Fun Friday Resources: Folding paper...

“Peace by Peace,” by Kevin Box. (Click to see more of Box’s incredible work.)

The piece pictured here is by sculptor Kevin Box. I own one of the copies of this work, purchased on our last trip to Santa Fe and still not hung on any wall. Weirdly, there is another Kevin Box sculpture here in Newnan, the recent purchase and installation of which I have not gotten to the bottom.

Despite its appearance, the work is not paper; it is bronze and aluminum. However, I love folding paper/origami, and so today’s resources are all of a piece. OF PAPER, GET IT?

First up, Fold ‘n’ Fly, a database of paper airplanes. What’s not to like?

Side story about a paper airplane. When I was a senior in high school, West Georgia College got some kind of grant to pay professors to come to Newnan to talk at gifted kids. One of those professors was none other than Newt Gingrich, who was a liberal at the time. (I suppose he hadn’t yet figured out that conservatism was a better grift.) He talked at us about Future Shock, which had just been published.

One day he was trying to make a point about inequality or something, so he took us eager beavers sitting on the front row of the lecture hall and made us sit on the back row. In this simulation, he said, we were not allowed to ask questions and the highest grade we could make was a C. He then took the actual ne’er-do-wells from the back row and put them on the front row, blessing them with an A unless they truly screwed up.

First rule of teaching gifted kids: don’t give them a simulation unless you are prepared for them to mess with it. I and my gang tumbled to the point of the exercise immediately (gifted!) and began misbehaving accordingly. Someone — Tim, I think — folded a paper airplane and launched it out over the rows in front of us. It sailed beautifully down through the room and sailed right past Gingrich.

He lost it. He pitched a fit about how we were screwing things up — even though we were fulfilling the point of his exercise — and he terminated the simulation. So yes, Newt Gingrich was a putz even before he was famous.

The internet is full of origami resources, so even if you don’t have half a dozen books on the topic like I do, you can still learn to fold that crane or box. Here’s one, the Origami Resource Center. One of my favorites that I used just this week is the “American CD Case.” (That is a PDF link.) Another is the Golden Snitch.

Here’s a really cool website devoted to letter-locking, which is how our forebears got along before envelopes. Warning: the videos are deliberate, almost ASMR in their deliberateness.

Finally, for those whose idea of letter-writing does not involved heavy paper and sealing wax, MailChimp has a newsletter tool just for you: TinyLetter. Enjoy!

UPDATE (11/17/18): I was inspired to find a place to hang my Kevin Box piece that met my criteria — readily visible by me and with enough lateral lighting to show off the texture of the piece.