Real Genius

[Matt Deckard]

It’s said that it is better to be smarter than you look. I tend to have a problem as I often look smarter than I am and confuse people at times. It’s not hard, very easy in fact. Being unkempt though in a well dressed manner was pretty easy when everybody wore suits in the 30’s though now it’s hard to tell the rocket scientist from the jock since most everyone dresses like a street urchin in tattered jeans and oversized undershirts that are dyed different colors with logos added to the front or back.

Einstein looked like a maverick in with his mussed hair. Wasn’t always the case, though the look was cultivated over time.

You see the genius look transition well onto Russell Crowe in a beautiful mind as his clothes become more and more eclectic and he loses his sense of order.

It’s the look of the learning, the deep in thought issued to those whom haven’t the time to bother with putting together stripes or spots. The Doctor Who look which always worked because you knew he was going through the motions though didn’t really care what he put on his back.

I love this look. Even though I don’t have the brains to carry off the truth behind the look I love the look. I’ve been to JPL and NASA have hung out with the scientists of today whom have no sense of style other than what they bought in the Campus store. JPL sweatshirts and jeans are the clothes of the Einsteins of today. No longer do they even need to try to fit in as the sense of cordiality which was once a mainstay in our society is gone. They blend into the background leaving the way to separate the thinker from the masses harder to determine (they still lock themselves out of their cars more often). It’s nice and dandy to be the dandy… though sometimes I prefer the disheveled genius – not the new ones mind you, they are too trendy in their anti trend appeal. I like the old geniuses with their oversized glasses and ill conceived pattern choices and their sheer focus when they explain something to the point where you think they are nearly insane with finding out an answer to a question.

Sometimes I just don’t have a comb handy.

Ureal Genius

 

[Baron Kurtz]

hmmm, i'm not sure what you're trying to say here . . .

From what i've seen, read and been told about Einstein, he was pretty obsessive about how he looked. A very stylish chap with quite the wardrobe. Like everyone, the look he adopted was quite contrived.

bk

 

[slicedbread]

My teacher said that he tended to wear the same exact outfit almost all the time so that he wouldn't have to concentrate on trivial choices such as clothing....Take that with a grain of salt as my teacher tends to make up stories to seem smart...

 

[Matt Deckard]

Well, contrived to the point of looking out of sorts. His style was terrible and I like it.

 

[slicedbread]

Just did a quick search to find this:

Another story about Einstein that is highly exaggerated but has some basis in reality concerns his clothing. Many say that Einstein wore the same thing every day and had a closet full of the exact same suit, shirts, ties, and shoes. This isn't true, especially when Einstein's second wife, Elsa, was alive. Elsa took a firm hand when it came to her husband's appearance, and pictures of the two of them touring everything from Japan to the American Southwest show Einstein in beautiful silk vests, and dapper neckwear -- as well as in a kimono and an American Indian headdress. But after Elsa passed away and Einstein spent his last 20 years as a professor emeritus at Princeton, his clothing did become more, er, irregular. He openly disliked wearing a suit and while already legendary for often going sockless, now he wore sandals. Perhaps the most common pictures of Einstein from that time show him happily shuffling around his Princeton study wearing a big gray sweatshirt. Luckily for Einstein, his life coincided with the invention of the cotton sweatshirt -- for he was enamored of the soft warm comfortable garment.

http://www.einsteinatoz.com/faq.shtml

 

[Mike in Seattle]

My teacher said that he tended to wear the same exact outfit almost all the time so that he wouldn't have to concentrate on trivial choices such as clothing....Take that with a grain of salt as my teacher tends to make up stories to seem smart...

One of the philosophy professors in college did the same thing - one day, someone asked why he always dressed the same. He said every couple of years, he'd make a run to the mall to buy 10 pair of the same tan corduroy slacks, 10 of the same white Oxford cloth button-down shirts and however many pair of black socks. He didn't want to expend time & thought to deciding what to wear every day. Twenty years later, one of my cousin's grandkids had him and I jokingly said, "Let me guess - tan corduroy slacks, white button down shirt, black socks, cordovan loafers and hands clasped mid-chest almost prayer-like as he approaches the podium and the big hands sweeping up & to the side motion as he says 'And now, let us begin...'" Never wore a watch because he could always ask someone what time it was, and besides, if you wear a watch and it doesn't match, say, the clock in your lecture hall, you might expend too much thought process wondering which was correct.

 

[reetpleat]

Read once that einstein once timed how long it took for a hat to dry and his hair to dry. The hat took longer, so he never wore a hat in the rain again.

Oesn't sound all that smart to me. A hat you can take off. Did he never use an umbrella for the same reason?

Note that other than the hair, he usually wore a decent suit. Because, as noted, bck then, you would have to make a great effort to wear a too flashy suit or some other poor dressing. Workmens dungarees wer an option, but so unaceptable tht they wre not a choice.

When he started wearing them, sweatshirts had a certain style to them. They wre not the slovenly norm they are today.

 

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

My teacher said that he tended to wear the same exact outfit almost all the time so that he wouldn't have to concentrate on trivial choices such as clothing....Take that with a grain of salt as my teacher tends to make up stories to seem smart...

.

 

[Dagwood]

It's hard to pull off the Einstein-look when you're a guy with little to no hair left. Without the hair, us balding guy just look...rumpled. Are balding guys able to pull off the rumpled-genius look?

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

What I've noticed as I've grown older is that grey hair tends to be wild, it tends to stick up more than the hair that still has its color. That contributes to the "genius" look.