Ball Drop at the Times Square Arts Center

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

“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”

“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.”

“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”

“The sophisticated audience that had turned out to put down the art that was not on display provided a chilling touch of surrealism worthy of Buñuel or Fellini”

“It is a party, and Václav is The Good King: relaxed, smothered in kisses and well-wishes ... the only president in living history who, in one breath, can quote John Lennon, Samuel Beckett, and Immanuel Kant”