Cover model!

Recently on Facebook, I posted a magazine cover designed around a photo I'd taken in Meinong. Few people know it, but in addition to snapping photos which have ended up on magazine covers (and hundreds which have appeared in newspapers), I've been a cover model.

Back in 2003, I posed as Santa Claus in a number of tropical settings for Compass Media Group, the Taichung-based publishers of city guide magazines. At that time I was the managing editor of their Kaohsiung/Tainan edition. On the left is the cover of Taiwan Fun, their north Taiwan edition. I forget who we borrowed the surfboard from. You can't see it, but I wore beach sandals instead of the fur-lined boots Santa usually has on his feet. To accompany the article, shown on the right, we got images of Santa praying at a shrine, buying betel nut (from a young lady who, sadly, had lost most of her teeth), and driving the kind of small blue truck used by Taiwanese farmers (surely more practical than a sleigh if you need to deliver presents to many locations).

I wasn't paid (and, to borrow a P. J. O'Rourke quip, I earned every cent) but the shoot, conducted by my old accomplice Rich J. Matheson, made for a fun change from sitting in front of a computer writing and editing.