Alexander Stuart

I haven't written on this blog since 2021, soon after Joe Biden became President and the horrors of the OG Thug passed. I'm still here, I'm still enjoying life, but I have to say that this November worries me greatly. The better part of me cannot believe that America will return a criminal insurgent to the White House...but a tiny part of me wonders if such insanity is possible. I no longer have the faith in humanity I once had; I have most of it but the Fetid Pumpkin took the rest. We'll see come November. Do whatever you can to make it not so. 

  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 a...

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 C...

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...

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.

Hudson celebrating at F50/Google's Founder World in San Francisco in October 2015, where he was the only child to have a stand...for Bunny Quest. Photograph  copyright © 2015 Alexander Chow-Stuart. Congratulations to Hudson for gaining the support of Unity Technologies for his Kickstarter-backed game, Bunny Quest. Unity is granting Hudson a free license of Unity Pro to build the game in Hudson's favorite game engine, as he was not satisfied with the results using his original game engine, Stencyl. Hudson has a good deal of experience with Unity, having built his first game, Wolf Escape, using it when he was nine years old.  Hudson used the free version for Wolf Escape. Unity Pro is the top of the line version and has many more features. We really appreciate the support from Aline Tosini and all at Unity . You may also like to read:  Hudson in the Santa Cruz Sentine l Yay! Hudson has reached his Kickstarter target! If you enjoyed thi...

My little #4thOfJuly gallery. Love not racism or bigotry. We are all equal. Enjoy! 🇺🇸 #DefeatTrump #Hillary2016  It's also our beautiful lovebird Miso's eighth birthday today. Born on the 4th of July! He is such a part of our family. Happy Birthday Miso!

In the middle of preparations for our house move, this Kamigami robot bug kit arrived yesterday from Dash Robotics. Hudson, our eleven year old son, had contributed to their Kickstarter campaign (and they, very kindly, had contributed to his for the computer game he's creating, called Bunny Quest ).  We had also toured the Dash Robotics' facility in Silicon Valley last year, after meeting the team at Get Geeked in San Francisco. Hudson's Kamigami is one of the first 50 they've shipped! This is the skin for the robot bug: It took Hudson about an hour to put the robot bug together.  And this is Kamigami in action, surprising one of our dogs...and dancing! You may also like to read: Dash Robotics' Bio-Inspired Bugs Lenovo's Amazing Gift to Hudson at getgeeked San Francisco If you enjoyed this post, please follow me on Twitter  @alexanderchow .   And please  subscribe to this blog via email by c...

Some of my babies. The Elephant's Foot Palm in the foreground is well over ten years old and used to grace our pool in Topanga Canyon 🌱🌵🎍

Really blown away by Beyoncé and the truly remarkable work she's created with the film and music of Lemonade. Such a feeling of power, of powerlessness overcome, such a beautifully introspective work, yet joyous and celebratory. I'm a white boy but it makes me feel more connected with a long line of strong black women and at least some understanding of the history of oppression and suffering they endured (still extant: the mothers with the photographs of their dead sons provide a chilling and respectful moment) than pretty much anything I've seen or heard. Beyoncé has grown so massively as an artist. This is such a strong use of her abundant talents, her power from celebrity, of what can be done with music and media. This may be her What's Going On, and I don't mean to diminish her work by comparing it to a man, simply that she captures something universal and true and urgent in the same way that Marvin Gaye did. Beyoncé is totally her own woman but just to ...

Hudson has been working hard on his game, Bunny Quest, on all levels - the complexities of the narrative and the myths surrounding it (and the games Hudson intends creating in the future that encompass Bunny Quest), as well as the different levels of the game and different technical approaches to various aspects of it. This is the very first part of the opening sequence. The green gem is the magical core of the story - sent back from the future, it will be stolen from the bunnies by Nox the Coyote. Hudson has fully envisaged both the opening and closing sequences of the game, and we're really excited by them.  We were knocked out by this opening animation Hudson created. He just made it and showed it to us. He's eleven. (There is more to come with the opening sequence, these are just the first few seconds.) You may also like to read: Hudson in the Santa Cruz Sentinel Our son Hudson launches his Kickstarter campaign for Bunny Quest Hudson, Bunny Qu...

View from Coco Cab Havana. Photograph copyright  © Darcie Goldberg www.darciegoldberg.com When the Rolling Stones played their historic concert in Havana on Friday , it marked, for many Cubans, a major turning point: “This will be one of those weeks that people will use to measure other events. In the future, they’ll ask, was it before or after the Stones played,” predicted Tania Livia, a businesswoman attending the concert. “This is the biggest moment in my life,” said tattooed club owner Ferrer Castillo, who had travelled 200km by bus and taxi to see his heroes. (Quoted in the Guardian article, Pleased to meet you: Rolling Stones treat Cuba to spectacular and historic gig ) Likewise, President Barack Obama's visit of the preceding days - the first by a sitting United States president since Calvin Coolidge in January 1928 - underlined the huge changes in the US-Cuba relationship that Obama's policy toward Cuba has brought about: “Obama is doing this no...