Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Not bad for someone barely a teenager!

Hanging out in Philly airport and I'm in a Hudson to buy some water and so I starting scanning mags.

I see the bright red cover and the words above (apparently in Chinese too) and, in my sleep-deprived brain, I say to myself, "Damn, I gotta buy and read that one!"

Then it dawns on me: I wrote that one!

Now I also realize that I've checked out Good in the past, often on the basis of cool cover art. Same deal here.

It is a slick looking mag, and I was very happy with the way the piece was presented. Cool to see it comes out in 15 other countries.

The main person I worked with on the piece was Features Editor Siobhan O'Connor.

The piece is spread over pages 58 to 65, interrupted with a fold-out section that provides a lot of basic, fun-to-know facts and details on China. Overall, an impressive issue with a wonderful spread on China. Very cool to be associated with the effort, especially since I'm first up in the big spread.

And you've got to check out the contributor's photo on page 16. It constitutes my son Kevin's first mass-published photograph. He shot a bunch of pix of me in various, Chinese-flavored poses (easy in our house) and the one that took has me in front of our antique fireplace (cherry, from some Indy house built around the turn of the last century; the marble you see is the same stuff we've got in our kitchen). I'm holding the five stuffed mascots of the 2008 Beijing Games. Behind me you can sort of make out the following: 2 onyx cats I bought at the Great Pyramids for Vonne, on either side of the 3 Chinese bone carvings of Prosperity, Longevity and Health [if I remember them correctly], and on the left a marble etching of our four kids that Vonne and I had made in China, using a photo of our three older kids and then one of Vonne Mei, done with a Polaroid, that we superimposed. Overall, it's the coolest of the shots we took, so I'm not surprised they used it.

Congratulations, Kevin!