Monday, Jul. 02, 1973
Week after week, from all over the world, we receive heartening--as well as sobering--reminders of the impact TIME stories can have on many of our 22 million readers.
> In April, our Science section reported on the amazing flying ability of a paper airplane inadvertently created by Richard Kline, a Manhattan advertising executive who likes to sail paper planes from his office window. As a result of the story, Kline has received inquiries from all over the world, including a request from a White House aide for a working replica. He is dickering with the Milton Bradley Co., which has expressed interest in producing plastic models of the plane. His technical adviser, a Notre Dame aerodynamicist, has requested funding from the Defense Department to study further why the plane flies so well, and Kline and his invention will be featured on a segment of the CBS television show 60 Minutes.
> Two weeks ago, our Modern Living section ran a story called "Cruising: The Good Life Afloat" and described, among others, the husky cruisers built by a California firm, Westsail Corp. Almost immediately calls began to come into Westsail's headquarters from as far away as Switzerland and Brazil at the rate of 50 to 60 per day, many from people who had never owned a boat before. Orders are currently flowing into Westsail at the rate of $600,000 per week, a fourfold increase since the story appeared.
> Our November cover story on Jonathan Livingston Seagull was not particularly complimentary to the book's literary merits, but it drew an immediate response in the bookstores. In the week following the story, nationwide sales of Seagull rose from 45,000 to 80,000 and remained at that level for several months. The publisher, Macmillan Co., placed an additional print order of 325,000 copies.
> Israeli Psychic Uri Geller was not pleased when our Science section disclosed in March that he had apparently hoodwinked researchers at one of the nation's leading think tanks by employing simple magician's tricks. But he has no reason to complain. Since the story was printed, he has been the subject of magazine and newspaper articles, has been called upon to demonstrate his "powers" at numerous public appearances, and was an honored guest on a television talk show.
> A Modern Living story last year on a Detroit-area phenomenon--the playing of tunes on pushbutton telephones--spread the fad across the nation and resulted in the publication by the Los Angeles firm, Price/Stern/Sloan, of The Pushbutton Telephone Songbook, which gives instructions for calling friends and playing for them such pushbutton tunes as Flow Gently, Sweet Afton and Strangers in the Night.
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