Thursday, May 25, 2017
Writing posted by Richard Seymour
I have launched a new project, using Patreon, wherein I'll be writing daily and 'patrons' (anyone who pledges any monthly sum to my account) will have immediate access to that writing. There are already three articles up there, dealing with Labour, the elections, Manchester, terror, and the death-drive. This is an attempt to incentivise people to pay for writing, and to give me a reason to write every day. The pitch is as follows:
What do you do when you write? You give yourself a second body. And when you read, you breathe "air from another life and time and place".
Extended explanation, said the poet Marianne Moore, tends to spoil the lion's leap. I will be brief. You cannot pay for good writing. You can't incentivise someone to lift your day, or to send you out into the streets in a fury. And you can't subscribe to a life-changing experience. All you can do is pay for writing to happen, and see what comes.
If, somehow, you don't know me, I am the author of several books, most recently 'Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics' (Verso, 2016). And I am a founding editor of Salvage magazine. I mostly write marxist political commentary -- a practiced purveyor of undead ideas. And sometimes I take strange, nocturnal detours.
If you support my writing, you will see daily political commentary (a diary or blog), regular political articles (roughly once a week), and occasional long-form essays before they appear anywhere else.
You will suffer shattering mood-swings, expand your vocabulary, acquire a certain aristocratic disposition, and fall in love twice as often as before. You will be on better terms with cats, and dogs will stop growling at you. The world will end more reluctantly and gracefully, and only after you've had dessert. Everything will be fine; no, it won't.
Please help.