Everett

Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)Whatever you believe about the future of AI, there’s probably a cult out there for you. Ideological factions have been drawing lines for years and they each seem to bring pseudoreligious trappings with them. If you believe AI will inevitably kill everyone on the planet you might want to join the MIRI cult. If you believe that AI is dangerous but you and your close personal friends are the only people smart enough to control it, you might fit in with the Effective Altruist cult. And if…

“I recall that I am extremely forgetful,” announces the narrator of Percival Everett’s Dr No in the novel’s opening lines. “I believe I am. I think I know that I am forgetful. Though I remember having forgotten, I cannot recall what it was that I forgot or what forgetting feels like.” No sooner has the reader crossed the threshold of the narrative than it begins to reveal itself as a labyrinth of mirrors, an elaborate and joyously rickety construction of philosophical gags and structural paradoxes. The novel, Everett’s…

Percival Everett, who made his debut in 1983, was little known to UK readers before his 2001 satire Erasure, the intimate tale of an African-American writer’s existential crisis, framed by a ruthless send-up of the racist publishing industry helping to fuel it. But after that success, Everett’s output – restless as well as prolific, riffing on literary theory, Greek tragedy, westerns – largely escaped British attention. Almost none of his books were in print here before he caught the eye of the small independent press…

I played I Like the Way This Is Going as a love letter to my then girlfriend, now wife, before having it played as we walked down the aisle. What does it feel like to be able to create songs that can change people’s lives? cleckhuddersfaxIt’s the most amazing feeling because you write these songs for yourself, so to have other people getting something out of it is fantastic. I wrote that song for my girlfriend at the time and a few hours later we got in a big fight. Then I felt stupid for having written it, but we’re…

Good morning, and welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter.This month we’re reading Los Angeles author Percival Everett’s “Dr. No,” a cross-genre spy caper that delivers a much-needed escape from the election season drumbeat.A USC English professor, Everett’s books play with genre, language and our assumptions about race and gender. In “Dr. No,” he turns to academia to create a brilliant mathematics professor who partners with a billionaire supervillain for a 007-style heist. “No one understands the slippery nature…

Cat Clifford, CNBC climate tech and innovation reporter, at Helion Energy on October 20.Photo taken by Jessie Barton, communications for Helion Energy, with Cat Clifford's camera.On Thursday, October 20, I took a reporting trip to Everett, Wash., to visit Helion Energy, a fusion startup that has raised raised nearly $600 million from a slew of relatively well known Silicon Valley investors, including Peter Thiel and Sam Altman. It's got another $1.7 billion in commitments if it hits certain performance targets.Because…

Percival Everett is a seriously playful writer. His 2001 breakthrough novel Erasure lampooned the dominant culture’s expectations of Black authors, in a wonderfully discursive meditation on the angst of the African American middle classes and the nature of literature and art itself (its title is a reference to Robert Rauschenberg rubbing out a drawing by Willem de Kooning). The novel within the novel is a self-consciously absurd parody of “ghetto” fiction called My Pafology. Everett’s latest work, The Trees, now…

Screenshot: HBOFor those of you worried about the Colin Farrell-led TV series, The Penguin, don’t be. For those of you worried about HBO’s Strange Adventures TV series, do be. We also have a sweet little teaser for new episodes of Cuphead on Netflix. Forth, spoilers!Insidious 5Deadline reports Patrick Wilson will personally direct the fifth film in the Insidious franchise, which will see his character Josh Lambert “head east to drop his son Dalton off at an idyllic, ivy-covered university. However, Dalton’s college dream…

Alexander played Eric Tiberius 'Duckman', a self-obsessed "private dick/family man" who lives with his deceased wife, sister, two children, and mother-in-lawRepresentational images. Pic/iStockEverett Peck, the illustrator and cartoonist of the wacky animated series 'Duckman' starring Jason Alexander, has died. He was 71 years old at the time.According to a post on his Instagram handle, Peck died on Tuesday. "Mr Peck has left the studio," the posts read. There were no more facts about his death available at the time.Peck…

Rupert Everett has spoken of the “frustration” he felt upon seeing Colin Firth play the lead role in Tom Ford’s critically acclaimed film, A Single Man. Speaking on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Everett, 62, discussed the topic of straight actors playing gay characters. While he said he did not think gay roles need to be played exclusively by gay actors, he seemed irked by Firth’s role as a gay man in the 2009 drama.“It’s quite frustrating. I was frustrated, I remember going to see Colin Firth in the film by Tom Ford . I…