Camp Rock

Just got back from a great weekend camping in the Catskills. The kids have been really excited about this for weeks. They brought along a couple friends, so it was six of us in the car plus all our food and kit. Packing went better than unusual this time, mainly cuz we did the bulk of it the night before. Also we only brought one cooler and planned on buying more beer for the second night.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip was one night Jeannie and I went for a midnight walk under a clear, starry sky. There was no moon, and you could see the milky way and everything, all shining very bright in the woods. We walked out to the lake where the view of the sky was the best. The mountains were silhouetted between the sky and a lake so smooth you could see every star in the whole starfield reflected in the water. Just then a shooting star appeared. Magical.

Another highlight was teaching Nick and his cousin Andy a little bit of guitar. Nick’s son Geo has been taking guitar lessons for a couple of year and has gotten quite good. Nick and Andy are raw beginners. I was able to teach them A Horse With No Name, the simplest song I know and probably the first song I learned. Rock on!

Strike Up the Band

Now that I’m done with origami deadlines for the time being, it’s time to try and move forward with the music thing. (I still haven’t gotten back to recording for a few weeks, but that’s in the offing too.) Last year when I got into crunch mode on my book, I kinda let jamming with Erik slide. It was a great experience, and it definitely helped me focus and improve my playing. I’ve kept on practicing and can now play eight or ten of my own songs, plus a bunch of covers I couldn’t before. But the thing I crave now is human contact with other musicians. Getting a band off the ground from zero is hard work, and my main problem now is that I don’t know a lot of musicians around here. I really need a bass and drummer to make my music work.

So I figured I’d see about trying to join a band. At least I’d be meeting musicians who are into getting together to rehearse once a week. On the downside you have to fit into someone else’s vision, not the other way around. I looked a couple times on Craigslist over the last few months, and it’s really amazing how many kinds of music and musicians are out there that aren’t really a good fit for what I want to do. And how full of egos and hustlers the New York City scene is, even the classifieds! But I looked again last week and found a couple promising leads.

One is a straight-ahead jazz combo looking for a sax player, because, you know, the easiest thing for me to do is just show up and blow. I went and played with them last night and it went great and was a lot of fun. There was a trumpet and a tenor player, and a piano, guitar, bass and drums. I was playing alto. I haven’t really played alto in years, so I brought my tenor along too just in case. They were mainly doing stuff from the Real Book, and they sound good. After the first tune it was pretty clear I remembered how to play and was fitting right in, so after that I began to relax. The other sax player had a couple really good solos, and the bass and drums grooved together really well.

I had a couple good solos too, and started see how the group responded when I tried to influence them in one direction or another with my playing. It’s funny, I remember when I was in ninth grade or so and realized I could play with incredible speed, doing Eddie Van Halen riffs on the horn. Now my style is much more melodic, to the point where when I catch myself playing fast, I soon realize I’m mainly relying on muscle memory, and usually slow it down to play something more meaningful. Nevertheless I did an entire chorus in double time at point, just cuz the notes kept flowing and it sounded good. Another song I really concentrated on using space and rests.

Toward the end the bassist brought out some horn arrangements he’d written. It was good to see they’re open to experimentation. They also talked about doing some Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears rock numbers. So a good first impression.

The other ad was for a classic rock party band, heavy on the Motown and R&B, seeking a keyboardist/backing vocalist. They sent me a set list and it’s all stuff I can handle, nothing too complex. I’m jamming with them one night next week. Gives me some time to google the chords and listen to a few records for specific parts. I mentioned that I play sax and it would sound good on some of the soul numbers. Dude liked the idea of that alot.

So if one or both of these pan out, then I’ll start seeing about introducing some of my own material into the sets, first some covers I like, then hopefully some of my originals. I think reasonable goal is to get the point where I have a solid group that has a few good sets, a combination of covers and originals, and is playing out in bars or whatnot semi-regularly. Both these groups are comprised of guys who are about my age, so they’re doing it more because they want to make music and have fun than because they want to become the next big rock star. They’re also both in the early stages, rehearsing more than gigging out. Should be fun to see where it goes.

