Peace on Earth

[truepenny]

My accomplishment for this week is that I have taught myself--with the assistance of no fewer than three internet sites, plus an odd little Japanese book I got for $5--how to fold origami cranes. (I also found this really quite cool page about making edible origami.)

I am so pleased with myself it is not even real.

Origami cranes, of course, have become symbolic of the wish for peace, and that's what I find most meaningful about the December celebrations (whatever it is you and yours celebrate this time of year): the wish for peace. I am not yet ambitious enough to contemplate the senbazuru--the Thousand Cranes--but you never know.

When I was a baby, one of my mother's friends made me a crib mobile of origami cranes. It was very fragile and did not survive my infancy, so I have only the vaguest--and possibly specious--memories of it, but there are pictures, and my mother tells me I spent a lot of time "talking" to the cranes. I love the idea of it, and my memories of it, sketchy and dubious though they are, and I am really delighted by the idea that when my friends have children, I can make them mobiles in turn.

And--good lord and butter, the wonders of the internet--Sara Jayne Cole has a website, wherein you can see what she's gone on to do with origami (including cranes!), in the past 33 years.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I remember The Day of the Bomb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Bomb), the book about Sadako Sasaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Origami#Sadako_and_the_Thousand_Cranes), from back when I was a kid. Haven't seen it since, but thanks for the reminder.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

At a crane a day, you could be there in about three years. Not allowing for extra cranes for mobiles.

[clhollandwriter]

I love Origami, I had a whole zoo when I was a teenager. :-D

Anyway, I just popped in to say that I've just finished The Mirador (which I barely put down) and loved it, although I didn't think it was as good as the first two. And I absolutely can't wait for the next installment, so I'll be off to get The Bone Key with my Christmas money.

Also, do you mind if I friend you? (How weird that 'friend' has become a verb....)

[motorbike.livejournal.com]

I recall reading Sadako and a Thousand Paper Cranes at an impressionable age, and now despite myself I associate paper cranes with Hiroshima. Bummer, senbazuru are so wonderful-looking!

[libskrat]

The huz and I did a senbazuru for our wedding, since cranes are also a wedding-specific good-luck symbol.

Took us less time than we thought -- four months or so? Cramming it in around school, work, and wedding planning, that's not so bad.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

It doesn't take as long to fold a crane as one might be inclined to suspect.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, I don't mind.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

They are, always. With or without associations. (Some part of me wants to say "Ah, but would they look so wonderful if they didn't come with the associations?" - but I have C S Lewis on my mind just now, so do just overlook that...)

[larryhammer]

I've been jonesing to work with PMC sheets for a couple years. Being in an active folding phase has only made it worse.

---L.

[larryhammer]

No, it doesn't. I've started rating meetings at work by how many cranes I make (off the cube of 1000 pieces of notepaper the company gave me).

---L.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

We did the senbazuru too! We had relatives in Japan helping us out, so we did it in about a month or two. We put them on strings, and used them to decorate the room we had the reception in. I still have some; most of them went home as wedding favours.

I hadn't heard of anyone else doing it. That's very cool!

[clhollandwriter]

Gah, I really should read my comments before I post them. Despite appearances I'm well aware that The Bone Key isn't the next installment, I just meant I'll be getting it to fill in between them!

Thanks. :-)

[gardensoil.livejournal.com]

The internet is indeed full of things:

a completely scanned book from 1797, the oldest book on origami cranes and senbazuru, with instructional diagrams:

http://www.origami.gr.jp/Model/Senbazuru/index-e.html

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

That? Is very awesome. Thank you!

[larryhammer]

Oh sweet. I've seen reprints of selected pages (including in a modern book of connected crane models), but not the whole thing. Thank you!

---L.

[daisakura.livejournal.com]

I love making origami! I bought myself a calendar to keep myself amused where it gives you a piece of patterned paper each day and instructions on how to make something out of it. I've got them all around my room at the moment ^_^

Oh and that edible origami sure does look interesting!... Although I must admit it made me just a little skwirmish looking at those 'cooked' paper cranes. Not quite sure I could eat one either. An inanimate object I might be OK with ;p maybe I could cook some origami hearts haha.