Hi All,
Found this very funny French article titled "Origami Facile" in the weekly Nouvel Obs magazine - I translated it to English so you could all read it: 1. Take a square sheet of paper and fold it in half. 2. Now fold your sheet diagonally. At this point, you should have already made a mistake. 3. Turn your sheet to the right. We are deliberately being vague about what we mean by "turn to the right" . 4. Fold your sheet of paper in half to make a star. If you get a triangle, it means you're wrong. 5. Fold the bottom wing towards the outside. You don't know what the "bottom wing" is and have no way of understanding what "the outside" means , especially since you failed to get a star in the previous step. Fold something anyway, without understanding why, naively hoping you'll fix it later. 6. Gently pull the flap of the butterfly until it takes the wavy shape of a lotus petal. 7. Tell yourself that if you're not achieving anything, it's because our instructions are poorly thought out, then realize that everyone around you has a perfect lotus petal in their hands. Draw general conclusions about your worth as a person. 8. Take the tip of the lotus petal and bend it at an angle. You're far from having formed a lotus petal, but we're moving forward anyway, without any regard for you. 9. Start again at step 1 while everyone else is working on step 8. Fear becoming the laughingstock of this origami evening. 10. Ask your neighbour how they managed to get a star in step 4, and watch them answer grudgingly because they are absorbed in the exciting step 8. 11. Your neighbour's elliptical explanations didn't really help. Try to get a star anyway, forcing it until your paper is nothing but a depressing mess. 12. Ask your neighbour for help again, even if it annoys them. Keep smiling while they snatch your origami from your hands and make the star for you. Say thank you. 13. Your sheet of paper is now star-shaped, but you're not happy about it. Move on to step 5 ( "fold the bottom wing outwards" ) while everyone else has some very pretty little Chinese junks in their hands. Fold whatever you like in whatever direction you like; it doesn't matter anymore. 14. While others compare their junks laughingly, try to participate by making fun of yourself. 15. Go home and tell your children, "Look, I made a beautiful star." Regards Keith Giddings
