Partying with Lux magazine’s socialist feminists
If I learned one thing, socialists can’t dance. Photo: Sarah Leonard 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.
7:28 p.m. | I take an elevator to the tenth floor and follow signage to a card table where two people are checking proof of vax and informing everyone that “this is a mask-on soirée,” even though neither of them are wearing masks. They hand everyone two free drink tickets and I exchange one of mine for exactly three sips of a pet nat. There are only a dozen or so people here so far, attempting to make conversation through their masks and over the music.
8:40 p.m. | Slowly the loft fills with mostly artsy-looking millennial women with trendy haircuts — the Second Wave is in, sartorially at least — and men in plaid and corduroy. Everyone gathers in little clusters of three or four, leaning very close to one another to be able to hear anything over Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby.” It’s hard to maneuver into one of the groups without feeling like you are intruding.
9:15 p.m. | In a corner of the room I meet a journalist staring into her laptop. She tells me she’s on deadline to write a bell hooks obituary for another magazine, and she’s determined to make some progress at the party. She explains that this passing isn’t just another “Paul Walker.” This one is important. “I think she has a lot of interesting and good ideas.”
10:18 p.m. | This might be a feminist socialist party, but there are a fair amount of men here tonight, so I decide it’s time to seek out the male perspective. I try two men smoking out the window, but they’re too wrapped up in a debate about 5G and “electrosensitives,” or “people who are extremely sensitive to electromagnetic wavelengths and frequencies.” By the time one explains that “We are bioelectrical beings,” I move on.
Where the socialists complained about the tobacco lobby and smoked cigs at the same time. Photo: Courtesy of Brock Colyar 11:30 p.m. | The DJ plays Lil Mama’s “Lip Gloss,” but the dancing has not improved. Absolutely no one I see is wearing their mask by now, minus one man who’s been standing centimeters from a woman pushed up against a bookshelf for the last 30 minutes. I keep thinking they’re making out, before I notice the masks.
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