Reaction Paper #1
This story confused me the first time I read it but after reading it a second time I started to understand what the author was trying to get across. I think in this story she is talking about how the miracle of the human mind is and always will be a better scrapbook of photos than anything someone could fabricate by physically capturing photos. Unfortunately the human body does tend to purge all of these valuable memories with age. And this is why all those pictures we take when we are with family and friends are so important.
As I read the story I couldn’t help but think of my wife’s grandmother who passed away a few years ago. She was suffering from Alzheimer’s and at times didn’t even know her own husband. The strain of memory loss is one that I think is very hard on families and tends to bring them closer together. I also thought of the movie The Notebook. This is such a good movie and every now and then my wife and I will take it out and watch.
The pictures that stood out most for me were; Sand on Table by Gabriel Orozco, Songs of the Sea by Ruth Torne-Thomsen and my favorite was the children’s faces by Christian Boltanski. The Sand on the table makes me think of my upcoming vacation to Mexico and sitting on the beach with no one around. The Songs of the Sea reminds me of a couple different things. The first would be my high school mythology class and the different gods and monsters involved with that era. The second is kind of funny; it reminds me of one of my kids’ favorite movies, The Water Horse.
My favorite picture was the children’s faces. The actual title is in German and I don’t know what it says. I really like this picture because the children all look so happy even during the time period it was taken (1939). There were a lot of things going on in Germany at that time that I think it would be hard for anyone to be happy. This just shows how a child can be happy in almost any situation.
I was reading your post and as you talked about memory loss, I was thinking...The Notebook. Funny how the next line you wrote was that you thought of the Notebook. I like how you refer to the mind as making scrapbooks. I think that hits the nail on the head.
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