Music

From The Archives

The Big Bang Boom

The Rockets' Red Glare, Bombs Bursting in Air, and the World's Longest String-of Firecrackers. Taking Cover at the 18th Annual Pyrotechnic Convention

by Guy Trebay
Pride

Sylvester: Staying Alive

“For almost 20 years, Sylvester has been an icon of San Francisco nightlife: outrageous, bold, proud. Today, he is a symbol of a totally different San Francisco — a gay man struggling to stay alive”

by Barry Walters
The Culture

The Unbearable Whiteness of Publishing, Pt. 1

“For the first five years that I was writing for The New Yorker,” says a longtime contributor, “the closest I ever got to a person of color was a young white fact-checker with dreads.”

by James Ledbetter
From The Archives

BLACK LIKE WHO? Arguing With the Homeboys

“Given that black folks make art and market it within white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, none of us can ignore the reality that any black person who wants to create a product with mass crossover appeal must do some serious soul-searching”

by bell hooks
Theater

Genet, Mailer, & the New Paternalism

“The new paternalists really think, it seems, that their utterances of the oldest racial cliches are, somehow, a demonstration of their liberation from the hanky-panky of liberalism and God knows what else”

by Lorraine Hansberry
From The Archives

Milton Glaser at the Voice – Short Time, Big Impact

The design virtuoso, who died last week at age 91, brought the Voice's editorial look up to speed

by R.C. Baker