Great Dodecahedron in Origami

I’m participating in another origami exhibit. This one is eXtreme Origami and is part of the Origami Heaven convention in Stonybrook, Long Island, and runs thru early August. Go check it out. You can find out more about Origami Heaven here:

http://www.origamiheaven.org/

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make to check out the exhibit, so if you want to take some pictures I’ll appreciate it.

The theme of my collection of models is single-sheet complex polyhedra. The models I’m contributing are my Stellated Dodecahedron, Great Dodecahedron, and
Tessellated Dodecahedron (a.k.a Penfractal Dodecahedron). All of these
models exhibit pentagonal symmetry, being based on the dodecahedron, which
is composed of twelve regular pentagons. Each of these models is folded from a single, pentagonal sheet of paper.

You’ve seen the Stellated Dodecahedron recently. I still want to fold a second one, but didn’t get done in time, so I sent the one I folded for OUSA. Did manage to make a nice version of the Dodecahedron Tessellation out of Wyndstone paper, and will show that in a future post.

But this post is about the Great Dodecahedron. It’s not exactly all-new; I folded one from a 12” square of Tant a few years back but was never quite satisfied with it. The new one has a refined CP. The main difference is that it’s from a pentagon, so the corners provide nice flaps and the model goes together well and holds its shape quite strongly. I didn’t even need to wetfold it.

The shape itself is a complement to the Stellated Dodecahedron. Both are composed of sixty triangles and form star shapes out of sets of coplanar faces. With the Great Dodecahedron, the coplanar faces form a pentagon with the star rising out of the middle in the negative space.

We’re Back

We heard you missed us. Just got back from a pair of trips upstate. It was very relaxing and enjoyable. The first trip was to Buffalo and Rochester to see family and friends. It was really hot up there the whole time, with tropical-style rain every day too. After all these years my parents bought an air conditioner for their guest room, which was quite nice. We spent the 4th of July with my folks and saw the parade and fireworks show in their neighborhood. It’s good to be up there for the 4th cuz the fireworks are better than anyplace around here.

I brought up my skates, put on new wheels while I was there, and enjoyed skating around the smooth streets of their flat neighborhood. We visited Denis and his family and spent a day in the pool. Larry and Jackie had a graduation party for their oldest son Timothy, who just finished high school and is going to UB in the fall as an honors scholar. I saw Larry’s mom and sisters for the first time in years. Each of them in turn commented on how Larry took over their living room with his drums when we were in high school. His house was where our band rehearsed. I guess we didn’t sound as good as we thought we did back then.

Jeannie and I went back home for a few days to catch up on work and things. We had a nice night out with Nick and Lisa, walking the High Line down to a brew pub in Chelsea. I also worked on origami stuff. I did the design and prefolding for a Great Dodecahedron in origami for the upcoming Origami Heaven exhibit. And I finally got sample chapter of page layouts back from my publisher. It looks great except for a few minor issues with fonts. And I took some more photos to fill in missing bits for the cover, etc.

Then we were on the road again for a tour upstate. We started in Albany, where we met up with Martin and his family. It was good to see them all, although I never got a chance to sit down with Martin and go over my version of his song. Lots of yummy fresh eggs.

We went into town to see the state capitol complex one day. The tour of the capitol building was pretty fascinating. The building is great reflection of the political process, overly ornate and massively over budget, with conflicting and competing grand visions from a succession of architects who were fired and replaced mid-project. Apparently Teddy Roosevelt kicked out all the stone cutters when he took office, leaving the Senate chamber unfinished with rows of carvings abandoned half done. Also learned how the Statue of Liberty is really a giant robot that stands guard in the harbor to protect the eastern seaboard against an invasion of Godzilla monsters.

The next day we lit out for historic Fort Ticonderoga. Michelle had asked to visit after studying it an history class and having been impressed at our visit to Fort Niagara a couple summers ago. Ticonderoga was really interesting too, with a re-enactor giving a vivid account of the history of the place and various battles. There was also some pretty cool exhibits of period weapons and other artifacts. The fort itself was largely a re-creation, with the French having blown up a large part of it before abandoning their position in the 1760’s. It was another really hot day.

