Our society’s excessive desire for possessions and status now has a name, thanks to Peter C. Whybrow, M.D. His recently published book ‘American Mania,’ subtitled ‘When More is Not Enough,’ (Norton) takes a novel look at the paradox of how the world’s most affluent nation also has epidemic rates of stress, anxiety, depression and obesity. ”’In our relentless pursuit of happiness, we have overshot the target and spawned a manic society with an insatiable appetite for more,’ writes Whybrow, a practicing psychiatrist who is director of the Jane and Terry Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. A British transplant, Whybrow divides his time between L.A. and a second home in New Hampshire. The author will appear at Village Books at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 7. ”Whybrow’s theories and idea for the book stem from having observed the frenzy of the Internet-driven economy of the late 1990s, an environment that created many instant millionaires. Mania, defined in psychiatric terms as a highly energetic yet delusional sense of well-being, seemed to Whybrow a natural metaphor for what he views as a deeply troubled American psyche. ”’Everyone feels that they have to get richer and richer,’ Whybrow said during a recent phone interview. ‘Yet there is no correlation, no evidence that this is making anyone happier.’ ” He points out that despite a massive increase in disposable income, many American families consider themselves too busy to enjoy their affluence. ‘Material wealth has been decoupled from contentment and personal fulfillment,’ he writes. ‘The time investment devoted to securing wealth has crowded out family life and threatens the intimacy on which humans thrive.”’ ”According to Whybrow, human beings in general don’t manage abundance well. But for the United States, a nation of immigrants who by nature are driven and competitive, this over-the-top hunger for acquisition is especially acute. ” He contends that genes play a big role, too, insofar as the human brain is programmed to crave material reward. However, the natural checks to our biologically driven self-interest have been diminished by an increasingly global’and impersonal’society. ”’When Adam Smith wrote ‘The Wealth of Nations’ in 1776, Boston was 10,000 people. The market was the hub of the community, and people learned social and moral rules through the marketplace. That is not the case anymore,’ Whybrow said. ”In short, the founders of the great American experiment in free-market economy could not have envisioned the ‘Fast New World’ of the 21st century, where global business operates 24/7 and megastores dominate the landscape. ”’We have removed from our lives that which gives people a general sense of belonging,’ says Whybrow, referring not only to the loss of the ‘corner store,’ but also to our migratory habits. ‘Most people do not live close to parents and other family.’ ”The author weaves together history, economics, social science and biology in analyzing the malaise of modern life, including a chapter examining the roots of obesity in this country. The book also contains colorful portraits of people who have chosen to step off the ‘American Dream’ treadmill. ”’Ultimately, the only way for change is through individual responsibility,’ says Whybrow, who hopes his book will spur reflection on how to slow down and achieve a better balance between work and family.

A couple of weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times interviewed four members of the elite club, Mensa’open to those who score in the top 2 percent on an accepted standardized intelligence test. ”The questions were fatuous: What else could they have been? Examples such as ‘How do Mensans go wild?’ or ‘What’s the downside of a high IQ?’ But then the answer to ‘Who was the smartest famous person? was provocative. ‘Benjamin Franklin,’ said one Mensan. ‘He had a grasp of democracy and international relations, and he got along really well with women.’ ”Aha, sounds like multiple intelligences, I thought. MI theory, promulgated by Dr. Howard Gardner over 20 years ago to wrest intellect from test makers, takes an interdisciplinary stand toward looking at intelligence. Gardner posits that all individuals have multiple intelligences’nine, using his criteria. These include linguistic, logical-mathematical (the aptitudes we base our I.Q. tests upon), but also kinesthetic (dancer/craftsperson), interpersonal (understanding of self), intrapersonal (politician/ salesperson), musical, spatial (architect/ sculptor), naturalist (to make discriminations in nature) and the existential intelligence (asking the big question, e.g., What is love? What’s going to happen to our universe?). ”A psychologist and professor of neuroscience at Harvard, Gardner updated educators and parents last week at Seven Arrows School about his theory of multiple intelligences and offered applications of how well this way of looking at human capacity can be used in education. ”All of us have all of these intelligences in degrees. So, when somebody declares that they are not ‘creative,’ it reflects a defeatist attitude, which Gardner attributes to the Western world’s view that there is only one single intelligence that one is born with; ‘If you know who the parents are, you can predict the child’s I.Q., and there is not much you can do about it.’ He leans towards the Asian model, that intelligence reflects effort, which may explain why ‘East Asians are at the top of the intelligence score.’ ”Most schools throughout the world are uniform schools, where everybody is treated the same way. And that way pitches everything in the language/logic intelligence camp. ”’If you don’t think that way, then school is not too contoured to you,’ Gardner says. ”Another approach, one that he advocates, caters to the student’s strengths. ‘You find out all about the intelligences of your students so you can teach things in lots of ways.’ ”Gardner says that the best way to assess intelligences is much more contextual, and cited as an example the preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, which teach young children through what they term the ‘hundred languages’ of childhood. These include graphic representations of the children’s thoughts and ideas, and verbal, motor, musical, mathematical, ethical, imaginary, cognitive and other expressions. ”Each infant-toddler center and pre-primary in Reggio has a studio or laboratory, which is filled with natural materials and art supplies. In one area, children manipulate simple machines, such as gears and threaded pipes. In another area, children learn about water from a system of transparent pipes and cascades. ”One center features a table with a Plexiglas cover, lighted underneath, used for drawing and related activities. There is also a center for teachers to document the children’s interests and plan lessons. ”While Gardner reminded the audience that multiple intelligences is not a goal, education is totally a goal-oriented enterprise. ”Schools set goals, such as understanding a discipline, establishing a civil society, service to community, critical thinking. ”Gardner’s own education priority is teaching for understanding in any discipline. ‘If you can take something and apply it appropriately in a new situation, that shows you’ve understood it,’ he believes. ”He cited three ‘topics’ in three disciplines: the theory of evolution in science; the Holocaust in history and Mozart in the arts. ‘If you devote real time to these topics, and are willing to sacrifice coverage for uncoverage and go deeply by activating different intelligences, then you reach more kids and you show what it’s like to really understand something.’ ”For this reporter, the picture of knowledge as a room with many windows, each one an intelligence that can be used to understand, said it all.

Six distinctively designed outdoor spaces will be on view when the Pacific Palisades Garden Club sponsors its annual tour from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 10, rain or shine. The event also features a plant market, offering a variety of interesting and unusual plants for sale, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Palisades Branch Library, 861 Alma Real Dr. Tickets, $15 for members and $20 for the public, may be purchased in advance at The Outdoor Room, 17311 Sunset Blvd., or on the day of the tour at any of the gardens. 649 San Lorenzo: The Surprise Garden The surprise? Just when the couple’s two children were off to junior high and the house and garden were being adjusted to more grown-up areas, twins were on the way! The owners had to shift gears and make the garden child-oriented, incorporating enclosed grassy areas, a sandbox and shady places to play. Yet this garden works well for every age. By using straight lines and simple plant groupings, the garden gains understated power and a sense of peacefulness. In the front of the house, geometry dictates with pavers, borders, and the lawn set at right angles and accented by an apple fence and gravel path. Cercis canadensis ‘Alba,’ punctuate and give height to parallel borders. The second part, paved with gravel, is an extension of the inviting veranda. Here are square beds of herbs, vegetables and citrus. Lavender borders lead to the sunset garden, named for its magnificent views. The true surprise may well be how a garden designed for young children can be so gratifying for grown-ups. 15935 Alcima: Modelo Shales Nature, in the guise of the geological feature of slippery strata of Modelo shales, dictated the planting scheme here. Plants requiring minimum water were necessary to stabilize the collapsing slope and, consequently, succulents abound. Aloes line the entrance road, and a variety of beautifully arranged succulents accent the hillside paths. A sweep of lawn expands the view outward to a line of ocean. The long, deep border is skillfully constructed using architectural and patterning elements of all types of succulent plants: small and tree size, usual and rare, new starts and specimens of great maturity. Note the parallel verticals of Euphorbia ingens, the wonderfully named dragon tree (Dracaena draco) with its pinched-jointed limbs, and the massive trunk of a huge, shaggy-haired nolina, sheltering a bedding of crassula, sedum, echeveria, and graptopetalum. The balcony of the 1940s cedar house shades hoya. An ancient wisteria skeleton supports ferny vines of Bowiea volubilis which rise from croquet ball-like bulbs collected in pots. Behind the house, tillandsia enliven posts and seven enormous staghorn ferns accent the hillside. The legacy of the former Boyd Walker garden is being lovingly upheld and enhanced by the present owner. 