在美国犹他州盐湖城的图书馆里，经常可以在下午时分看到这样一个人：他有着超乎常人的大脑壳，戴着厚厚的眼镜，聚精会神地在书架上翻找自己想看的书，这些书包括世界地理、农民历(Farmer's Almanac,等同于中国的农历)、音乐、文学、甚至全美各地的电话簿。然后他会抱着一大堆书回到他常坐的座位上，沉浸在自己的世界里。他看书的速度极快，几乎是用翻的。看书时，他会咧着嘴，或是喃喃自语，有时也会大声念着书的内容。而图书馆的管理员，并不会阻止他这些异常的举动。因为他们对这个读书狂太熟悉了。这个人，就是1988年由好莱坞影星达斯汀·霍夫曼所主演的奥斯卡经典电影《雨人》(Rain Man)的故事蓝本、真实生活中的“雨人”金·皮克(Kim Peek)。
《雨人》里弟弟看到哥哥能快速心算开平方根，便说道：“你真应该去为NASA（美国国家航空航天总局）工作。”这个情节颇有预见性。果然，现实生活中的这个患有自闭症、却拥有超常计算能力介于天才与白痴之间的超大脑容量专家(megasavant)引起了NASA的兴趣。NASA希望通过对金进行一连串脑部测试与扫描，解开他的大脑之谜。从而了解航天员在执行太空任务时如何运用大脑，并用来改进对太空人心态的监视。
Meet the Real Rain Man
by Joanna Walters
He inspired a movie and now he is reaching for the sky with 1)NASA.
Kim Peek bowls into the 2)B&B and, with a slightly 3)sidelong 4)gait, heads straight for the small kitchen, where he 5)tilts his brow 6)quizzically and regards the chef with a 7)beady eye. Peek's father, Fran, who has 8)rushed through the call to catch up with his son, says to the chef: "Give him your birth date."
"December 12, 1972," says 9)bemused John Davis, as Kim 10)crinkles up his eyes behind thick glasses and cracks a 11)gleeful 12)grin. "You were born on a Tuesday, this year it's a Tuesday, you will retire in 2037 on a Saturday," Kim says. He then 13)rattles off the terms, scores and 14)home run details of the 1972 baseball World Series and, when Davis names his hometown in Oregon, Kim lists all the postcodes, utility-company addresses, roads and TV stations that he has memorized from local 15)directories and atlases. He can repeat this exercise for anywhere in the United States.
Kim's face is not familiar, but the rapid 16)monotone that delivers this 17)helter-skelter information is instandly recognizable as the style of his famous fictional 18)alter ego, Rain Man. Kim Peek is the real-life 19)autistic 20)savant who inspired Dustion Hoffman's 21)eponymous character in one of Hollywood's most memorable films. Peek, 55, is more 22)prodigious than the movie character: in subjects from music to history to total recall of the works of Shakespeare. But he needs help cleaning his teeth and getting washed and shaved.
Now Kim's astonishing brain has sparked a NASA experiment that could unlock secrets stretching from deepest space travel to the furthest 23)interiors of the human mind.
"It's going to be really great for me," 24)intones Kim, as he sits down on a sofa and grasps a glass of water with both hands. At the slightest prompt, he launches into a 25)rapid-fire family history of his forebears' arrival in New England from Norfolk, their subsequent migration to Utah and their involvement with 26)polygamy when it was at its height in the 27)Mormon community in the 1920s.
To break the 28)bombardment of the 29)monologue his son has embarked on. Fran suddenly reaches into a cloth bag, heaves out a familiar-looking gold 30)statuette and puts it on the coffee table. "The Oscar! The Oscaaarrrrr!" Kim shrieks. He puts his head back and half-giggles, half-roars, then drums his fists on his thights in childlike excitement.
In addition to Best Film and Best Actor Oscars, the screenwriter Barry Morrow also won an Oscar for creating the movie. Says Morrow: "He came to visit me after the 31)Academy Awards and was mesmerized by the Oscar." Morrow has allowed the Peeks to look after the statuette and they take it on speaking tours.
Kim has 32)staggering 33)arithmetic skills and can count playing cards. But Kim displays these talents only if he wants to. Morrow recalls, chuckling: "I took him to 34)Reno to see if he could beat the casino. He read and memorized an entire book about gambling, but would not play the tables because he said it was 35)unethical."
The film in 1988 was a turning point in Kim's life. He had been a virtual 36)recluse all his life, venturing into the wider world only occasionally, such as to the conference of the Association of Retarded Citizens, where he met Morrow. Hoffman spent a day with Kim and was so awed by his abilities that he urged a reluctant Fran to share his son with the world.
Fran was afraid that Kim would get frightened and upset. Or that he would be regarded as 37)a freak show. But Kim has 38)blossomed into a much more sociable person, and the Peeks have 39)crisscrossed the U.S. and talked to more than two million people.
Kim has read more than 9,000 books and memorized them with his photographic mind. Unlike any other savant known to the world scientific community, Kim can read a page with each eye 40)simutaneously, even if the book is 41)upside down or 42)sideways.
The latest breakthrough in Kim's life came in October 2004. He spoke at a Rotary Club lunch in Monterey, California, where a 43)prominent member, Sam Downing, is also chief executive of the Salinas Valley Hospital, which specializes in scanning. The hospital works with a nearby arm of NASA that investigates the effects of 44)zero gravity space travel on 45)astronauts.
Dowing persuded Kim to be scanned and has teamed up with NASA to make what they hoped would be a detailed brain map that could help to unlock 46)motion sickness. 47)vertigo, memory and brain-cell renewal. Salinas Valley doctors gave Kim 48)MRI and 49)CT scans and the NASA team took the raw data and fused it into a 50)high-resolution, three-demensional computer model. NASA experts hoped to track the electrical impuses of Kim's brain, giving them insight into how the 51)synapses adjust to forces such as 52)accelereation and 53)gravity.
