{"id":74468,"date":"2014-07-24T14:30:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T18:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=74468"},"modified":"2014-07-24T15:57:13","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T19:57:13","slug":"genius-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/genius-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Genius of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"geniusbar\"<\/a>

Photo: Rob Boudon<\/p><\/div>\n

Somewhere in the world there exists a clip of Hugh Hefner on one talk show or another. I can neither remember what the show was nor the exact wording of the exchange, but the following paraphrase has become legendary in my family:<\/p>\n

\n

INTERVIEWER<\/small>: Do you consider yourself a genius?<\/p>\n

HEFNER<\/small>: Genius is a difficult word to define. But by any definition, I am one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Hef may be a law unto himself, but genius<\/em>, a word that used to be the sole domain of the upper reaches of the IQ scale, is now thrown around like grass seed. Maybe it\u2019s the effect of language evolution or intelligence inflation\u2014after all, only recently has it became compulsory for one\u2019s child to be intellectually gifted\u2014but it can\u2019t be denied that genius<\/em> no longer packs the awe-inspiring punch it once did.<\/p>\n

Standing in line at the nearest Apple Store yesterday, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder: Do the various professional Geniuses there find their appellation hilarious? Do they joke about it all the time? Or are some jokes\u2014in the words of Doris Day in Pillow Talk<\/em>\u2014too obvious to be funny? One thing I did notice: the people working the Genius Bar all seemed to get along really well. It was like the most collegial workplace I\u2019d ever seen. Maybe because they\u2019re all on the same intellectual level, and engaged in the same enterprise, obscure to much of humanity. Did everyone get along so well on the Manhattan Project?<\/p>\n

To me, the workings of a computer are so mysterious, so frightening, that the easy competence with which the Geniuses handle all problems might as well be<\/em> rocket science. When a very pleasant Genius named Jamie diagnosed the problem that had been sucking up space on my hard drive, opening up some fourteen new gigabytes, I suddenly understood why vulnerable women are always falling for their surgeons and spiritual leaders: in that moment, I was completely in love with him. I found myself wishing that I had put on some mascara, and had not\u2014in deference to the muggy heat\u2014dressed in a free-flowing cotton dress reminiscent of my mother circa summer \u201984. (In summer \u201984, bear in mind, my mother was pregnant.) I also wished I didn\u2019t have a picture of Susan Sontag in a bear costume on my desktop.<\/p>\n

When I signed the electronic screen at the end of my appointment, I attempted to redeem myself by asking what I hoped was an intelligent question: If we all write like five-year-olds on these screens, how is the signature any deterrent to identity theft?<\/p>\n

Well, he said, it could all be checked against records\u2014the signature itself is not the point. \u201cSome people will even sign an X,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike medieval illiterates?\u201d I asked excitedly. And for the first time, the Genius\u2019s face bore the same look of total, bored incomprehension I\u2019d been sporting since I entered the air-conditioned confines of the Apple Store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somewhere in the world there exists a clip of Hugh Hefner on one talk show or another. I can neither remember what the show was nor the exact wording of the exchange, but the following paraphrase has become legendary in my family: INTERVIEWER: Do you consider yourself a genius? HEFNER: Genius is a difficult word […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[5356,14730,14727,14726,14731,14728,14729],"class_list":["post-74468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-apple","tag-digital-signatures","tag-geniuses","tag-hugh-hefner","tag-medival-illiterates","tag-the-apple-store","tag-the-genius-bar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGenius of Love<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on Hugh Hefner, Apple, and what \u201cgenius\u201d means today.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/24\/genius-of-love\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Genius of Love by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 24, 2014 \u2013 Somewhere in the world there exists a clip of Hugh Hefner on one talk show or another. 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