Marcus Hum, a philanthropic reader of this paper, was so moved by the spirit of the holidays during The Stranger's Strangercrombie charity auction that he bought the rights to put whatever he wished on the cover of this issue and then donated the space to Northwest Harvest. The cover is a depiction of Northwest Harvest volunteers making sandwiches. (Mr. Hum also purchased the fill-one-inside-page-of-The-Stranger- however-you-like auction item and ordered The Stranger to make that an advertisement for Northwest Harvest as well—this appears on page 2.)
In previous years, the Strangercrombie cover has gone to a government agency advertising transportation policy, a circus troupe advertising spandex and hedonism, a self-published writer advertising his satanic sci-fi novel, and the like. Proponents of capitalism may grumble that Mr. Hum is being a little too virtuous here—his generosity leading him to double the do-gooderism of the whole Strangercrombie enterprise by donating to charity the things he bought to benefit charity in the first place—but Mr. Hum's financial resources were no doubt assembled by capitalist means and, as Mr. Hum could tell you, the whole point of having money is getting to do whatever you like with it.
Moreover, as anyone with eyes can see, it happens to be the best cover of The Stranger in recent memory. Consider the covers we've seen in the last year, as selected by an art director with a background in rock and roll and an editor with a marijuana addiction: a photograph depicting a half-naked homosexual bound to a post with duct tape, a middle-aged woman wearing a sweatshirt that reads "Mom Smokes Pot," a painting of a pile of trash, a disturbing depiction of Farrah Fawcett with Michael Jackson's face, an abstract mass of squirmy genitalia, a bearded lady, and so forth. The cover this week, by contrast, while not promoting anything meretricious, tawdry, or illegal, retains the weirdness the paper apparently believes is part of its brand, while not sending the contents of your stomach running for the exits the way most Stranger covers do. What Mr. Hum's cover promotes is the hard work of Northwest Harvest's "sandwich brigade," which assembles 1,500 sandwiches at the Cherry Street Food Bank every Monday and Wednesday, and then distributes them to individuals who have no cooking facilities.
Additionally, watching women make sandwiches is simply relaxing. Well played, Mr. Hum.
Elsewhere in this issue: BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT writes an ode to public drunkenness and petty thievery, and somewhere in the midst of all that misanthropy is a glowing recommendation for a local eatery (somebody actually paid for this?); LINDY WEST interviews a short-form filmmaker (again, of dubious charitable value); and a heterosexual married man who actually paid for the privilege assists DAN SAVAGE in writing his weekly advice column for perverts (when did shuffling through a mailbag rife with epistles from syphilitic self-abusers become anyone's idea of a good time?).
