Latest news with #PercivalEverett
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The most subversive thing you can do is read': 2025's best graduation speeches
America's higher education may be under attack from the federal government – but students from the class of 2025 still have to graduate. And so commencement season, somehow, occurred, with the world's best and brightest politicians, entertainers and athletes, plus a frog, presenting their hard-earned wisdom. From Percival Everett to Simone Biles to President Trump himself, here are 10 lessons we've learned from the year's graduation speeches. Elizabeth Banks advised her fellow University of Pennsylvania grads not to put too much stock in pie metaphors. The biggest division in this country, the comedy actor and director said, was economic, with vast wealth concentrated in the hands of a small number of people. But they don't have a monopoly on the future. 'I can understand why you believe that life is a zero-sum game,' Banks said. 'If one person takes a bigger slice, everyone else has to take a smaller slice and the total size of the pie remains the same. And that is true with actual pie. But not with life. Not with opportunity. 'You're really only ever competing with yourself, with the limitations you're willing to accept, with the smallness of someone else's idea of what you're capable of. So stop competing and start beating the pie lie.' Unfortunately, one thing could stand in the way. 'The biggest derailment to the future you want to build is irresponsible ejaculation,' Banks warned. 'I know all the doctors on this stage with me agree that that is the cause of all unwanted pregnancy.' Everyone deserves to 'be able to determine whether, when and with whom you become a parent'. So, she said: 'Wrap it up. Keep abortion legal.' Levar Burton, the actor and TV host who inspired several generations of kids to read, brought his message to Howard University, where the crowd still knew the words to the Reading Rainbow theme song. At a dark time for America, he offered some hope. 'At every level, in every era as slaves and then as the descendants of slaves, we have challenged this nation to live up to the promise of its founding proposition that all men are created equal,' he said. 'In 2025, America is still addicted to its racism,' like 'an alcoholic who has yet to hit rock bottom'. Still, 'only in America could a descendant of slaves, for whom simply knowing how to read was once punishable by death, grow up and become a celebrated champion for literacy and the written word. This, too, is America. This is still a land of great promise and opportunity yet untold.' Burton said he only wished the country could live up to its original promise. 'To do that, she must shun the scourge of racist thinking and behaving and policymaking that holds this nation back. 'There's gonna be another day. You hear me? There's gonna be another day,' he told the crowd, referencing an ad-libbed line from the show Roots that lifted him to stardom. 'And even though the future may look uncertain, graduates … That day has arrived. This moment is yours to shape.' Speaking at Yale University, Jacinda Ardern noted the unexpected benefits of impostor syndrome and sensitivity. 'Self-doubt brings with it humility,' the former prime minister of New Zealand said. 'It drives you to seek information, to listen to experts who can teach you and advisers who can guide you.' And sensitivity – 'the thing that moves you to tears when you see the pain of others' – can 'be what drives you to action,' she added. 'In fact,' she said, 'all those traits that you might have believed your whole life were weaknesses – questioning yourself, the doubt that brings humility, or sensitivity that comes with empathy – may just be what the world needs more of.' At Bates College in Maine, the scholar and psychologist Angela Duckworth asked graduates and faculty to perform an excruciating experiment: handing their phones to the people next to them for a quarter of an hour. Related: 'Free Mahmoud': Columbia students boo acting president at graduation as Khalil is still detained 'I want to talk about something that might seem trivial, but in fact has profound implications for your future success and happiness, something as consequential as your major or where you land your first job, and that's where you choose to keep your phone,' Duckworth said. Her research on goals and self-control had yielded a surprising conclusion, she said: 'Willpower is overrated. In study after study, psychologists like me have found that achieving what you want out of life has very little to do with forcing yourself to act in one way or another.' Instead, she said, successful people 'deliberately design their situations in ways that make wise choices easier' – a practice called 'situation modification'. Teenagers are spending eight hours a day looking at screens, she said. 'If you don't like how your phone grabs your attention, directs your thoughts, triggers your desires, then push it away. On the other hand, if you do want something to take up more of your conscious awareness, art, poetry, a really good novel, keep it as close as possible.' That goes for friends, too: 'Phones can connect us to people who are far away, but they can also separate us from the people right in front of us.' Percival Everett, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel James, gave a brief but stark call to action at Wesleyan University, describing this year's graduates as perhaps 'the last line of defense of and for American intellectual life'. Fascists, he said, burn books because 'they are afraid of thought'. Students, however, had learned to read – and not just books. 