Kim was born with an unusually large head and a water 54)blister inside his 55)skull that damaged the left 56)hemisphere, which controls language and motor skills. And in 1988, when he was given his first scan, his 57)neuroscientist was shocked to discover that Kim has no 58)corpus callosum, the 59)membrane that separate the two hemispheres of the brain. Scientists want to find out whether Kim's brain is fused into one huge databank or whether he has the equivalent of two brains separately processing 60)phenomenal quantities of information--but with little reasoning.
When Kim was born, in 1951, doctors told his parents that he would never walk or learn and that they should put him in an institution. "We just decided to love him instead," says Fran. Kim could not walk until he was four, but could read at 16 months. He was more or less ignored by the educaion authorities, but after Fran fought for home tutoring, Kim completed the secondary school (or high school) curriculum by the time he was 14. The authorities did not 61)deign to give him his high school certificate until after Rain Man made him famous.
62)Munching dinner at the Little America restaurant in Salt Lake City, he suddenly breaks off and starts singing loudly to the background music. "It's from Rain Man. The scene where he teaches him to dance," says Kim, 63)chortling at the coincidence.
Glossary
1) NASA abbr. National Aeronautics and Space Administration（美国）国家航空航天总局
2) B&B即 bed and breakfast提供早餐的旅社
3) sidelong adj.打横的
4) gait n.步态，步法
5) tilt v.(使)倾斜，(使)翘起
6) quizzically adv.古怪的，嘲弄的
7) beady adj.(指眼睛)小而圆，晶亮如珠子的
8) rush through 快速通过，赶紧做
9) bemused adj.困惑的，发呆的
10) crinkle v.起皱
11) gleeful adj.愉快的
12) grin n.露齿笑，裂口笑
13) rattle off 急促而不假思索地说
14) home run (棒球)本垒打
15) di'rectory n.姓名地址录，目录
16) monotone n.单调(的声音)
17) helter-skelter adj.慌张的，忙乱的
18) alter ego n.极像自己的人
19) autistic n.(专注自我而与现实隔绝的)孤独症患者(常指儿童)
20) savant n.专家，博学者
21) e'ponymous adj.齐名的
22) pro'digious adj.巨大的
23) interior n.内部
24) intone v.(以拖长的单调音)吟咏，吟咏
25) rapid-fire adj.急速的
26) po'lygamy n.一夫多妻，一妻多夫
27) 'Mormon n.摩门教徒，一夫多妻主义者
28) bom'bardment n.炮击，轰击
29) monologue n.独白，独角戏
30) statuette n.小雕像
31) Academy Award n.<美>奥斯卡奖(美国电影艺术金像奖)
32) staggering adj.令人惊愕的
33) arithmetic n.算术，算法
34) Reno n.里诺，仅次于拉斯维加斯的美国第二大赌城
35) unethical adj.不道德的，缺乏职业道德的
36) recluse n.隐遁者，寂寞者
37) a freak show 怪人
38) blossom into 逐渐成为
39) crisscross v.交叉往来
40) simul'taneously adv.同时地
41) upside down adv.颠倒，混乱
42) sideways adv.向侧面地
43) prominent adj.卓越的，显著的，突出的
44) zero gravity 飞行时之失重状态
45) astronaut n.太空人，宇航员
46) motion sickness 运动症
47) 'vertigo n.眩晕，晕头转向
48) MRI即magnetic resonance imaging核磁共振成像
49) CT即Computed Tomography计算机断层扫描显像
50) high-resolution adj.高清晰渡的
51) sy'napse 神经原的神经线连接
52) accele'ration 加速度
53) gravity n.地心引力，重力
54) blister n.水疱
55) skull n.头脑，头骨
56) 'hemisphere n.半球
57) neuro'scientist n.神经病学医师
58) corpus callosum 胼胝体 脑白质的一个弧形团块，负责大脑两半球之间的神经信息传导
59) 'membrane n.膜，隔膜
60) phenomenal adj. 显著的
61) deign v.赐予
62) munch v.用力咀嚼，大声咀嚼
63) chortle at 对...表示高兴
小资料
怪才怪事
霍夫曼曾对金·皮克说：“我也许时一个明星，但你却是整个宇宙。”这个被专家称为“金电脑”(Kimputer)的天才型自闭症患者的记忆专长高达15种领域，通晓天文地理。他读书奇快，读一页书只需8到10秒，并且看过一遍的书，在一年后还可以记得95％的内容。金三岁时，有一次问他的父母英文单字confidential是什么意思。他的父亲开玩笑地给他一本字典要他自己去查，没想到金居然认真查阅。从未查过字典的金竟知道如何依照字幕去查阅单字，然后找出单字的发音及定义。
按常理，人到了50岁智力就开始下降了，但今年55岁的金的脑力不但没有退化，而且更上层楼，能容纳更多的资讯。他的脑子就像是一部电脑记忆体，自动储存各种输入的资讯，且不会因为年龄的增长而消失。这个结果让科学界相当震惊。最近两年，他还学会了弹奏钢琴，而且指法娴熟，俨然一位钢琴家。
虽然具有超乎常人的记忆能力，但金在生活与社交方面几近低能，生活无法自理，并且社群能力低，经常“出口伤人”。他一度过着隐居的生活，害怕接触外界。《雨人》的成功成为了金人生的转折点。他受邀到许多电视节目介绍采访。金的父亲开始与大众一起分享金的才能和故事。皮克父子也成为了残障人的使者。
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