In magazines, 2002 was the year when even the parakeets got patriotic.
Last September, nearly every magazine in America published a special 9/11 anniversary package. Amid this blizzard of tributes, reminiscences, wrap-ups, photo essays and learned messages from wise men, Bird Talk, a magazine for the owners of pet birds, published its own heart-warming memorial: a gallery of photographs of parrots, macaws, cockatiels and a blue-fronted Amazon named Elvis, each patriotically raising an American flag in its claws or its beak.
All a reader could say was, "God Bless America!" Or else maybe, "Huh?"
There were a lot of "Huh?" moments in magazines in 2002. There were also a lot of "Wha?" moments and "Yikes!" moments and "Yuck!" moments. Now, before the blush of the new year fades, let's revisit some of these moments.
Glamour magazine sent a writer named Sunshine Flint out on the streets of an unnamed city with a huge piece of spinach stuck to her teeth. Her mission: "To see if anyone will be kind enough to tell her about it." Most people didn't, even when Flint asked them if she looked OK. From this traumatic experience of man's inhumanity to man, she distilled a bit of timeless wisdom: "Carry around a mirror!"
Us magazine boldly pioneered new technologies in its tireless quest to cover celebrities. When actress Julia Roberts married cameraman Daniel Moder, Us used its amazing "morph-o-matic" device to combine the faces of the lovely couple to predict "what their kids could look like." The result was two surprisingly ugly little fictitious tykes.
For its fifth-anniversary issue, Maxim, the wildly popular men's magazine, promised to identify "the Greatest City on Earth." Then it published 13 regional editions, each identifying a city in that region as the world's greatest city.
To publicize the issue, Maxim spokesman James Heidenry conducted interviews with media in each city, shamelessly naming Detroit and Philadelphia and San Francisco and Dallas as the world's greatest city. "Like a guy juggling different girlfriends," Heidenry said, "we told them all they were No. 1."
Maxim also introduced its own line of hair dyes for its young male readers. "Go Bleach Blond, Blond, Red or Black," the ad copy read. "It's so easy, even your friend who thinks arugula is a dirty word can do it."
