Magazine secrets revealed!
The most amazing event of 2003 in the magazine world was the discovery of a 48-page glossy published 12,000 years ago on the Lost Continent of Atlantis.
Unfortunately, the discovery was reported exclusively in the Weekly World News -- a supermarket tabloid that also covered Hillary Clinton’s ongoing affair with an alien named P’lod -- so it may not be, in a strictly technical sense, true.
But it was fun. The ancient mag, called the Atlantean Star-Sun, featured an article on an anti-baldness drug that also worked as a “morning-after” abortion pill and a cure for eczema. The mag also had an expose of the Atlantean government’s new “citizen transport tubes,” which exhibited an unfortunate tendency: “ripping the heads off children.”
Those ancient articles might seem odd to today’s readers, but they are no more bizarre than much of the stuff published in American magazines in 2003, which turned out to be a very weird year in magazines.
How weird? Let’s take a look.
Maxim, the popular men’s mag, published a fitness article on how to get in shape by beating people up. It was illustrated by drawings of a muscular yuppie punching, kicking, stomping and strangling a man who looked exactly like Mahatma Gandhi.
AARP, the magazine for folks over 50, published a guide to “Viagra Etiquette.” It suggested that guys inform their dates that they use the drug but urged them not to swallow the pill in front of the woman: “It’s about as romantic as showing her your gallbladder scar.”
O: The Oprah Magazine, whose “Founder and Editorial Director” is, of course, Oprah Winfrey, continued its tradition of putting a picture of Oprah Winfrey on the cover of every issue. The August issue contained a cover line I like to think was added late one night by somebody with a subversive sense of humor: “ME-ME-ME! How to deal with a giant ego.”
Redbook published a cover photo of actress Julia Roberts that USA Today revealed to be a composite created by sticking the head of a year-old photo of Roberts atop the body from a 4-year-old photo. The cover line read: “The Real Julia.”
Speaking of cover lines, in 2003, as in every year, many magazines ran cover lines that promised more than the stories actually delivered. But the most shamelessly bogus cover line of the year appeared in the December issue of Men’s Health. “ROCK STAR SEX!,” it screamed. “7 Ways to Turn a Good Girl Bad.” Well, of course I bought the mag. Alas, I found instead a story advising men on how to deal with girlfriends who want them to actually talk, or reveal their feelings, or do chores around the house. Nothing about rock stars and nothing about sex. Caveat emptor.
After veteran magazine photographer Herb Ritts died, Vanity Fair, which had published dozens of his pictures, ran a one-page tribute to Ritts and a 25-page retrospective of the photographs of ... Annie Leibovitz. Which raised the question: When Leibovitz dies, will Vanity Fair run a gallery of Ritts photos?
When the conservative Fox News bought an ad on the back page of the lefty magazine the Nation, the mag’s readers bombarded the editors with letters of protest. “What in the love of God are those Nazis doing on the back of my magazine?!” asked one reader. Others reported that they were “appalled” or “confused” or “shocked” or “hurt” or “horrified” or “wanted to weep.” One reader suggested that seeing the ad was like “finding that the woman you were totally in love with voted for Bush.”
In 2003, every magazine in America ran a swimsuit issue. Well, maybe not every magazine. Ms. didn’t, of course. Neither did Foreign Policy or Foreign Affairs. But National Geographic did, publishing a special swimsuit issue that featured a Hawaiian beauty wearing a bikini made of two seashells joined by a piece of string.
“We wanted to loosen people up a little on the concept of what National Geographic is,” explained editor Bill Allen.
“When National Geographic published their first-ever swimsuit issue,” wrote Dan Skye, the executive editor of High Times, “I figured if they can do it, so can we.” So High Times, a magazine devoted to marijuana, published “Girls of Ganja,” a swimsuit issue featuring scantily clad babes smoking joints or rolling joints or just sort of standing there holding piles of pot.
Worried that his readers might feel that “marijuana is tarnished by prurient imagery,” Skye offered an unusual defense: “Yes, there are swimsuits in this issue.... But it’s the presence of buds or a joint or a bong in all these shots that enhances each woman’s beauty, not what they’re wearing.” It’s the bong, not the bathing suit, that makes the babes beautiful? Man, what’s this dude smoking?
Meanwhile, Mental Floss, the cheeky magazine of miscellaneous information, published a swimsuit issue that featured pictures of “15 geniuses” in their bathing suits -- including Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and Eleanor Roosevelt. They all look great, although Roosevelt, shown in a rather frumpy suit, probably would have looked better if she were smoking a bong.
Obviously, many magazines published many silly things this year, but let’s not be entirely negative here. Magazines also provided plenty of helpful tips on how to tiptoe through this minefield we call life.
For instance, Playboy published an article titled “Superstars of Weird Sports,” which featured this helpful tip from James Pratt, three-time World Cow-Chip Throwing champion: “Here’s the secret to a good throw: Lick your fingers between the first and second throw. It’s good luck. A little doo on my tongue don’t bother me none. It’s just grass come around the long way.”
Meanwhile, Harper’s magazine provided helpful advice for folks who find a dead horse or moose on their property. The advice came from a pamphlet titled “Obliterating Animal Carcasses With Explosives,” published by the U.S. Forest Service: “Place one pound of explosives in two locations on each leg. Use detonator cord to tie the explosives’ charges together. Horseshoes should be removed to minimize dangerous flying debris.” Well, that about says it all, doesn’t it?
Nothing published by the Atlantean Star-Sun can match that. Obviously magazines have come a long way in the last 12,000 years.