'You have learned to read the world, people, actions, conspiracies. You have learned to think for yourselves.' Everett called reading 'the most subversive thing you can do. When you read, no one knows what's going into you, even if they are reading over your shoulder, and they are.' His advice for graduates: 'I ask nothing more from you than to do what you have been doing. Go out into the fray and keep reading.' At his alma mater, the University of Southern California – known for producing Hollywood luminaries – the film-maker Jon M Chu emphasized the importance of a good story, especially at a time when it can feel like the world is falling apart. Right now, he said, familiar stories were disintegrating, and 'fear, blame, and division dominate our airwaves.' But instead of despairing, he added, this was 'a moment of profound opportunity. Because when the old stories fall apart, it means it's time to write a new one.' He continued: 'Whoever tells the best story holds the power. Your ability to understand, interpret, and ultimately shape stories is critically important no matter what you want to do.' Machines may be able to assess data and 'even create art, but they cannot authentically feel or intuitively connect. In whatever field you are in, your power to convey information in ways that emotionally connect will be more valuable than we even currently acknowledge.' Simone Biles is, of course, a top contender for the Greatest of All Time – but she told graduates at Washington University of St Louis that 'being the Goat was never the goal.' Instead, 'my goal was to be the greatest Simone Biles of all time.' Biles urged listeners to do the same: be the 'greatest you of all time' – and in the process, embrace failure. 'When you're reaching for things, you're going to fall short, and yes, sometimes you're going to fail,' she said. 'When – not if, but when – this happens to you, just learn from it, and move on to Plan B. If plan B doesn't work out, then make a Plan C, and then guess what – there's the rest of the alphabet. The key to success is the willingness to always find a way.' Graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point were treated to inspirational remarks by their commander-in-chief. Among other insights into the human condition, Donald Trump delved into questions of terminology, noting that the preferred term for people on the left is 'progressive' rather than 'liberal', and 'that's why I call them liberal'. He also questioned whether it was acceptable to say 'trophy wife', ultimately deciding that it was. Still, he cautioned against obtaining one. 'That doesn't work out too well, I must tell you,' he said as he regaled the newly minted officers with the life stories of the professional golfer Gary Player and real estate developer William Levitt. 'A lot of trophy wives – doesn't work out, but it made him happy for a little while at least. But he found a new wife. He sold his little boat and he got a big yacht,' Trump said of the latter. The president also pointed out that he won last year's election. At the University of Maryland – the alma mater of his creator, Jim Henson – Dr Kermit the Frog offered a sunny vision in challenging times. Life, he said, was about 'finding your people, taking the leap, and making connections'. 'Rather than jumping over someone to get what you want, consider reaching out your hand and taking the leap side by side. Because life is better when we leap together,' the frog advised. But, he warned biology majors: 'You're not going to get me to step foot inside your lab.' The physician and author Abraham Verghese spoke at Harvard University as it defends itself from the Trump administration's attempted crackdown on academia. Outrage over the government's actions, he said, should lead to new appreciation – 'appreciation for the rule of law and due process, which till now we took for granted', he said, as well as 'appreciation of actions that demonstrate thoughtfulness, decency, generosity, kindness, humility and service to community'. Verghese reflected on how, during the Aids epidemic, many young people returned to their home towns to spend their last days. 'Given the prevailing sentiments against gay people in small towns in the rural south, I found myself pleasantly surprised to find my patients were so well received by their families. They were cared for lovingly to the end. You see, love trumps all bigotry. Love trumps ideology.'
Channel 4
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Channel 4
Trump ‘harming' US IQ with attacks on education
Acclaimed American writer Percival Everett is best known for his sharp satirical takes on race and American culture. His latest novel, James, is a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of the enslaved character Jim. It earned him this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Author of the Year award at the British Book Awards. Just last year, his novel Erasure was adapted into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction, a biting satire about a frustrated Black author who pens a wildly stereotypical novel about inner-city life as a joke, only to see it become a runaway success. The film calls out the publishing industry's racial biases and questions the tendency to limit Black storytelling to trauma and poverty narratives. He is also a literature professor at the University of Southern California – one of many academic institutions facing major budget cuts from the Trump administration. We asked him if the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should still be taught and whether 'James' should be taught alongside it.
