PRESS
The Sunday Times
Edition 1 - StreetSUN 17 OCT 2004, Page 032
Photo prank leads to bizarre developments
By ANNA COCK
PHOTOGRAPHY assistant Marc Horowitz has just become America's most popular man -- all thanks to a phone number he sneaked into a home furnishings catalogue.
The 28-year-old bachelor has had an estimated 3000 calls, including hundreds from prospective dates, since his mobile telephone number appeared on page 89 of the Crate & Barrel autumn catalogue mailed out in August to a million homes.
``It's the most bizarre thing that's ever happened to me,'' said the quirky Californian, who was unprepared for but delighted by the consequences of what could have been passed off as a prank.
Mr Horowitz, a conceptual artist who took a job as a photo assistant early this year to earn some ready cash, was already working on a personal project involving dinner meetings with strangers when he spotted an opportunity to further his cause during a studio shoot in Chicago.
The opportunity came in the form of a desk cabinet being photographed for the catalogue, complete with a whiteboard that had been given a homely touch with a handwritten reminder that read ``Furniture delivery, Sat 10.30''.
Underneath the message, Horowitz penned ``Dinner w/ Marc'' and his mobile telephone number.
To his surprise, people called -- including hundreds of single women, many of whom contacted the fresh-faced San Francisco resident after seeing him doing television interviews this week.
He has even heard from his eighth-grade girlfriend -- ``that's seriously, seriously nuts,'' he notes -- and cites the most unusual approach as a lunch invitation to Australia from an American couple living on a farm.
The couple promised Mr Horowitz that the fellow guests would be wallabies, kangaroos and kookaburras and even asked if he was single because ``you'd make an interesting son-in-law'', they wrote.
``In Hawaii somebody has offered me a lei -- that's L-E-I -- when I arrive,'' he laughed, explaining he had 70 dinner dates around the nation lined up from calls he received before all the media attention.
The dinners have been scheduled during the first three months of next year and Mr Horowitz plans to document them as his latest art project entitled ``The National Dinner Tour''.
He has spurned offers of millions from reality television producers, is talking to a publisher about a book and said that although it was a stretch funding the tour himself, he did not want to ``sell out'' by attracting a corporate sponsor.
Caption: INVITING: Page 89 of the Crate & Barrel catalogue mailed out in August to a million US homes.
IN DEMAND: Marc Horowitz