After that it was on to Lake George. I’d never been there before, but it was very relaxing and charming, a classic old-school resort town. We were there mid-week, so nothing was very crowded. After Florida last year it was a welcome relief. We stayed at a place called the Georgian, which we picked mainly because it was right on the lake and had a pool bar. This turned out to be just the thing, as it was in the 90’s the whole time we were there. We hit the pool as soon as we got in, and spent most of the next day there lounging around, and a good part of the third day too. Just a beautiful scene, and the hotel people were really great. We also walked around town, went out to dinner, went swimming in the lake, went on a cruise on an historic steamboat, and rented a powerboat one morning to explore on our own. Lots of fun. Lots of folk music and twelve-string guitars around.

The third destination was Saranac Lake to visit our friends Mark and Kelly. Mark is one of my oldest friends so its always great to see him and catch up. We went hiking, swimming at a local lake, played some cards and just hung out. Learned that jade comes from Godzilla teeth just ivory comes from elephant tusks. Went to the Wild Center, a cool museum about the biology and geology of the forest, where we learned about mutant wolf-hybrid coyotes who hunt in packs. Kelly had some cool art books, and while I was up there I worked out a crease pattern for my origami Penrose Tessellation. Lots of heat and rain up there too. Mark’s band had a memorable gig that was interrupted by a cloudburst and windstorm so intense it threw around boats and party tents.

It was a great trip, but its good to be home. Today it’s yardwork and laundry and back to normal tomorrow. We just found out or local grocery store is closing. This is too bad; I really like the place. They’re walking distance from our house and are nice and small, so you can get in and out quickly. They also have great meat and produce. Also, it looks like the elm tree in our front yard is turning sick. A couple of the branches have wilted and the leaves turned brown. This is really too bad cuz it’s a champion elm, over a hundred years old and one of the tallest trees in the neighborhood. It’ll be sad if it doesn’t make it.

I’d hoped to hop on music projects as soon as I got back, but first I need a couple more days to finish my exhibit for Origami Heaven. More on that soon.

Mandala Tessellations

I did another class at the convention, teaching my mandala tessellations. Most tessellations out there are based on a grid, either of squares or triangles, but these are based on a circle. I originally started playing with tessellations because of models like my turtle and my U.F.O., which use pleating to form a pattern on the surface of the model. I actually came up with the mandala idea at a convention, at the Monday dinner, and have since refined it. Unlike grid-oriented tessellations, the pleats are arbitrary, by eye. This is not hard to get across to advanced folders who have a good eye, but people tend to like landmarks and it can take some getting used to.

People seemed really interested in these models back at MIT last fall, where I taught them informally, and my class at OUSA was in fact full. There were a few “legit” tessellation guys in the class, notably Jeff Rutzky, who has a book Shadowfolds with Chris Palmer that explores some of the same territory, but his ideas are more developed. So as I taught the class it turned into a conversation, which was great cuz I learned a lot as well as taught.

This also led me to begin work on a new model: a penrose tessellation. This is a new and larger pattern than the one on my web site. I folded a prototype using my arbitrary-pleat method, but on this model I reached the limit of that approach. I folded a second, more legit attempt, but it didn’t want to go together. So then folded the center portion only, working out the correct sizes for the pleats. I folded successively larger sections, until I got to the third ring, where there’s a vertex where seven angles come together, three wide and four narrow. So now I have to work out complex connection in order to complete the model. But that’s cool; when its’ done it’ll be really nice. I also feel like this will be another good CP to feed to the craftRobo.

This is the last of the current flurry of origami posts for a little while. I’m working on a exhibit for Origami Heaven that has to be done in three weeks. Five pentagon-based symmetry geometric models, including some of the ones described here. I’ll let you know how that goes. Meanwhile I hope to get back spending a bit of time on rock’n’roll and other pursuits.

