Alexander Stuart

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR...especially to Charong Hudson and Paradise. Here's a work of "rad(ish) art" created by Kenny, the owner/sushi chef at Zuma Sushi in Modesto, for Paradise and Hudson yesterday. (Photo by Alexander Chow-Stuart)

Supercool PHOTOS of the human body from Los Angeles based artist Cecelia Webber. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/AdNfB9

Perhaps the greatest noir film - or film of any kind - of all time: Casablanca.

Charong Chow's I Am The Daughter of Fu Manchu. In my NOIR Writing Workshop at the Central Sierra Arts Council, 193 S. Washington Street, Sonora, this Saturday January 21st from 1:30pm-3:30pm, I will be exploring one of the most compelling genres of literature and film. Tickets are $25 for adults - and $15 for students. There will also be a lunch before the workshop at Emberz, 177 S. Washington Street, from 11:30am-1:30pm. Everyone is welcome! With style, content and psychological exploration that grew originally out of the German Expressionism of the 1920s - but which is most associated with American "hard boiled" thrillers, gangster stories and unconventional love stories of the 1930s-1950s - noir has influenced everything and everyone from Alfred Hitchcock to David Lynch, from Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless to Christopher Nolan's Batman movies and the dark tone and complex psychology of Inception. Please join us from 1:30-3:30pm on Saturday to

Casablanca poster courtesy of cine-fille.com Thanks to the incredibly generous sponsorship of Ridge Schneider of Sonora Subaru, the Central Sierra Arts Council is proudly presenting the first of its Friday Nite Flicks , the immortal Casablanca , at 6:30pm on Friday, January 20th at 193 S. Washington Street, Sonora (directly opposite the Bank of America building). Tickets are only $5. I will be speaking briefly before the film, describing some of the surprisingly troubled production history of one of the world's greatest classics of cinema, which stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid. Come join us at Rick's Cafe in Casablanca, as the seemingly cynical Rick (Bogart) becomes involved with a freedom fighter on the run (Henreid) and the woman who, years before in Paris, crushed Bogart's spirit (Bergman). The Nazis are closing in - and no one is safe in Casablanca! Revel in the incredible mood - a mix of exotic wartime thriller and astonishing l