850 Muskingum Avenue: In the Garden of the Buddha The sound of water splashing down its rocky course sings a welcoming note to the world of nature. Birds, bees and butterflies find food and water here. Human visitors find mossy, lichened rocks and delight in the pond and meadow of tall, unmown red fescue. Red-leafed cercis and dodonaea are echoed in the maple grove where Japanese maples show off their beautiful color and form. Past the gate, a black urn centers a courtyard. Around the corner, the garden provides pleasures for family and guests. Here is the outdoor kitchen, ready for pizza and paella, a greenhouse for the orchid collector, pool, fire pit and grassy lawn for ball and badminton. The handsome trellis above the outdoor dining room is the home of the white climbing rose Mme. Alfred Carriere. Terraces enclose perennials, including many roses and flowers for cutting. Among its pleasures, the garden provides fruits: apples, citrus, mulberries and stone fruits. The carefully selected rocks and the collection of garden accessories’urns, pots, troughs and benches’unite the front and back garden themes, while an enormous Buddha blesses all. 655 Brooktree: The Oak Woodland Eight years ago, when the owner-gardener first saw the soaring, curving oak branches on this property, she knew she wanted to live here. To protect the oak roots, instead of digging down to build ponds and stream, she built up to place the shallow-water features on the former surface above the roots. White abutilon, white heliotrope and many kinds of ferns now cover this forest floor. A red bench provides repose and a view through a pond’s purple water iris to the garden beyond. The patio, trellised with wisteria vines, has been planned to provide solitude and comfort. A side path, luxuriant with various ferns, leads to a rose garden that surrounds a pool. Leptospermum and purple flowering buddleja intersperse the many roses. One corner of the back garden is anchored by ferny branches of Acacia cognota, the other side by a rustic twig arch clothed with a purple passion vine and a white climbing Iceberg rose. The owner, a mixed media artist, has placed her own work throughout the garden. 522 Arbramar Avenue: A California Family Garden This Craftsman garden has a California feel with its emphasis on bright sunny colors and the use of local rocks. A native sycamore shades a front border of abutilon, heliotrope, daylilies and fiber optic plant, Scirpus cernuus. Bleeding heart, an experiment in this mild winter zone, is a favorite of the children. While most of the owner’s bromeliad collection is inside, two beauties can be found on the front porch. A side garden with a tiled wall fountain features green striped clumping bamboo ‘Alphonse Karr.’ Grape and hoya vines climb up an unusual fencing called Greenscreen. The back garden is planned for the family with large play areas. Because the children love to pick berries, strawberries are nestled in many borders, and blackberry and raspberry vines are trained on fences. From the upper terrace a rocky stream flows down to a gravel-bottomed pond, around which are various grass-like carex. In an enormous Chinese elm hangs a staghorn fern which the owner has moved from garden to garden for 20 years. 15945 Miami Way: A Gift from the 30s This 1932 brick house and its garden have gathered charm and interest throughout the years. The first house in this area, it originally had a clear view across bean fields to the ocean. A brick walk leads past a strawberry guava tree to the gate where yellow roses, ‘The Mermaid’ and ‘Lady Banks,’ climb. A fountain courtyard is shaded by a long-ago-planted pink flowering brachyciton, or bottle tree, so-called because of the swollen shape of its trunk. An ancient Bird of Paradise grows to the second story roof line. To the east an arch, half destroyed, reaches out with its lantern, lending the aura of an ancient ruin. Behind the arch is the thorny chartreuse trunk of chorisia, the silk floss tree. Lining the flagstone drive is a series of bicolor roses: ‘Betty Boop,’ ‘Peppermint Twist,’ and the climber ‘Berries and Cream.’ A red trumpet vine, its twisted trunks massed at the corner of the garage, has been known to send its red flowers down through branches over the patio table. The current owners enjoy tending to their inherited plants while preserving the charm of this historic house and its garden.