Alexander Stuart

  I haven’t posted to this blog for so long that I thought I should at least note the year, 2021, and the fact that America is breathing again after four years of madness. I can barely begin to communicate the relief I feel with Joe Biden as President, and Kamala Harris as Vice President, but this photograph, taken during a drive up into the hills around our house on Inauguration Day, captures a tiny part of it. The battery in one of our cars was flat after covid disuse, and after a jump start, I drove into the hills with no plan other than to try to give the battery a little charge.  The day was warm (Wednesday, January 20th), I had the windows down, and I just meandered, following my instinct, rather than any particular geography. I had NPR playing, and the realization that the hell of Trump was over, came like the warm breeze through the windows and the beautiful hills and winding roads ahead of me. I believe that Biden and Harris will prove to be surprisingly progressive and effect

This post about my father and the ocean is very important to me right now. It was written when we first moved to Santa Cruz, which we insisted on calling Aldabra because it is so magical... From Dawn to Sunset on the Beach - Pelicans, Whales and Memories of my Father A squadron of pelicans in a feeding frenzy. All p hotographs Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Living and writing by the ocean - in a spot we like to call Aldabra (which in reality is a remote and very beautiful atoll in the Indian Ocean) - the beach figures large in my thoughts and daily routine. Usually I wake early, and on occasion I walk at dawn through the waves, past the occasional fisherperson, enjoying the darkness slowly transforming into light, the spray of the breakers, the pull of the tide around my feet, the constant barking of the sea lions, the damp of the ocean mist - and the sight of the sun breaking over the horizon to the east. Dawn panorama on the beach. P hotograph Copyright 

It  is some time since I have written in this blog. Not since before the election of Donald Trump, a man whose offensive behavior and racist, sexist and divisive statements make him unfit to be the president of the United States. And yet he is about to be sworn into office, with a firestorm of controversies engulfing him regarding the election itself, his likely ties to Russia, his refusal to truly divest himself from his businesses and avoid the possibility and appearance of corruption, his continued gross insensitivity to issues of race and gender and poverty, and so much more, clouding his presidency even before he assumes it. I love America deeply with all my heart. I chose America as the nation in which I wished to live and be a citizen. I believe the vast energy, love and compassion of America will endure long after Donald Trump is out of office. His time is short. America represents, still, with all its complex, painful history, an idea that we can be better as a peo

I worked with Angelina for almost two years on a script and she was open, honest and remarkably frank with me. I still remember her first call, early one morning in Laurel Canyon, when she said, "It's Angelina," (she was calling from England) and I said, "Angelina who?" I also met Brad Pitt and liked him tremendously. He was sweet and kind and funny...and he gave me a Cadbury's Chocolate Flake! Very sad that they're splitting up. I wish them both well, and all the family.