'Back That Azz Up,' Comrade!

On December 15, just as Omicron preoccupied the city, I went to a party at the Dumbo loft owned by Verso Books, “the largest independent, radical publishing house in the English-speaking world.” The high-ceilinged, book-lined space with a great view of the Manhattan Bridge has long been a gathering place for city socialists, some of whom, I discovered, use the word “comrade” unironically. The event itself was hosted by Lux, a new-ish socialist feminist magazine named after the Marxist thinker and martyr Rosa Luxemburg. Its editor and publisher, Sarah Leonard, described Lux to me as “a cross between Cosmo and Marxism” — a slightly sexier, farther to the left descendent of magazines like Ms. and Bitch. “I think it’s been a bit of a relief for people who are like, yeah I’m a socialist but I’m not a bro who loves to yell at people,” Leonard says. “I’m queer and female and an abolitionist and I want that to be the starting point.” The tagline is “We Want It All.”  Or, as another editor put it later, “We’re not here saying don’t drink wine! We’re just saying drink union wine!” Read Full Article »