's like peeling the skin off an onion.
"I guess I have a Woody Allen-ish feeling about living in the city. Parks are nice places to visit, but I would rather be surrounded by a million people than a million trees. Trees are so boring compared to people."
by CNB