If you had to put the following things in order from oldest to most recent date of invention, what would your order be?
- Planes
- Paper
- Paper planes
Your logic probably goes something like mine: paper is ancient, so that’s obviously first. Then planes came sometime in the early 1900s. Then I guess people noticed that paper could be folded to imitate the shape of a plane.
So – 1. Paper 2. Planes 3. Paper planes.
Except that’s the wrong order. Most sources I checked say that it is likely that people in China were making paper airplanes and kites out of papyrus a couple of thousand years ago. Later, Da Vinci used parchment to make models of his design for a helicopter almost 350 years before the helicopter became a reality.
It wasn’t until the second World War, when the materials used to make toys were scarce (or, more accurately, being used to make weapons) that paper, a more widely available resource, was used to make the type of paper planes we would recognize today.
Learning that paper planes were a thing long before actual planes made me very happy. Every time I see one now, I will know that rather than being a symbol of imitation, they are a symbol of aspiration.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The guitars are played as gently as if they’re afraid they might break the strings.
2. The harmonies sound less like harmonies and more like a voice folded over on itself.
3. Like a paper plane, the song’s flight is beautiful and airy, but shorter than you might hope.
Recommended listening activity:
Picking a design and trying it.