![]() ![]() Beta-wave cuts (`Sonata for Piano and Violin in B-flat Major, Third Movement, Allegretto') are designed for quick thinking and working at peak energy." "The `alpha-wave' selections (including `Divertimento in B-flat Major, Fourth Movement, Adagio') supposedly help one concentrate and improve retention. "e's been listening to a CD called `Tune Your Brain with Mozart,' " Fatsis writes of Graham's pretournament regimen. ![]() ![]() There's Matt Graham, who, according to a Scrabble colleague, is, " `Just one chromosome up from the guy in "Silence of the Lambs." ' " Before playing Fatsis, he dips his finger in a jar of Vicks, smears it under his nose and insists that menthol helps him "recall." He even considers renting a portable oxygen tank for the 2000 National Scrabble Championship tournament in Rhode Island to improve his brain function. " `Scratch the surface of any champion in any individual sport,' " Williams says, " `and you're often going to find an obsessed misfit who's deficient in many parts of his life.' " Fatsis manages to find all of them and describe each one with consummate journalistic brio. Though Fatsis tries to count himself among the freaks, he can't really compete with them. "Word Freak" is less about words and more about game after game played with freak after freak. Minor in "The Professor and the Mad Man." Neither is "Word Freak" a curious, one-of-a-kind story about a barking-mad benefactor to humanity, as was Dr. ![]()
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