Dread Zeppelin

So way back in early June I was invited to participate in an exhibit Origami as Fine Art being held at Kinokuniya Book Store in NYC just off of Bryant Park. Kinokuniya is a great place, BTW, full of all things Japanese, from manga, anime and robot kits to origami books and specialty papers, and all kinds of other stuff. The exhibit is really nicely put together by Sok Sung and Paul Frasco, and features a great variety of models from a good number of artists. I’m honored to be included among this elite set. The exhibit runs for another two weeks, until mid-July. You can learn all about the exhibit here:

http://origamifineart.com/

The curators asked me to contribute a Zeppelin. This was on the list of models I’d been meaning to refold out of nicer paper anyway. Last year at convention I picked up a couple sheets of paper specifically for this. The paper is blue, and strong and heavy like Wyndstone, but sparkly like it has flakes of mica embedded into it like Origamido paper sometimes does. I have no idea where it came from or what its called, but it turned out to be up to the task.

As I mentioned before, this is a very challenging and labor intensive model, and I only ever made one successful instance a few years back. I first made a study out of draft paper, and then commenced to fold two Zeppelins in parallel. The thinking was, if I messed one of them up I’d still have a good’n, and if they both came out good I’d have one for myself. The prefolding took a couple sessions and the collapsing took a couple more, since I wetfolded as I went, doing first the nose, and then collapsing the tail. This was all a very delicate operation. I also custom built two new stands for the models. As June progressed I went from staying up late once or twice a week to work on these to practically every night.

In the end I had a bit of a problem with the model staying puffed out at the transition from main body to the tail. I realize now that I should have wetfolded an internal flange of accumulated layers of paper to relieve the stress at the point. I may yet go back and fold yet another Zeppelin now that I know what I’m doing, and so I can be at peace about it. For one of my models I tried to wetfold the hull at that point. This turned out to be a mistake, and I ripped the paper pressing it from the inside with chopstick to shape it. At least I was able to patch it so it doesn’t show. The other one turned out better an the problem was largely solved by good ol’ fashioned wrestling the paper into submission. I had to re-open the tail after it had been wetfolded, but it worked out okay. So the better model I donated to the exhibit, and the other one is the one you see photographed here.

Timber and Sophie

I folded new high-quality versions of my new models Timber the Dog and Sophie the Cat for convention, as well as few to give to my friend. As mentioned before, these models were inspired by the logo of the animal adoption service Timber’s Legacy (timberslegacy.org). The versions you see here are folded from a 12” square of Canson and a 10” or so square of Wyndstone respectively.

I taught both of these models at convention. I rated them as high intermediate level of complexity. I think that was pretty much on the mark. I taught them in a single 45 minute class for each. There were very few people in over their heads and everyone was able to get the model done in the time allotted. I found out that origami people are more cat people than dog people. The class for Sophie was filled to the limit of 25 and then some. Since it’s a new model and not yet diagrammed, I taught by demoing it with a large sheet of paper. With the larger class you spend more time walking around to be sure everyone’s got it right, but it was okay. In fact feedback was very positive, and I’d say I have two more models for a future book.

Stellated Dodecahedron in Origami

As mentioned previously, I had a great OUSA convention this year. If you’re interested there are lots of pics online here. One of the things that made it great for me is I had a lot of new models: Timber the Dog, Sophie the Cat, my Giant Squid, Cuttlefish, a new rendition of my Zeppelin, my Penfractal Dodecahedron Tessellation, and my Stellated Dodecahedron. I hope to say something about each of these, starting with the Stellated Dodecahedron.

Most people make origami polyhedra using the modular approach, putting together lots of triangles or whatever to create a shape. To me this is not very interesting since the assembly dominates the folding, and in my view it misses the essence of doing origami. Much more challenging is to fold a polyhedron from a single sheet. In fact it’s so challenging I only know three artists who work in this area: John Montroll, T.J. Norvell, and myself. John has written several books on the subject and has made it challenging indeed to find terra incognita in this space.

