Making Light :: Ex voto :: comments

Ex voto

Art: a memorial to the artist's grandfather, gone by way of Alzheimer's. The third photo's the best....

Ex voto -- comment #1 from Mike Finley

Mon, 11 Nov 2002 08:55:27 -0500

Am I seeing right -- the resolution is so-so, and my eyesight and monitor no better -- a page of Torah with strips of verses cut out and stacked into a kind of nest?

A friend (http://mfinley.com/story/fredwalder.htm) has an uncle who had a hard time growing up in anti-Semitic Minneapolis (yes, it was) in the 30s. He's made his living as a junkman, just like in the old days.

He's observant, but you would not know it from meeting him. Tough guy. The strips of Torah made me think of Fred.

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Posted November 11, 2002 8:55 AM by Mike Finley

Ex voto -- comment #2 from Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Mon, 11 Nov 2002 09:43:28 -0500

I can't read the text either, but it's in the Roman alphabet. I'd like to see a higher-resolution picture of that thing. Or maybe not; there's always a chance I'd love it less if I knew what it said.

At this level of resolution it works for me on two levels. It's an image of the tangling and clumping in neurons that's the basic mechanism of the disease. It's also an image of the cognitive effects of Alzheimer's: first the orderly flow of thoughts are fragmented and scrambled; then it passes into blankness and silence.

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Posted November 11, 2002 9:43 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Ex voto -- comment #3 from James D. Macdonald

Mon, 11 Nov 2002 14:58:00 -0500

The text is hard to read. I can make out "... in Isabella's..." and "... assessing eagerness..." and "... up ..." and "...another..." and "...decorated..." and "... beneath him..." and "... stone bridge..."

Jumbled bits.

Alzheimer's is a nasty disease.

The people are still in there, struggling to get out.

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Posted November 11, 2002 2:58 PM by James D. Macdonald