Every year, the newspaper where I work, The Stranger, holds what it calls its Strangercrombie, an auction whose proceeds in their entirety go for charity—to the hunger-relief agency Northwest Harvest. This year, there are 100-something packages to bid on, ranging from fashion to shopping sprees to dildos and butt plugs to vacation packages, plus tons of arts-related items.

My favorite this year is the auction of esteemed New Yorker music critic Alex Ross's iPod (The Rest Is Noise needs no introduction, I'm sure). The iPod comes preloaded with music chosen by Ross and divided into very meticulously curated playlists programmed by Ross's own fingers (wherever those have been)!

From our Slog:

The first playlist is called Silence and includes Stravinsky’s Pater Noster, Morton Feldman’s Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety, and a chunk of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time…

The second playlist is called The Twentieth Century and includes Ives, Schoenberg, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Gershwin (from Porgy and Bess), Pärt, Björk, the Györgys (Ligeti and Kurtág), and a few other diacritic-enhanced names.

The third playlist is dedicated to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and the fourth to Bob Dylan. If I were a selfish man, I’d exclude these details to make the package less interesting and improve my chances of being able to afford it. I make this sacrifice for you.

Two things:

1. The auctions are open to anyone who is capable of using eBay.
2. Because the proceeds go to charity, if you win, your purchase is tax-deductible.

For any auction, just click the Bid Now! link to be taken to the eBay listing.