My Stellated Dodecahedron is the result of a long and arduous quest, one of a handful of advanced polyhedra I’ve been working on for the last few years. Now I can finally cross it off my list. In case you don’t know, the stellated dodecahedron is a shape based on the regular dodecahedron, which is a platonic solid composed of twelve (“dodec” means two and ten) regular pentagons. The stellated version replaces each face with a five-sided pyramid, resulting in a star-like shape (“stellated” means starlike) composed of sixty triangles.

I made several attempts at it a few years back, but it was beyond my skill at the time, and I only barely managed to make one out of a giant sheet of foil, and it didn’t hold together too well. This year I was determined to finally make an exhibit-quality one for the convention. I’d been working feverishly on Zeppelins (more on that in another post) but found the time to create this as well. In the process I think I leveled up as a folder.

The hard part of doing this model was closing it all off at the end. My previous version was made out of a square, and this created the problem of having all the flaps being different shapes and very difficult to deal with. For the new attempt I began with a pentagon sheet of paper rather than a square. The first step was to fold a pentagon out of a square anyway, so I just cut off the leftover bits rather than fold them under. Now when I got to the end I had a nice array of identical flaps that made perfect tabs, and I was able to use a twist-lock to finish the model.

I folded the Stellated Dodecahedron from a 50 cm regular pentagon of Marble Wyndstone (a.k.a. Elephant Hide) paper. It took me five sessions of several hours each, and this after I made a study out of draft paper. The first two were just to do the precreasing (you can see the CP below). The next one was to fold the bulk of the model, up to the close. At this point it became clear that I would not be able to close my study model because the paper was too soft, and I’d have to just go for it. Wyndstone is thicker and I’d precreased everything strongly with a bone folder, so it looked like it would have enough “pop”.

Once I got it got it collapsed there was some springiness that wanted to push the model apart from within. I applied a drop of water to every concave vertex, the ones where six triangles come together. Then I wrapped the whole thing tight with tape and string and let it dry overnight. Next morning – the day of convention – I unwrapped it, not knowing how the wetfolding had worked. To my delight it came out perfectly. The final model was tight and strong like a soccer ball. In fact I like it so much this model has now taken the spot on top of my piano previously occupied by the only modular I’ve ever liked well enough to actually fold – Tom Hull’s Five Intersecting Tetrahedra.

I want to fold another one of these soon, for an upcoming exhibit on Long Island. Between doing this and the Zeppelins, I’m now seriously considering getting a KNK Zing or a Craft Robo. Having a machine pre-score my paper from a .eps file would seriously reduce the amount of time I have to spend prefolding, plus it would guarantee everything to come out as precise as can be.

It’s All About Lizzy

June has come and gone in a blur. Yesterday we had a party for Lizzy’s 8th grade graduation. It was a bit low key with no one staying really late, partly cuz I’d been sick the night before. But still it was lots of fun and I’m glad so many people could make it. A good time was had by all. Finally today is a day to hang around a relax and catch up with stuff.

Way back at the beginning of June, we had the carnival at the kid’s school. Lots of fun that. I helped out at the Father’s Club tent, making burgers and dogs for the concession stand, and also running some of the carnival games. This year I played three games and won three prizes. One was a dart toss, another was dropping golf balls down a ramp to try and get a high or low number. I explained to Michelle the secret of winning that one and she played a perfect game with a score of six, the lowest possible.

Then it was the kids’ show of the Wizard of Oz, in which Lizzy played Glinda and rocked the house. Here’s picture of her from the local paper. Also Jeannie took a picture of Lizzy on her last day of school, in the same spot as her first day of pre-k all those years ago. How the time flies.

Then it was the graduation dance, and then the graduation itself, all fun if somewhat poignant occasions. Lizzy graduated with first honors and is in the honors track in her new high school. She placed out of ninth grade math, but she’ll have to take Latin. She doesn’t mind so much since that’s the language they use to cast spells in Harry Potter (the school doesn’t offer Elvish). Michelle will be at the grammar/middle school for a few more years, so it wasn’t really such a big goodbye for us, although some families that have become good friends are moving on. Hopefully we’ll be able to stay in touch. Earlier this week Lizzy had her orientation at her new high school, so it’s really moving forward into a new phase of life. So congratulations Lizzy!

