Maybe you're just a mentalist. The New York Times tells the story of Marc Salem, a man who turned a mental quirk into a side career and eventually into a Broadway show. Salem calls himself an entertainer and not a mentalist or a psychic, but what he does — predict actions, uncover information, read the serial numbers off of distant currency — is approach the world in an unconventional fashion.
he had a certain hypersensitivity that manifested itself in a certain obsession with patterns and empathy to people's emotions. (He blames the same condition for his father's premature death at 41. "He did not know how to have what would you call clinical distance," he said.)The sixth sense, as I've heard elsewhere, is just a combination of information our other five senses can't use. I'd say there might not be much use for Salem's work beyond the stage, but we've been at war for more than a year based on body language.
Salem, a director of research for the Children's Television Workshop, also has some interesting things to say about entertainment and education.
"One of McLuhan's quotes — such a quotable guy — was anyone who thinks there's a difference between education and entertainment doesn't know the first thing about either," Mr. Salem said. "Because all entertainment, whether you want it to or not, has a curriculum."
Find out more about Marc Salem here.
Posted by mastr at August 10, 2004 10:42 AM