January 4-6

Reading: Inevitable Illusions by Massimo Piattelli-Palimari

--Like optical illusions, which (simplified) involve shortcuts taken by our optical apparatus, there are a number of mental shortcuts we tend to take when making choices and reasoning things out--estimates that lead to faulty reasoning and decision-making. This is known as "mental economy" though the author unmasks this as "mental sloth" that can lead to potentially problematic choices or decisions made.

Much of the book is examples of different varieties of this in the form of puzzler type questions, categorized by type. It's interesting in grand strokes, but I found the diction and syntax of the author to have that particular quality of formality/awkwardness/oddly-fitting idiom that is often an indication of a translation or native speaker of the Romance languages (esp. Spanish and Italian--reminiscent of many of the translations I've read of Latin-American fiction, for instance). I find that peculiarity of idiom enticing in fiction, leading to unexpected descriptive phrases and evocations. It didn't work as well for me in non-fiction. The "voice" felt heavy, long-winded and not very readable, despite a friendly and accessible tone (make no mistake: there weren't issues with grammar that I noticed... it was more subtle than that).

Viewing: Silent Hill

Felt like a video game. Made little sense as a film and slightly more sense as a video game--but there were still large gaps in logic, motivation, etc.

Syriana

Kind of neat; kind of confusing. It wasn't a big revelation to me and I thought it could have been more clearly and suspensefully done. Ultimately I liked it, but didn't love it. It's not like unmasking the corrupting was some deep insight, but I did like that there was no one specific villian of the piece, and most people were shown to be acting in what they felt was a reasonable way, in the context if his situation. It wasn't one of those "heh heh heh, what evil can I wreak today? I know! I'll scapegoat some lackey as a sleight of hand gesture in order to consolidate my big business and lotsa money position--and just cause it's a rotten thing to do." Each of the characters really did feel he was the hero of his own story and we saw them walk that tightrope of moral compromise (or even fall off) all the while believe that he did so for a bigger, better cause (family, country etc.). Nice to see that balance without any kind of attendant glorification.