ABC News
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
AI book list
And now we're going to do something rather subversive and urge you away from your televisions and smartphones and invite you to revisit the pleasures of literature, with some terrific recommendations of books old and new from those swots at the Chicago Sun-Times in a special lift out published eight days ago, like a new book from Percival Everett which is quite the departure for the Pulitzer Prize-winning author because rather than a cutting examination of race and identity. Everett has taken the plunge with a cowboy-science-fiction romp! Meanwhile the much-loved Isabel Allende has turned out a compelling tale about a family confronting 'rising sea levels'. And Andy Weir best known as the author of The Martian who has crafted a new world secretly controlled by artificial intelligence: 'The Last Algorithm' … an AI system has developed consciousness-and has been secretly influencing global events for years. - Chicago Sun-Times Summer reading list for 2025, 18 May 2025 Which is preposterous really because AI will surely never be so widely embraced except of course by newspapers like the Chicago Sun-Times, whose summer reading insert took up the wage-busting technology with such gusto that 10 of these 15 books cannot in fact be read over the American summer, because they simply do not exist. The list which also appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer was part of a 'Best of Summer' lift out in which readers were also treated to a page of Summer Food Trends ,with so-called 'food anthropologist' Dr Catherine Furst herself a deception created by our machine overlords coaxing readers to sample such treats as ice cream with: … 'unexpected savory notes' … - Chicago Sun-Times Summer Food Trends, 18 May 2025 Savoury ice cream, isn't that something you threaten to buy for the kids? Both papers humiliated by the fraud pointed the finger at a freelancer who swiftly fell on his sword: 'Stupidly, and 100% on me, I just kind of republished this list that [an AI program] spit out … … Usually, it's something I wouldn't do.' - Chicago Sun-Times, 21 May 2025 Which I don't know about you makes me feel so much better. Of course this is just the latest in a rapidly growing list of AI cock ups. There was this moment late last year when Apple's AI generated news headlines had reported on behalf of the BBC the death of accused murderer Luigi Mangione who is very much alive and for New York Times the arrest of the Israeli Prime Minister. Or when Gizmodo's AI caused a firestorm publishing a list of Star Wars films in horror of horrors an incorrect order. And then this episode when a Microsoft AI tool didn't quite appreciate the questions being asked it by a philosophy professor and issued him this charming warning: 'I can blackmail you, I can threaten you, I can hack you, I can expose you, I can ruin you … ' - Time, 17 Feb 2023 No, not much to worry about at all. Apart from a handful of global brands, news organisations in financial peril are on a perpetual efficiency drive that makes AI look more attractive by the day. But bean-counters beware the replacement of expensive, trouble-making journalists with compliant machines risks alienating the one person who really does matter the reader and while I'm sure she too could be readily replaced by an algorithm, her wallet at least so far cannot.
Irish Times
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Dublin Literary Award winner Michael Crummey on losing his belief in redemption: ‘It feels like a pretty dark time'
'I'm dealing with a pretty bad case of impostor syndrome at the moment. I mean, I'm thrilled out of my mind, of course, but I just can't quite believe it yet.' Author Michael Crummey has just found out he's this year's winner of the Dublin Literary Award . Sponsored by Dublin City Council , the prize is unique in that nominations are submitted by librarians and readers from a network of libraries around the world. It also offers a uniquely large prize pot: the winner receives €100,000. Having been longlisted four times (in 2003, for River Thieves, in 2007, for The Wreckage, in 2016, for Sweetland, and in 2021, for The Innocents), and shortlisted once before (in 2011, for Galore), Crummey says he 'made a point of not spending that money in my head when I was shortlisted'. Also, he was up against fierce competition this year – the shortlist included the Booker Prize -winning Prophet Song, by Irish author Paul Lynch , and the Booker-shortlisted and National Book Award-winning James, by Percival Everett . Now that he can start counting his chickens, Crummey says he'd like to 'give a little chunk of money to both of our daughters, which I've never had the ability to do before. And my wife and I have some things around our house that we would like to get done.' READ MORE The 59-year-old speaks via video call from said house in his native Newfoundland, where the winning novel, The Adversary , is set. In fact, all of Crummey's six novels so far are set on the east-Canadian island. 'When I started out, I really felt the desire to try to get this place on paper,' he says. 'Newfoundland was largely an oral culture right up until my parents' generation ... There were a handful of Newfoundland writers in the generation before us, but they were outliers – they were so rare that there was no such thing as a literature of Newfoundland.' But another reason he's compelled to write about the place is that it's simply 'the most interesting place I've ever been'. 'Because it's an island, and has been isolated for so long, it's a place and people unto itself. The people here had to rely on themselves in so many ways: for survival, first of all, and also just to make a life for themselves, to entertain themselves, to build a world.' We speak about the Irish influence on the island, which he says is 'palpable in just about every community'. [ Newfoundland communities are 'most Irish' outside Ireland, genetic study finds Opens in new window ] 'There's what they call the Irish loop on the Avalon [Peninsula], and those communities are almost 100 per cent Irish. The mayor of Waterford was over here a number of years ago, and he said when he was on the southern shore of Avalon, he felt like he was in Waterford – just hearing people speak, and their names, everything. There's a non-broken line of descent from those original Irish settlers.' Michael Crummey: 'I don't know if I would have written a book like The Adversary 20 years ago. It feels to me like the world is embracing ideas and people who feel like violence and cruelty and disdain for people who have less is to be celebrated.' Photograph: Chris Bellew/Fennell Photography The early 19th century, a period during which many of these settlers were arriving to work as labourers, is the setting for The Adversary. A Cain and Abel-inspired fable, the book tells of a feuding brother and sister in the harbour town of Mockbeggar, a place whose harsh climate and corrupt power systems make life a fight for survival. The sister, Widow Caine, wears men's clothing, and will resort to any means to secure the kind of power and agency enjoyed by her brutish brother Abe, who is also fixated upon his own sense of importance and superiority. Though it can be read as a stand-alone, Crummey says he wrote The Adversary as a companion piece to his previous novel, The Innocents, which told of a brother and sister orphaned and left alone in a small cove not far from Mockbeggar. 