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We're observing Slog silence from now until 11 a.m. while we have an editorial meeting, but look—we made an entire paper's worth of stuff for you! Here's what Birch has to say.

Aside from a "Sexual Relations for Procreative Purposes" issue, The Stranger's unlikeliest themed issue is a fashion issue. Several Stranger scribblers (GRANT BRISSEY and BRENDAN KILEY) appear to own, at best, one and a half shirts between them. Others (CIENNA MADRID and JEN GRAVES) cannot manage to keep their genitals on the inside of their outfits. Still others (PAUL CONSTANT) manage to cram every pendulous lobe of their enormous bodies inside clothing fit for children—cartoon characters smeared across their T-shirts, food encrusted on their tattered dungarees, topped off with thrift-store running sneakers that have never once seen even a caricature of strenuous physical activity.

I do not have any idea how this MARTI JONJAK who wrote this week's fashion feature dresses, but if she pens columns for The Stranger, I assure you that her taste in fashion is not to be trusted. I presume an inspection of her closet—if she does, in fact, own a closet and does not currently "squat" in someone's "lean-to"—would find not a single, solitary item of any value. How could she afford any, on a Stranger paycheck?

And for that matter, why would a recommendation from loaf-happy gadabout TRENT MOORMAN inspire you to listen to a musical group that decided, for some unknown reason, to name itself "Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band"? The last time Mr. Moorman's brain was not sopping wet with rye was in 1997, and I have it on good authority that that was because he was imprisoned.

And—tell me again—by whose authority do ANNA MINARD, GOLDY, and Mr. Kiley review theatrical productions? One is an unpaid-intern-cum-semiliterate- copy-editor, another a partisan hack, another the world's worst Ernest Hemingway impersonator. Among them, I could not uncover one solid credential as a reviewer. And still they get free tickets to some of the biggest shows in Seattle, simply because the whole town has decided to play along as enablers to their sick little journalist fantasies.

At least Miss Graves comes from a journalism background. Though if you think about it, that makes her efforts even sadder than that of the aforementioned bumblers. This week, she drags two professional artists to a show of noteworthy homosexual artworks and asks the artists what they think. The piece is light as air—what with so little weight and meaning invested—and altogether a waste of time.

In fairness, there are two Stranger employees amply qualified to write the pieces they have in this week's issue. One is noted fornicator DAN SAVAGE, author of a long-lasting sideshow of sexual dysfunction, of course. The other is hyperbolic, shambling Mr. Constant, who reviews a lunch counter that serves ample portions. As mentioned before, it cannot be denied: When you look at Mr. Constant, you can see that the man definitely knows how to eat.