In the World

Working hard? Or working hard at making hand turkeys?

Faith-based editors, like preachers, approach holidays with ambivalence: there are so many meaningful things to say, yet so few that seem remotely fresh. One approach is to dramatically vary the tone year to year. Last Thanksgiving I wrote a personal post about Black Friday, consumerism and the demands of family. This year I’m posting pictures of hand turkeys.

The Century’s printer pushed last week’s deadline up from Friday to Thursday. So we did what any self-respecting magazine staff with an abnormally quiet Friday afternoon would do: gathered in the kitchen with construction paper, scissors, colored pencils and glue sticks. The result was a wide variety of strange and festive turkeys.

Dan Richardson, our art director, was kind enough to select three top turkeys and photograph them. The first winner he praised for its “slightly frightening beauty”:


This turkey Dan dubbed First in Cool, “with his/her white Kanye shades, his/her Apple sponsorship and his/her androgyny”:


Finally, a two-headed turkey that deserves recognition not only for this uncommon feat but also for its festive feathers and “liberal use of glitter”:


Happy Thanksgiving.

Steve Thorngate

The Century managing editor is also a church musician and songwriter.

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