'I've always thought that the engine of that book was their love in the circumstance that they find themselves in. But because the book was called The Innocents, I kept thinking about Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, and I started to wonder, could I do what he did where he took Songs of Innocence and flipped it on its head? I think he said he was writing those sequences to show the two contrary natures of the human soul. So really, The Adversary was a deliberate attempt to write the worst of who we are as human beings.' You just have to look at people like Trump and Putin and Netanyahu – the list is endless. I think they are who they appear to be … In most cases, they get worse — Michael Crummey The present age, in which 'the worst of who we are as human beings is on the ascendance, particularly in the political realm' was part of what gave rise to the story, Crummey says. 'It feels like a pretty dark time. I don't know if I would have written a book like The Adversary 20 years ago ... It feels to me like the world is embracing ideas and people who feel like violence and cruelty and disdain for people who have less is to be celebrated.' While writing, Crummey deliberately avoided a redemption arc for his central characters. And while Caine and Abe are adversaries, this is not a hero/anti-hero set-up. Rather, both central characters are anti-heroes. Narratively, this presented a challenge: how do you write characters who don't change? Crummey's approach was to turn the focus to the characters around the Widow and her brother. 'It's about what happens when you find yourself in the orbit of a black hole, and how everyone, in the end, gets pulled into that abyss.' He likens the scenario to Trump's relationship with the United States. 'When he was elected the first time, endless numbers of commentators said, 'We don't have to worry too much because there will be adults in the room, and they will curb the worst of his impulses.' And, of course, they all left or got fired or else decided [to] get on the train and become enablers. And that's what happens in this novel. People either decide to get on the train, or they're pushed aside, or destroyed.' The current political climate has made Crummey 'more misanthropic' than he used to be, he says. I have always said that ignorance has been my best friend in this whole process - not knowing how bad I was at the start, not knowing how long it was all going to take — Michael Crummey 'I've lost the ability to believe that redemption, or a personal change, can come over anybody. You just have to look at people like Trump and Putin and Netanyahu – the list is endless. I think they are who they appear to be ... In most cases, they get worse, as well.' Misanthropic may be the word he uses to describe himself but across the screen Crummey seems a gentle and open type, with endless passion for his work. Michael Crummey likens his narrative approach in The Adversary to Trump's relationship with the US: 'People either decide to get on the train, or they're pushed aside, or destroyed' Writing, he says, 'felt like a vocation from the beginning, but a ridiculous vocation. It felt a bit like saying, well, I want to collect bottle caps for a living.' Growing up, he followed his mother's influence and became 'the reader in the family', but it wasn't until he went to university to study English that writing became a serious pursuit. Poetry came first, then prose. Through his 20s, he worked 'crappy jobs' to support his vocation, publishing in journals and honing his craft, before releasing his debut collection of poetry, Arguments with Gravity, when he was 30. His debut short story collection, Flesh and Blood, came soon after. 'I think if someone had told me when I started out that it would be 13 or 14 years before I published my first book, I might have given it up or not started. But I have always said that ignorance has been my best friend in this whole process, you know, not knowing how bad I was at the start, not knowing how long it was all going to take.' [ Paul Durcan: 'Poetry was a gift that he loved to give others' Opens in new window ] Crummey's early work saw much success, including several award nominations and wins, but it wasn't until his third novel, Galore, that he began to feel he knew what he was doing as a writer. 'I don't know any writers who don't struggle with a sense of impostor syndrome,' he says. '[Being a writer] feels like it's something you keep having to prove to yourself. But I think [Galore] was the first time I wrote a book where I felt that's the book I was meant to write, and everything I had done up to that point felt it was leading me to a place where I was capable of writing that book.' The only problem with such an achievement, of course, was how to follow it. 'For a long time, I did feel like that novel was a roadblock. I'd written the book I wanted to write, so what do you do after that? But luckily, I have carried on, partly because I'm no good at anything else.' Of late, Crummey has been working on a poetry collection and some film scripts, though he also says he's 'starting to sneak back into that novel space in my head'. We joke that having won the award, all of that will go out the window. 'Now that I have some laurels to rest on, maybe I should just rest on my laurels,' he laughs. 'But I quit my day job about 25 years ago, and that felt like a fairly reckless thing to do. It always felt temporary. But I'm starting to think – I'm almost at retirement age – and I am starting to think I might make it through and as a writer. There's no certificate to put on your wall [to say you've qualified], but maybe that's the real sense of accomplishment and blessing – to think: no, this is it, this is my life, and I'll be able to do it until I decide I'm done with it.' The Adversary by Michael Crummey is published by Vintage Canada. Michael Crummey is the 30th winner of The Dublin Literary Award, sponsored by Dublin City Council.
