While we were working on this issue, our art director Rai Whitlock showed me a catalog that had what catalogs normally do not have: an editor's note. Silly catalog! I told the glossy pages. Editor's notes are for real magazines. And don't you know that no one ever reads the editor's note anyway? Then I saw the photograph of the person who wrote it: Robert Redford. Okay, I take it back. If you're Robert Redford, you can write an editor's note for a grocery list, if it pleases you. Now that I think back, I don't remember the company's name or what they were selling, but I do remember Robert Redford's smile and his lyrical utterances about the coming of spring.

We are a culture enamored with celebrity. A movie star endorses a product on TV, and suddenly millions of viewers realize they need bath soap. A pop icon writes a children's book, and suddenly normally sane parents are rushing to buy the maternal masterpieces of Madonna. As any charitable organization knows, the way to garner popular ...

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