Akira Yoshizawa Folds

The Times reports that Akira Yoshizawa, the origami master, has died. This brings back memories of childhood; one of the first educational TV shows I remember--it seems to me now to have been coeval with the show hosted by Max Morath--was a fifteen (?) minute series on origami, hosted by a realio, trulio Japanese Person (probably not Yoshizawa-san himself, although how could one tell?).

Our family watched the program religiously and invested in a packet of colored squares from an art supply shop so that we could follow along. I felt utter frustration at being unable to fold a piece of paper diagonally, so that the opposite corners met. Another reminder, if one were needed, that I was a klutz in any human activity in which klutziness was possible.