Alexander Stuart

I have written several times about the influence on me of Paul Bowles' remarkable novel, The Sheltering Sky. This post perhaps explains best my fascination with the book. Tonight I am thinking of two of my favorite passages, which I have quoted before. The first is this, which upon reading the first time, literally changed the way I thought about life: "Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more

P hotograph Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Our whole family hugely enjoyed the dress rehearsal today of Opera San Jose’s production of Mozart’s sublime The Magic Flute , opening this Saturday.   Hudson and Paradise had never seen an opera before, and this homeschool-only full dress rehearsal was a wonderful opportunity for them to enjoy their introduction both to the drama and magic of The Magic Flute (read this  fascinating entry at Wikipedia  about its history), and to the beauty of its music and voices.  The production was a great mix of classical and contemporary, totally engaging, and attracting prolonged applause and whistles from its young audience at its conclusion. It was definitely less radical than the Peter Sellars Magic Flute , set in LA with skateboards, that I saw (and enjoyed) at Glyndebourne some years back. P hotograph Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. We also loved the historic California Theater , which originally opened in

P hotographs Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. P hotographs Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart.

P hotographs Copyright  ©  2015 A lexander Chow-Stuart. Our six year old daughter Paradise had a big day this week. On Tuesday morning, she wrote (or dictated) four stories in a row, each one quite magical. In the afternoon, she learned to balance on her bike - and rode for two or three miles with us a couple of days later. Of her stories, my favorite was this one, about Whitey, her pet mouse, who sadly died recently...but who lives on in this beautiful tale of her ocean adventure in a coconut and her friendship with Whistle the Dolphin. Paradise and I actually found a coconut washed up on the beach last year, and imagined that it might have sailed across the great Pacific from Hawaii or some South Seas island. Perhaps it's the very one that Whitey the Mouse traveled here in! P hotograph Copyright  ©  2014 A lexander Chow-Stuart P hotograph Copyright  ©  2014 A lexander Chow-Stuart

Truly fabulous YouTube video of David Bowie and Damon Albarn performing Bowie’s timeless Fashion. Bowie looks as if he's time traveled. I want his lighting and makeup ⚡️⚡️⚡️