Kristin Hohenadel, at Slate:
… The Lucerne-based Sipho Mabona folded his first paper airplane at age 5 and has since made a career producing stunning origami animals, roses, human figures and insects, among other more abstract creations. He has shown his work and taught origami workshops around the world.
Now the 33-year-old artist is appealing to Indiegogo’s crowdfunding angels to help him realize his ambition of folding a life-size elephant out of a single sheet of 50 x 50 meter (164 x 164 foot) paper. (So far he’s raised $13,843 of his $24,000 goal with 3 weeks to go.) Mabona says his aim is to show what a single sheet of paper can do by using it to create a replica of one of the world’s most imposing land-dwelling creatures.
Mabona told me by phone that he developed the pattern for the elephant in about a month, a process that was sped up by having already worked out how to make patterns for origami tigers, bears and rhinos. He said that his process is a combination of precise geometry and artistic intuition. To make a work of origami, he makes all the folds in the paper before refolding along the creaselines to assemble a finished 3D object. The beauty of a piece of paper with intricate creaselines has also inspired him to produce crease patterns as wall art and ceramic plates…
I’ve been fascinated by origami since before the American Museum of Natural History started their annual Origami Holiday Tree (even though I never got beyond the basic folds). This project just tickles me, which is, of course, the intention of its creators.
tybee
let’s see him make an elephant out of a wine bottle tin wrapper…
Lurking Buffoon
What a low-T liberal making AWESOME ART! Here’s to hoping he reaches his goal!
The nice thing with Indiegogo at least, the artists still get whatever funds were raised even if it was below the goal. No all or nothing approach like Kickstarter.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I desperately need to know about why so many computer programmers seem to be some weird kind of libertarian-fascist. I only learned about this today, and I have to say, I’m stumped. Is there something about programming that lends itself to this kind of politics, or something about programming that draws people who are already libertarian-fascists? It just seems so random. I have to know what this is all about.
Botsplainer
Can’t fold more than 8 times…
Walker
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
It has to do with the entrepreneurial/start-up culture that is pervasive in computer science programs these days.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@efgoldman:
This is part of the answer. I was a programmer for 17 years. Also programmers work largely independently and have portable skills sets. So they tend to favor ideas of independence and autonomy rather than interdependence and cooperation.
schrodinger's cat
Precocious Newton Kitteh
srv
What’s a good book for advanced origami?
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Yes.
Not able to control their H.S. environment, they retired to D&D, SciFi, fantasy and Ayn Rand and never got past it. It’s one of the real blind spots of glibertarians, not that they think everyone is a rational actor, but they think they are too.
We really need all those old H.S. bullies to stay that way after college and beat their nerds up once a year to keep them in their place.
I worked at NASA and a lot of older nerds. glibertarianism is nowhere near as common there as it is among the post-doc.com nerds.
Read the threads of butthurt (google Hacker News) when some Oakland protestors went ape on a Google Bus yesterday.
patrick II
There is a wonderful documntery on origami free on youtube” Beyond the Fold that is well worth seeing.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Walker:
What I don’t get is why the majority of the mechanical/technical/factory people I work with are dead set anti-union. Maybe they’ve been brainwashed by the right wing nonsense machine.
“Dude, do you know why you’re not working 7 13-hour days a week? Unions.”
schrodinger's cat
Why are the conservatives so fixated on everyone else’s love life? May be they should focus a bit on their own.
geg6
I have no arty or crafty abilities. I can do things like interior design but that’s kind of like my being a clothes/shoe horse. I’m good at utilizing other people’s arty/crafty abilities.
Lurking Buffoon
@srv: To be fair, D&D, sci fi and fantasy can be pretty awesome.
I was under the impression the draw to libertarian-facism was because these people were in a fairly insular environment where social skills were never a high priority. However, the other explanations in this thread sound better.
schrodinger's cat
@geg6: I love bags too and jewelry and silk scarves.
geg6
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
When I was young, unions, at least most of them and most of the most lucrative ones, were all white. Once blahs became members, it became all about the unions protecting the lazy and unproductive. That’s what happened here in steel country anyway.
This is how you got your fabled Reagan Democrats. Which they weren’t really. They started out undermining themselves as founding members of the Nixon Silent Majority. They were already there and Reagan’s media spinners just pointed them out to a cowed and happily complicit media. Same crowd, though. Racist douches.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
15x15m paper, not 50x50m
Southern Beale
Just saw “American Hustle.” Pretty good movie. Amy Adams’ cleavage should get a supporting actress nomination. Don’t remember half-boob being such a big thing in the 70s.
schrodinger's cat
@Southern Beale: I have only seen her in Julie and Julia and was not too impressed.