Lastly we had the origami convention. This year was a really good one. I had lots of new stuff. In the middle of, Jeannie and bopped out to Long Island for her cousin’s wedding on Saturday night, and another good time. More on the origami stuff in a future post.

Busy Season

Lots and lots going on here these days. It’s the end of the school year for the kids. Last week they had their spring show for their theatre group YAA. It was a The Wizard of Oz. It was a really good production. Michelle was a Munchkin and Lizzy was Glinda, the good witch of the north. She was really perfect in the role, and I think her singing and acting has improved even since February. Either that or they had better sound reinforcement at this place. Jeannie taped the big Munchkinland production number. I’ll try and post a bit of it. As an added bonus Lizzy and Michelle have been singing songs from TWoO and Wicked around the house. They sound pretty good; they can actually harmonize. And I practically have the Munchkinland number memorized at this point. I’m thinking it’d be fun to get the sheet music and learn it, and somewhere down the line record it interpreted as a prog metal epic. Maybe rename it “Monsterland” and use low growly voices instead of high squeaky ones.

This week Lizzy sat for her algebra final. If she does well she’ll get to skip a year of math in high school. Meanwhile Michelle has been getting me to watch a bunch of math-oriented youTube videos, about things like the Fibonacci series and plant growth, fractals and other fun stuff. This began when she told me she got a book of graph paper and began making fractal doodles in it. The girl is definitely one of mine! The one on plant growth, even though it mainly contained material I already knew, explained it in such a way that I got a new idea for how to make origami pinecones, pineapples, and other forms in way that’s more realistic and naturalistic than anything that’s been done before. (Yes, we’re still talking about pineapples!)

But right now I’m busy with other folding projects. I’ve been working on a pair of Zeppelins, one for this upcoming exhibit and the other for myself. This is probably my most labor-intensive model. I’ve been at it for over a week. I only ever folded one and that was few years back, at the end of a long road of attempts. Now it’s a fair amount of experimentation and reverse engineering. Today I had to make a study of how the nose went into 3-D cuz I couldn’t remember. Tonite I finally got them more-or-less made into full 3-D form. I still have to do the final sculpting and finishing. These models will be wet-folded for sure, and probably (don’t tell anyone!) have a few paperclips and bits of tape on the inside to keep them from spreading apart over time. Once that’s done I still have to make a stand (sometimes in life you just gotta make a stand) and a road-worthy container. One that’s done it’s back to working on fractal polyhedra, which was going to be my Big New Thing this year. Oh yeah, I’ve also been asked to contribute an Armadillo for the exhibit. Ah well, there’s still a week to go, and I’m taking a couple of days off.

I’ve also been busy because now that my book is soon to be released, my publisher wants me to get my “social media” presence up. I created an author page on Amazon, and an artist page for my Origami on facebook. Not much there yet, but it’s a start. I also created a Buzzy Tonic page on Amazon, and checked in fb to see the one there needs some attention. Yet todo is iTunes. My feeling about all this alternates between thinking that its pretty cool and it’s just a big time suck. I’m looking to get the whole thing driven by feeds when I post to my blog with certain tags or categories. I suppose if it make some sales its worth it.

The music thing will have to wait until July, after the origami convention and some travel. I’m close to finishing two songs, Black Swan and Is It Safe?. Last thing I did in recordingland was to lay down sax parts for Is It Safe?. Martin’s original parts were out of tune on the high E’s and F#’s. I got those notes, but had a lot of trouble with the high B’s. Anyway, closing in. When I’m done I’m gonna take what I have and organize it into a logical EP, and go back master what I have so far. I also have a concept for a logo and some album art, but I need time to draw it nicely. When that’s all in place I think it’ll be time to form or join a live band. That’ll be a whole nuther adventure. I’m continuing to develop a set of covers and my own tunes. More on that soon, but probably after the origami convention.