Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

Southern Discomfort: The Photographs of Sally Mann

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Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings
at Getty Center, Los Angeles (through February 10, 2019)
Reviewed by Nancy Kay Turner

Abide with me! Fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide!  –Hymn

Sally Mann’s haunting black and white photographs are a hymn to the South she loves so ferociously, with all its troubled, tangled, twisted history filled with bitter defeats. The charismatic photographs of her children, of her own black nanny Virginia, who also cared for her children, and of the Civil War battlefields are poignant, bittersweet narratives examining the complexities of race, place, family and faded memory. [Read more…]

John Biscello’s Nocturne Variations

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Reviewed by Kindra M. Austin

Nocturne Variations
by John Biscello
Unsolicited Press, 324 pp., $18.00 

John Biscello's Nocturne Variations, reviewed at Riot Material magazineNocturne Variations is a twenty-first century presentation of avant-garde literature.

Super. But what is avant-garde? Avant-garde is a French term that means advance guard — people and ideas that are ahead of their time. It’s a concept that refers to artists, composers, and writers whose works oppose mainstream values. As a noun, avant-garde is defined as new and unusual or experimental ideas in the arts. Often connected to political activism (think of Theater of the Absurd, Bob Dylan, and John and Yoko), there exists a misconception that avant-garde must always be politically driven. [Read more…]

The Bruises and Bloodletting Of A Hard-Boiled Romantic

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Ernest Hemingway: A Biography
by Mary V. Dearborn
Reviewed by John Biscello

Can I believe myself as others believe me to be? Here is where these lines become a confession in the presence of my unknown and unknowable to me, unknown and unknowable for myself. Here is where I create the legend wherein I must bury myself.  — Miguel de Unamuno.

Perhaps no other 20th century writer has invited more scorn, worship, lampooning, lionization, and soapbox scrutiny than Ernest Hemingway. Or rather the “legend” of Ernest Hemingway. His name became not only synonymous with American literature, and a laconic style of writing, but also with a specific he-man persona that wore its balls on its torn sleeve. [Read more…]