StringOnAStick
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Hubby is a software developer in a group of them, and none of them are libertarian assholes. Most of them are liberals, but maybe its the industry (travel) and the fact that there are a lot more women than usual in the group. Those assholes in engineering though – libertarians.
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh, man, I love Amy Adams. Check out “Junebug” sometime. It’s not a great movie–small, indie film with some obvious flaws–but Amy Adams’ performance is amazing. She’s good in “Sunshine Cleaning” too. I thought she did a great job in “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”, which is great fun and Frances McDormand, as usual, is amazing. I liked her in “Julie and Julia” though, so maybe take my recommendations with a grain of salt.
Southern Beale
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh I think she’s a great actress, I just think the acting was upstaged by her cleavage. For that matter, Jennifer Lawrence’s acting was upstaged by her floppy updo and Christian Bale’s acting was upstaged by his wretched combover.
Chat Noir
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, me either. Although she had an appearance in an ep of The West Wing and was pretty good.
Southern Beale
@Violet:
Agree, she was terrific in “Junebug.”
Dead Ernest
I have no ‘attitude’ about this. Not being dismissive or in anyway droll or supercilious…
I am curious to know, how does the task he wants to accomplish require $24K?
Gravenstone
@Southern Beale: Not sure that speaks well for the “acting” when bad hair can upstage it.
Violet
@Southern Beale: Haven’t seen the film, but I think Jennifer Lawrence is somewhat overrated as an actress. She’s good, but she also seem to be the It Girl of the moment, so it seems like the entertainment press thinks she can do no wrong. Seems to be a down to earth person, though.
Violet
@Southern Beale: I think Amy Adams has a lot of nuance to her acting. Really good actors can convey a lot with just a tiny movement of the corner of their mouth or a slight narrowing of the eyes or whatever. It’s not all big acting. She’s one of those, imho.
mainmata
@geg6: I grew up in Pittsburgh, speaking of steel country. Even though my father was a shop steward for Westinghouse (East Pittsburgh (IUEW), none of his kids could get summer jobs because management reserved all summer jobs for their own. So I could only get summer jobs in non-unionized firms. I don’t blame the unions; I blame management for freezing out smart working class kids. That said, I ended up doing hospital work (EMT-equivalent at the time) and loved it so no worries.
Ruckus
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
There’s a lot of independent thinking going on in those fields as well. It’s the old, I work hard at my job why should someone who just shows up get paid the same? There may be some truth in this but without unions the waste would be that no one gets paid properly and everyone works too many hours using crappy equipment. Because the owners then have no reason to invest in better equipment, labor is real cheap and reliable because we have them by the balls. In the end it isn’t good for either party.
geg6
@Southern Beale:
I’m dying to see that movie. And that’s a pretty rare event these days. But I’ve read a bit about it, I remember the times well (hell, it was my heyday!), and I love a lot of these actors. Love Amy Adams and I really love Jennifer Lawrence (I think she’s a terrific actress in everything I’ve ever seen her in). And Christian Bale is a damn fine actor, no matter how much I hated his Batman and that whole trilogy. I head the dude who plays the NJ mayor who, I think, is who ends up screwed in the end is also wonderful.
Amir Khalid
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
A square sheet of paper 50 metres on a side would cover half an American football field, from goal line to 50-yard line, plus a border of about seven feet on each of the four sides. (Because a metre is three and a half inches longer than a yard.) I couldn’t begin to imagine how to.handle so large a sheet, let alone fold it. Working with a 15-metre square of paper is hard enough to imagine. I’d worry about the paper elephant being rigid enough to keep its shape, and dense enough not to get blown away.in the lightest gust.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Violet: I loved Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, which I thought was a great and very un-Hollywood type of movie. I thought she was pretty good in the Silver Linings movie, which I didn’t like as much as some people. Good, not great. I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything else. I’m looking forward to American Hustle. Do they mention John McCain? He was caught up in ABSCAM, wasn’t he?
Anne Laurie
@Southern Beale:
I spent ‘the 70s’ in a midwestern university town, where there were two moods of boobage: Barbie-doll-halter, and no-bra-under-tshirt. From the stills I’ve seen, Barbie-doll-halter in NJ seems adequately period…
(True story: There was a major group of lesbian separatists working at our university library — some of the founders of the Womyn’s Music Festival — because the pompous sexist idiot male hiring director only ever looked at their un-bra’d chests, never at the expression of loathing on their faces. )
As for Amy Adams, I’ve only seen her in Junebug (which I hated) and Doubt (which I loved). She was more than adequate at playing Young & Vulnerable, but Y&V is not my favorite mode of acting proficiency. Good for her, if she’s moving past that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Keating Five, not ABSCAM.
