Alexander Stuart

We are all very disappointed that Hudson's mid-2007 Mac Mini, running Lion, won't upgrade to Mountain Lion, because it is too old (although it has an Intel dual-core processor and runs Lion with no problems). Hudson (who was eight on Monday) was so excited about Mountain Lion that he had been posting video updates as its release approached - and had saved his own $20 to pay for the Mountain Lion upgrade. This is his first MAJOR disappointment with Apple. He may well be spending more time with Windows 8, a developer version of which he has been running on his netbook for almost six months.

All photographs 2012 Alexander Chow-Stuart. We're in Monterey to celebrate our beautiful, magical son Hudson's eighth birthday. It is so astonishing to us that eight years have passed since he was born - and so wonderful for me to be back by the ocean, waking to the sound of the waves pounding the beach. I feel as if I've come home, perhaps because my father was born in a tiny Scottish fishing village, Rosehearty, near Aberdeen. Hudson flies his kite - before opening his gifts! It was also incredible playing in the (very cold) surf with Hudson and Paradise. Hudson enjoys bodyboarding - and Paradise enjoys being carried over the waves and scooped up as the biggest ones approach. A wonderful day, an important occasion for us as a family - and a perfect place to celebrate it. Many thanks to the extraordinarily kind folks at the Best Western Monterey Beach Resort , especially the manager, Hugh Hedin, and Genevieve, on the desk, who helped arrange a special b

I have just launched my Kickstarter project - my novel, CHINATOWN NIGHTS - Blade Runner meets The Maltese Falcon - an explosive love story and thriller set in 1919, interweaving real-life and fictional characters. It is the longest and most complex work I have ever written, one that has been in my life since it was first commissioned by Doubleday in the UK. I have written a substantial part of the book, but I would like to raise finance through Kickstarter to give me the ti me and space to develop its potential to its full, and to explore in a thrilling way the complex interrelationships and narratives between the characters. Please watch the VIDEO at the Kickstarter site above . I hope you enjoy it, I hope you're as excited by Chinatown Nights as I am, and by the incentives offered - and I hope you'll contribute at any level! Every dollar counts...I want this to be the most spectacular event in my life! Please be the first to contribute to my Kick

The Canyons, trailer image. Acclaimed author Bret Easton Ellis is making an original foray into filmmaking with his partners, director Paul Schrader (who wrote  Martin Scorsese's astonishing Taxi Driver and Raging Bull , and directed the classic, Giorgio Moroder-scored American Gigolo ) and producer Braxton Pope , with a project called The Canyons - set in contemporary LA and financed in part through Kickstarter , the radical new crowd-funding social platform. The trio set out to raise $100,000 to add to the money they were putting into the project themselves - in order to bypass the interminable Hollywood studio development process - and wound up exceeding their goal and raising almost $160,000. I know Bret a little, from a series of dinners we had a few years back, when I was interested in turning Bret's outstanding, self-referential horror novel, Lunar Park, into a film.  Several of his books have been adapted as movies - including both the zeitgeist-definin

Here's another stunning Lana Del Rey song and video. I have become such a fan. Her music really reaches me, and I love the filmmakers she works with on her videos (in this case, director  Yoann Lemoine ). This one looks especially great in black and white. Enjoy!