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An eco-journalist takes on a Big Tech in this modern twist on the heist novel

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An eco-journalist takes on a Big Tech in this modern twist on the heist novel

George Orwell famously wrote that it takes a constant struggle to see what’s in front of one’s nose. That may be truer than ever. These days we barely register things that 20 years ago would’ve seemed downright bizarre — like people staring down at their phones in busy crosswalks. The unnatural comes to seem natural.

Until it doesn’t. This has happened with the proliferation of data centers all over America. After years of ignoring their mushrooming growth — there are over 4,000 in the U.S. — the public now sees them clearly and doesn’t like what they represent, be it soaring energy bills or the advent of job-killing AI. People now oppose having data centers in their communities. In real life — and in movies like Eddington — politicians are now pulled between their constituents’ desires and the devouring needs of Big Tech.

The hatred of data centers ignites the action in Cloudthief, a boisterous new novel that’s equal parts heist thriller and cry in the digital wilderness. It was written by novelist Nathaniel Rich, who may be best known for ecological non-fiction such as his 2019 book Losing Earth. Setting his story back in 2014 — when tech billionaires were still considered visionaries, not bullying moguls — Cloudthief centers on a brainy young man who, like the guy in the Leonard Cohen song, is just some Joseph looking for a manger.

Our narrator “Tim” — a pseudonym he says — is a freelance writer who’s gone broke doing magazine articles about climate change. He’s lonely and lost until he stumbles upon Virginia (also not her real name), who could be the American cousin of dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander.

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Tech-savvy and paranoid and scarily elusive, Virginia lives off the grid in a Manhattan mini-storage unit and has plans for a blow against Big Tech. Evidently, Tim has never seen a noir movie because he doesn’t merely fall for this 21st-century fantasy of a femme fatale, he dreamily goes along with her plans to rob a data center in Pryor, Okla., and make off with the sellable information their servers contain.

Once they drive off to Pryor — Rich describes their road trip wonderfully — Cloudthief kicks into high gear, serving up the juicy stuff that we all love in a heist story. We see the baroque planning. We watch them case their target, a silver-smoke spewing behemoth that has the majestic size of two futuristic airport terminals but is actually as tacky as a boondocks mini-mall.

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This rising painter reimagines Renaissance art in a cocoa plantation in Cameroon

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This rising painter reimagines Renaissance art in a cocoa plantation in Cameroon

Marc Padeu, a painter from Cameroon, draws inspiration from Renaissance art brought into an African landscape. The above painting is title “Sous le poids de la coupe” — under the weight of the cup.

Copyright The Artist/Courtesy Larkin Durey


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Copyright The Artist/Courtesy Larkin Durey

Cameroonian painter Marc Padeu says that being an African artist means “being the heir to an extraordinarily rich history.” But he also says it can mean “living and working on a continent where artistic infrastructure is virtually nonexistent.”

Padeu’s work often takes inspiration from religious paintings from the European Renaissance — but reimagines them, depicting people in Cameroon’s cocoa plantations. London gallery Larkin Durey is currently holding an exhibition of Padeu’s latest work.

Marc Padeu Bapteme

Marc Padeu, a painter from Cameroon, has a new show at the London gallery
London gallery Larkin Durey.

Courtesy of Larkin Durey

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Oliver Durey, the gallery’s director, said: “Mark’s work is timeless. His visual style is simultaneously very contemporary but also deeply rooted in that old tradition — so there is something extremely fresh about it.”

Padeu is from Bafang in the West Region of Cameroon and is part of the Bamileké ethnic group. The 36-year-old now lives in Yaoundé, the country’s political capital. In an interview with NPR, Padeu explained his art — and what inspires him.

Can you talk about why you meld classic Western paintings with African scenes?

I wouldn’t say that I’m trying to fuse Western painting with African scenes. For me, it’s more a question of placing images that everyone recognizes within a setting that is familiar to me. I grew up in Cameroon, surrounded by plantations, villages and people who make their living from the land. That’s the world I know best, so it’s only natural that this is the setting in which I want to tell these stories.

At one point, I asked myself why certain images seemed to belong exclusively to Europe. Why should the Nativity, the Last Supper or Christ in Gethsemane always be depicted with the same faces and the same landscapes? Yet what they convey goes far beyond any particular place or era. They speak of love, sacrifice, fear, hope, family. These are profoundly human, universal experiences.

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How did you become an artist? 

It’s certainly down to genetics, first and foremost. My mother is a fashion designer. She doesn’t work much any more, but when I was younger, I used to see her fashion sketchbooks. So I inherited this talent from my mother. I was already drawing a lot at primary school and then at secondary school. I was the one who often helped teachers draw their demonstration sketches on the blackboard in front of my classmates. This often earned me a certain reputation at the various schools I attended.