Anne Laurie
@geg6:
Jeremy Renner, from Hurt Locker and The Town. Also a tragically short-lived series called The Unusuals, where he & Amber Tamblyn played NYC detectives unwillingly partnered up, in what amounted to a series of mini-masterpieces in the art of scene-stealing.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
From the link, the artist is using a metal armature under/inside the sculpture proper to prevent just such accidents.
Anne Laurie
@Dead Ernest: From what I can tell, expensively made-to-order sheet of paper, plus a place to spend three weeks assembling the elephant, and the other expenses concurrent to the assembly (including video equipment, and ‘tour guides’).
That’s part of the White Elephant joke — it’s an artistic project no ‘sensible’ person would imagine!
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
In the tropics, we don’t celebrate the winter solstice as such. Christians do celebrate Christmas, however, with the open house for friends and family that is traditional here at any festival. And as I like to say, good wishes are always welcome no matter the occasion.
maya
If only Pajama Boy had been crafting origami instead of cradling that ridiculous hot cocoa nothing would have happened.
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
It’s actually not the only project involving a white elephant that was a white elephant. Napoleon Bonaparte had one too; his was the Elephant of the Bastille.
Steeplejack
@Southern Beale:
I saw American Hustle last night. Thought it was damn good, although they did let the costume designer and the set decorator go to town. They sort of turned the kitsch up to 11.
The old friend I saw it with, also a survivor of the ’70s, made the good point that Amy Adams’s character would have had those half-boob outfits but wouldn’t have worn them all day every day.
Anyway, great script and Oscar-bait acting across the board. The big surprise for me was Jeremy Renner as Mayor Carmine Polito. It took me a while to realize, “Hey, that’s that misshapen lump from The Bourne Legacy!” (a dreadful movie).
Steeplejack
@Southern Beale:
Don’t forget Bale’s Elvis glasses and Jeremy Renner’s pompadour.
RSA
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I’ll add another possible, partial explanation. Metaphorically, programming can be thought of as setting up an environment with specific rules so that the right things happen. When you finish a complex program, it can give you an enormous feeling of power–you’re in charge, and you figured out how to make it all work. (I think some engineers can get the same rush.)
I see something similar when it comes to a lot of libertarians. It’s not necessarily a desire for power over other people, but it can be a near-worship of rules that everyone needs to abide by, and if they do, everything will come out right. And of course, just as in programming, the people who deeply understand those rules end up on top.
SFAW
SpongeBob SquarePants proved that paper is what you make of it. And he didn’t need no stinkin’ 15 meters (or metres, for Amir, I guess) of it. He was happy with a something about the size of a 3 x 5 card.
No, I’m not kidding.
Steeplejack
Okay, I read through the thread, and I have to say that you doubters can un-doubt yourselves about the acting in American Hustle. It is phenomenally good across the board. Amy Adams goes way beyond “young and vulnerable” (The Master, while not a great movie, is another good jolt of her being not young and vulnerable), and Jennifer Lawrence is very powerful as Christian Bale’s crazy wife. I could see any of the four main actors getting Oscar nominations, as well as Jeremy Renner for the supporting role of the New Jersey mayor caught in the sting. And you even get Louis C.K. in a great small role as an FBI bureaucrat and Robert De Niro in a cameo as a mob boss.
I thought Jennifer Lawrence was great in Winter’s Bone, but I thought maybe it was a case of an actor getting a role that was a good natural fit for her style. Then she went down the potential-danger-of-typecasting path with the Hunger Games franchise. She is really different—and really good—in American Hustle. (I didn’t see Silver Linings Playbook, which has now moved up on my list of catch-up movies.)
SFAW
@efgoldman:
My hope as well.
Good health and good fortune to you two. (And a bunch of others here as well.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Dead Ernest:
Do you have any idea what 26,896 square feet of origami paper even costs these days?
ETA: Or what Amir Khalid said, better.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
SFAW
@Steeplejack:
She did a pretty good job in it, you should see it.
WaterGIrl
@Steeplejack: I would think that young and vulnerable would have a fairly short shelf life. :-) Once you’re not so young anymore, that’s not such an attractive look.
Which leads me to wonder (not entirely unrelated) what is Meg Ryan up to? Seems like I haven’t seen her in anything for a really long time.
ranchandsyrup
My wife’s post on diversionary thinking and how she’d like to deal with our dogs. I’m sure she’d use it on me as well.
ranchandsyrup
@efgoldman: Usually it’s me, but that one was WP. Thanks, EF
Amir Khalid
@WaterGIrl:
She resurfaced briefly not long ago. She has retired from acting and is living quietly with the musician John Mellencamp.