The Soloist.

After a disappointing Friday night, mainly after i found out that i was not getting two tickets for the Wolverine World Premiere, i decided to see a movie. So i went to the 12:20 am showing of The Soloist.

Right away i caught on to the who schizophrenia thing right off. I really enjoyed Jamie Foxx’s role, and he pulled it off to perfection. He really did have the world on two strings!!

For me it was particularly nice because i know some of the homeless around ASU, we meet on the streets quite frequently, one of them for example has a PhD in anthropology, i learned a lot from him after sneaking into Jack in the Box to steal him a drink (technically it wasn’t stolen! i did nothing illegal)

The idea of a genius homeless guy may seem strange to many, but its not to me. everywhere i go i see the homeless, and if i can, i learn their stories. Most of them don’t want to go back to “normal” society, they are quite content where they are. Often i wonder if they have stumbled upon a greater truth that i can’t see.

It reminds me of Madman from Hex and the City (Simon Green, wonderful author!) He was a genius who stumbled upon The Truth, the Truth were nothing can hide, and he went crazy and ended up on the street. That’s how most homeless are, they know something, and they’ve run away from all the madness and created their own.

Anyway, at one point in the film i got to laugh out loud at teh audience. It was during a minute (possibly more) long period of synchronization between color and music that closely resembles the visualizations on Windows Media Player. Most of the audience scoffed and booed at teh screen and their sad minute of shame, i laughed at them. I can recognize synesthesia when i see it. which made me gape, schizophrenia and synesthesia? poor guy, amazing guy, i mean, just WOW!!

For those of you who didn’t know, synesthesia is one of my favorite things in the world, while not synesthetic myself, i really appreciate a nice story with it. (Freddie Highmore, my favorite actor, is rumored ot play a synesthtic boy in a film adaptation of Beautiful Miscellaneous)

Anyway, The soloist, the plot is a but weak, the acting is AMAZING, teh going is slow and the movie is a tad long, btu you must, MUST go and see it!!

The Nurture Assumption

Yesterday I read the latest article in Satoshi Kanazawa’s Blog: The Scientific Fundamentalist (perhaps my favorite blog) about Harris’ book The Nurture Assumption.

And as I read about some of the the reposes I was once again shocked by how stupid people can be. Her argument (I haven’t finished the book yet, I barely started it) is simply that the people that children socialize with have a greater impact on their psyche’s rather than their parents. It may difficult to see how and why, but it is true.

A child spends more time learning and discussing things with peers than with their parents. Parents, in their selfish desire to protect children from conflict, will hide all of their potentially learning experiences from their children, thus causing children to turn to other people (possibly the media) to gain example of how to deal with problems.

(At this point , I really have no idea if this is even remotely close to the book, but this is only my observation)

I will, naturally, post more after i’ve finished the book and can talk about it in a inteliigent manner.