Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

Archives for October 2021

Dune

By

CINEMA DISORDINAIRE

By Manohla Dargis

In a galaxy far, far away, a young man in a sea of sand faces a foreboding destiny. The threat of war hangs in the air. At the brink of a crisis, he navigates a feudalistic world with an evil emperor, noble houses and subjugated peoples, a tale right out of mythology and right at home in George Lucas’s brainpan. But this is Dune (2021), baby, Frank Herbert’s science-fiction opus, which is making another run at global box-office domination even as it heads toward controversy about what it and its messianic protagonist signify. [Read more…]

Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption

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An excerpt from a new book W. W. Norton calls “a radically inclusive, intersectional, and transnational approach to the fight for women’s rights.” 

Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption
by Rafia Zakaria
W. W. Norton, 256pp., $23.95

There is an important distinction between what Nancy Fraser calls “affirmative change” and actual transformational change. The former is perfunctory, form-filling, intended to silence and appease; the latter requires the dissolution of underlying structures and hierarchies for a complete reformulation. Whether it is the National Organization of Women or an organization like Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) or even the Women’s March, all require transformational change. This means reconsidering everything, from the way meetings are organized and conference calls are set up to the way public demonstrations are organized. The go-to for most organizations, sadly, is affirmative change: the installation of a Black woman at the top or the creation of a committee to look into “diversity” (AIUSA convened many of these, fostering the impression that something was being done, when all that was done was to establish another committee whose findings would not be available for months and sometimes years). [Read more…]

Beyond the Pleasure Dome: The Lost Occult World of Burt Shonberg

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at Buckland Museum, Cleveland (through 1 November 2021). Presented by Stephen Romano Gallery, Brooklyn

by Robin Scher

“The truth is out there,” that quintessentially quotable tagline from the hit 90s TV series The X Files, reflects an ongoing fascination. The obsession with this statement lies in its absolute nature: the truth, not a truth. This idea speaks to an objective reality, a place that lies beyond our subjective perceptions and experiences of the world. The paths toward reaching this destination take many forms, encompassing spiritual practices, creative expression and psychonautical exploration. And while the combination of these pursuits was once the remit of counterculture, today they could not be more interconnected and mainstream. To know why is interesting unto itself, but let’s look beyond that to the more curious nature of this recurring curiosity. [Read more…]

Howls of Grief for the Life Bleeding Out: Harrow, by Joy Williams

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Reviewed by Justin Taylor

Harrow: A Novel
by Joy Williams
Knopf, 224pp., $22.99
Bookforum

I drove across the Everglades in May. I had originally planned to take Alligator Alley, but someone tipped me off that, in the twenty years since I left South Florida, the historically wild and lonesome stretch of road had been fully incorporated into I-75, turned into a standard highway corridor with tall concrete walls on both sides, designed to keep the traffic noise in and the alligators out. So on the drive west from Boynton Beach, I took the northern route, skirting along the bottom of Lake Okeechobee through new subdivisions and past a succession of sugar plantations, the horizon pillared with smoke from the farmers burning cane. Small towns where the only signs of life are dollar stores. Roadside billboards sponsored by the US Sugar Corporation insist that “the air out here is cleaner than congested urban areas.” [Read more…]

Stillpoint: Reflections From A Year On The Cliff

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an excerpt from: Stillpoint
by Barrett Martin
Sunyata Books, 112pp., $12.99

Northern Lights

There are seven tall pines that line the edge of the cliff. We call them the Seven Sisters, because their branches hold hands and they like to dance when the Pacific winds blow through their tresses. They have distinct personalities too, as trees often do. There’s a large gap between two of them, which we call the Northern Gate, and it’s a window that looks straight out into the northern sky, overlooking the shipping lanes in the middle of the strait. We can see the Pleiades star cluster there too, and the seven stars of the Pleiades have many myths that also refer to the Seven Sisters. [Read more…]

Titane

By

CINEMA DISORDINAIRE

Reviewed by A.O. Scott

Alexia is a strip-club dancer in the South of France whose hobby — her compulsion, her kink, her vocation — is murder. As the bodies pile up and the law seems to be closing in, she leaves the house where she lives with her parents and takes on the identity of Adrien Legrand, a boy who went missing many years before.

Having seen a computer-generated image of the teenager Adrien might have grown up to be, Alexia fashions herself into a plausible likeness, cutting her hair short, binding her breasts and smashing her nose against a bathroom sink. The disguise works well enough to convince the boy’s dad, Vincent, the ultra-manly commander of a fire-and-rescue squad. But there is a complication: Alexia is pregnant. The father, as far as we can tell, is a Cadillac with hydraulic suspension and a custom paint job. As the pregnancy progresses, Alexia starts to lactate petroleum. [Read more…]