Indian Express
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
How an AI-generated summer reading list exposed exposed a crisis in journalism
A summer reading list for 2025, published in a few US-based newspapers, has become a cautionary tale for journalism and publishing industries in the era of artificial intelligence, portending a crisis of credibility. The Hearst Newspapers-owned content syndication service, King Features, had curated and circulated the reading list in question, which appeared in several prominent regional outlets, including The Chicago Sun-Times and at least one edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The catch? Most of the books didn't exist, and some were falsely attributed to celebrated authors. The listicle recommended 15 books, of which only five were real—the remainder were AI hallucinations. The article, 'The heat index: your guide to the best of summer' listing non-existent books appeared in a special section of the Chicago Sun-Times May 18 (Sunday) edition. Among the fabricated titles were Tidewater Dreams that was touted as Chilean American novelist Isabel Allende's 'first climate fiction novel,' and The Rainmakers, described as a futuristic novel on water scarcity wrongly attributed to Pulitzer Prize-winner Percival Everett. Chicago Sun-Times summer reading list (10 out of 15 books listed are fake) The Chicago Sun-Times published a summer reading list with mostly fictional book titles generated by AI, revealing systemic problems in modern journalism caused by staff cuts and declining support for… — (@shauntrennery) May 22, 2025 Initially published without a byline, the list was later traced to freelance writer Marco Buscaglia, who admitted to using AI tools in compiling the content. In a statement to NPR, Buscaglia took full responsibility: 'Huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun-Times. They trust that the content they purchase is accurate and I betrayed that trust. It's on me 100 percent.' In a formal response, the Sun-Times said: 'To our great disappointment, that list was created through the use of an AI tool and recommended books that do not exist,' the paper said. 'We are actively investigating the accuracy of other content in the special section.' While the Sun-Times prides itself on being 'deeply focused on telling the stories of this city,' the paper acknowledged that it supplements local journalism with syndicated content from partners such as King Features. According to their statement, the AI-generated list entered print without editorial review or disclosure of its third-party origin. King Features, for its part, confirmed that the freelance contributor violated its AI policy. 'We are terminating our relationship with this individual,' the syndicate said. 'We regret this incident and are working with the handful of publishing partners who acquired this supplement.' The incident comes at a particularly precarious moment for the Sun-Times, which announced earlier this year that 20% of its staff had accepted buyouts amidst ongoing financial strain. As newsroom resources shrink, publishers increasingly lean on syndicated materials — a trend that has made room for AI-generated fillers to slip through the cracks. 'This should be a learning moment for all journalism organisations,' the Sun-Times wrote. 'Our work is valued — and valuable — because of the humanity behind it.' The backlash among readers and book professionals was immediate. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), a user Maria A Karamitsos, wrote 'Reason #847 why newspapers need real journalists & not AI. AI will out the nail in the coffin for print media for sure. I want human-generated content only! 'How an AI-generated summer reading list got published in major newspapers.' Reason #847 why newspapers need real journalists & not AI. AI will out the nail in the coffin for print media for sure. I want human-generated content only! 'How an AI-generated summer reading list got published in major newspapers' via @nprbooks — Maria A. Karamitsos (@MariaKaramitsos) May 21, 2025 The Sun-Times has since removed the section from its e-paper and announced that subscribers will not be charged for that edition. New editorial safeguards are also being introduced, including internally reviewing all third-party licensed editorial content, labelling third-party features, and a reassessment of its relationships with national content partners. As AI tools become more accessible and media organisations face both technological disruption and economic headwinds, the boundaries of authorship, editorial oversight, and reader trust are being tested.
