convocation’s guest of honor,” Grant Moore tells the camera, “is a distinguished British psychoanalyst, Dr. Hans Eysenck.” Moore pauses to get a balky rabbit bone out of his mouth. The waitress has placed a huge wooden bowl of some antipodean approximation to wild salad in the center of the table, and a wine waiter stands by with a bottle for Moore’s approval. “Hmm, a Tyrrell Pinot Chardonnay. Our wonderful Hunter Valley wines. Eat your hearts out, France.” The cork is freed with a flick, wine flows golden into glasses that catch the cool sun at their brim. “Some critics allege, of course, that groups like Mensa and Point Four Six are only for the emotionally retarded and insecure.”
Expansively, plucking a huge plug of savory meat from his terrine and swirling his glass in a sticky hand, Ray says, “Vergé is certainly an extremely capable and inventive chef.”
The interviewer frowns. “You’re suggesting that high IQ groups are the cuisine nouvelle of intellectual life, lightweight but…uh, inventive?”
“For a man of only 47 he’s done exceptionally well, you know,” Ray confides. “His Hostellerie du Moulin de Mougins received three stars last year, which makes him only the seventeenth great chef holding that honor at present.”
Joseph gazes gloomily at his plate. He hates raw vegetables.
Grant Moore flips open a file, scans it rapidly, props it out of sight. “Is that right? Let me quote you something that your fellow ‘hike’ Mike Murphy said at last year’s dust-up. This is from a man with a recorded IQ of 186. He said this: ‘Hike groups are antisocial and corrosive. They damage your openness to the rest of the world and promote a fascist sense of narcissistic superiority. It’s like heroin: it gets in and seeps through the person, rotting as it goes.’ How do you—”
“What is truly astounding.” Ray says piercingly, taking more wine, “is that Vergé got his first star as recently as 1970. Just five years, Grant. That’s even more remarkable than Paul Bocuse, who had one star in 1960 and took until 1965 to get his third. Of course, it helps to have your own restaurant. Poor Guérand is still—”
“Why are you avoiding—”
“Grant, the whole world’s heard of Cuisine Minceur but the poor devil’s still waiting for his third star. Of course, it didn’t help when the authorities went and ran a highway through his original establishment. This terrine is very nice, Jean-Pierre.”
“Thank you. I shall give you fresh peaches for dessert, and black coffee.”
“Great.”
Grant regards him balefully. “Are you quite finished on that topic?”
Ray says very rapidly and clearly, “The international Convocation is being conducted at the Humanities Research Center by some two hundred people brought together by an entire swag of motivations. Some will listen dutifully to discussions of multi-factorial competence evaluation. Others’ll mill about with their friends from here and abroad, friends they’ve made through a curious but painless interest in their own particular forté, which is to be clever. They will get plastered if that is their vice, and stand up in front of each other and give, we can only hope, entertaining addresses on various topics. Joseph here will talk about his attempts to pin down a kind of faster-than-light sub-atomic particle.”
“Yeah, I—”
“And the common theme will be plain friendship among people whose intellectual capacities, through no fault of their own, outstrip those of virtually everyone else on this plodding and pragmatic planet.”
“Look, this isn’t a—”
“Grant, let me ask you one question. Are you caused to tremble in your bed if you learn of the convening of a company of, I dunno, of tegestologers all panting eagerly at the prospect of comparing their beer-mat collections? Or is it just smart people that worry you?”
Grant leans sideways across the table and pours expensive wine. “So you hikes reckon
Expansively, plucking a huge plug of savory meat from his terrine and swirling his glass in a sticky hand, Ray says, “Vergé is certainly an extremely capable and inventive chef.”
The interviewer frowns. “You’re suggesting that high IQ groups are the cuisine nouvelle of intellectual life, lightweight but…uh, inventive?”
“For a man of only 47 he’s done exceptionally well, you know,” Ray confides. “His Hostellerie du Moulin de Mougins received three stars last year, which makes him only the seventeenth great chef holding that honor at present.”
Joseph gazes gloomily at his plate. He hates raw vegetables.
Grant Moore flips open a file, scans it rapidly, props it out of sight. “Is that right? Let me quote you something that your fellow ‘hike’ Mike Murphy said at last year’s dust-up. This is from a man with a recorded IQ of 186. He said this: ‘Hike groups are antisocial and corrosive. They damage your openness to the rest of the world and promote a fascist sense of narcissistic superiority. It’s like heroin: it gets in and seeps through the person, rotting as it goes.’ How do you—”
“What is truly astounding.” Ray says piercingly, taking more wine, “is that Vergé got his first star as recently as 1970. Just five years, Grant. That’s even more remarkable than Paul Bocuse, who had one star in 1960 and took until 1965 to get his third. Of course, it helps to have your own restaurant. Poor Guérand is still—”
“Why are you avoiding—”
“Grant, the whole world’s heard of Cuisine Minceur but the poor devil’s still waiting for his third star. Of course, it didn’t help when the authorities went and ran a highway through his original establishment. This terrine is very nice, Jean-Pierre.”
“Thank you. I shall give you fresh peaches for dessert, and black coffee.”
“Great.”
Grant regards him balefully. “Are you quite finished on that topic?”
Ray says very rapidly and clearly, “The international Convocation is being conducted at the Humanities Research Center by some two hundred people brought together by an entire swag of motivations. Some will listen dutifully to discussions of multi-factorial competence evaluation. Others’ll mill about with their friends from here and abroad, friends they’ve made through a curious but painless interest in their own particular forté, which is to be clever. They will get plastered if that is their vice, and stand up in front of each other and give, we can only hope, entertaining addresses on various topics. Joseph here will talk about his attempts to pin down a kind of faster-than-light sub-atomic particle.”
“Yeah, I—”
“And the common theme will be plain friendship among people whose intellectual capacities, through no fault of their own, outstrip those of virtually everyone else on this plodding and pragmatic planet.”
“Look, this isn’t a—”
“Grant, let me ask you one question. Are you caused to tremble in your bed if you learn of the convening of a company of, I dunno, of tegestologers all panting eagerly at the prospect of comparing their beer-mat collections? Or is it just smart people that worry you?”
Grant leans sideways across the table and pours expensive wine. “So you hikes reckon
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