SNOW!

There's no non-clichéd way to describe how New York looks under a good heavy blanket of snow. It started Sunday night; not big fluffy clumps of snowflakes, but lots and lots of very fine, stinging particles that you could hear skittering across surfaces like wind blown sand across dunes, as though somewhere up there God was standing around with a saltshaker the size of Mount Everest, sprinkling it over New York. By Monday morning, it had changed to fluffy clumps of snowflakes, and it kept coming throughout the day.

Speaking of snowflakes, it pains me that today's wastrel youth are not being instructed in the methodology of cutting a proper six-pointed snowflake out of paper. What you get instead are these pathetic octagons -- or worse, squares, or worst of all, 8x11 rectangles, which get taped to windows of offices and churches and schools, thereby spitting in the face of God, Physical Chemistry, and Mother Nature, and bringing disgrace upon our nation. And there's just no excuse, because making a lifelike hexagonal snowflake with just scissors and paper is so easy, a fetal kitten could do it!

Start with a square piece of white paper and follow the diagrams below. (If you don't know how to make a square piece of paper out of a rectangular sheet, you should probably ask mommy and daddy to haul you away from the computer before you accidentally look at pornography).

Carefully unfold, and Shazam, you've got yourself a snowflake! (This also works with bar napkins -- you can tear a simple design even if you don't have scissors, and maybe it'll make such an impression on the handsome guy with the broad shoulders and five-o-clock-shadow next to you that he starts a conversation. Or maybe not. But you've still got a beer-doily, in that case.)

posted by Throbert | 2/18/2003 04:45:00 PM |

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