Later on, I went on to study at the school of fine arts. I must say the timing was perfect in that respect. The very year I passed my A-levels, the Cameroonian government opened the country’s very first art schools. So I’m part of the very first ever intake of graduates from that school. It was a very traditional course, based mainly on the study of art history.

Marc Padeu, "La bague de Roxane"

“La bague de Roxane” — Roxane’s ring — by Marc Padeu

Private Collection, USA/Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Larkin Durey


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Is there one artist who inspired you most?

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The African American painter Kerry James Marshall. Marshall was a significant discovery for me, not because I wanted to paint like him, but because he showed me that it was possible to reestablish Black bodies at the heart of the great tradition of painting. He never merely added Black figures to an art history that had already been written; he demonstrated that they were an integral part of it.

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A tale of two very different horny movies

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A tale of two very different horny movies

Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner in One Night Only.

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Nicole Rivelli/Universal Pictures

A wise man once said, Sex is natural, sex is good / Not everybody does it / but everybody should.

Don’t take this declaration literally — have sex if you want to, or don’t have it if you don’t. It’s the sentiment that’s admirable, the notion that sex doesn’t have to be shameful, rigid or distressing. It can be fun! It can be freeing! It can be weird, but in a good way! That spirit seems to have carried over into this summer’s movie season in some big ways: The buzzy comedies I Want Your Sex and The Invite have been enthusiastic champions of unconventional sex and sexuality.

And this week brings two more films where desire and straight-up horniness are top of mind — Jane Schoenbrun’s excellent Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Will Gluck’s infuriatingly sex-negative One Night Only. The latter stars Monica Barbaro and Mr. Dua Lipa — er, Callum Turner.

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As the end credits rolled at my One Night Only screening, I thought to myself, Did they really put out a mainstream sex-negative rom-com, in the year 2026, arguing for the so-called “upsides” of living under an authoritarian government? Also known as “the sex Purge movie” — because it echoes the popular action-horror franchise – director Gluck and writer Travis Braun’s high-concept dystopian love story is about two hot New Yorkers who keep having awkward meet-cutes during the one 12-hour-period a year when Americans are legally allowed to have pre-marital sex. (When the movie begins, the country is three years into the congressional mandate, which is enforced via biosensors branded on the wrist indicating one’s status as single or married.)

It’s an inherently fascinating premise that could, in the right hands, be taken in creatively curious directions, interrogating right-wing policing of women’s and queer people’s bodies or even Gen Z’s supposed collective aversion to sex in most forms. That latter issue is of particular interest to Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, which sees Olivia Wilde’s freewheeling artist character enter an ethically dubious yet consensual sexual relationship with her much younger employee, played by Cooper Hoffman.

But apart from a throw-away line here and there, One Night Only is thoroughly uninterested in engaging with the politics it explicitly conjures beyond a few clever sight gags. Instead, it leaves you with more questions than answers, thanks to unclear and avoidant world-building. (For starters: What, exactly, qualifies as “sex”? How do queer people and visitors from abroad factor into all of this?) The movie merely gestures at resistance against the mandates, and does so only half-heartedly and insidiously; the one character we see defy the law is made out to be an all-around deviant with a long rap sheet.

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‘Wait Wait’ for August 8, 2026: With Not My Job guest Sally Field

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‘Wait Wait’ for August 8, 2026: With Not My Job guest Sally Field

Sally Field attends Netflix’s Los Angeles Premiere of “Remarkably Bright Creatures” in Hollywood at Netflix Tudum Theater on April 30, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Netflix)

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Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Sally Field and panelists Tom Bodett, Shantira Jackson, and Paula Poundstone. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.

Who’s Alzo This Time

One Giant Crash for Mankind; Mexico meets Mexican-ish; Who’s Watching the Baby?

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Panel Questions

A Murder of Best Friends

Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell three stories about a show that just couldn’t go on, only one of which is true

Not My Job: Legendary actor Sally Field joins us to answer our questions about the world’s dumbest animals

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This week, we’re joined by legendary actor Sally Field, who’s up for an Emmy for her role in Remarkably Bright Creatures. She plays our game called “Remarkably Dumb Creatures,” three questions about the dumbest animals on Earth.

Panel Questions

Righty Tighty, Lefty Also Tighty; No Encores, Please!

Limericks

Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Get Your Back Out at the Outback; The Worst Part of Waking Up; The Waaaaah-dyssey

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Lightning Fill In The Blank

All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else

Predictions

Our panelists predict, after the big crash, what’s the next story that’ll get the Moon into the news?

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