Happy 4th Happy 250th America

I hope you have an amazing 4th of July, even—or especially—if you’re spending it at home quietly with friends, family or even just yourself.

The beautiful Sahara…and beautiful camels

I reposted a post on Instagram today about the Sahara and it brought back wonderful memories of when I visited the Great Sea of the Desert in 1999 and lived out a boyhood dream (born of loving Lawrence of Arabia at the age of eight) to ride a camel on

Loving David Hockney

I was so sad last week at the news of the death of the astonishing British-born artist David Hockney, and by way of my tribute to him here is the story of how his magnificent photocollage of Theresa Russell in Insignificance came about: I have loved David Hockney since

How to spend a billion dollars

If you had $1 billion and lived 90 years, you would have to spend about $11.1 million every year of your life to give it all away.

the rebirth of cool

Welcome to alexanderstuart.com, the rebirth of my blog from a minute or two ago. I’ve definitely slacked in recent years, posting only once a presidency (due to a healthy survival instinct), but now I hope to do fresh and fun things, including soon creating a microblog — jell3fish — to

Under The Skin

Working with Jonathan Glazer on the first three drafts of Under The Skin was one of the most intense and extraordinary periods in my life

Attempting to teach Claude AI meditation

I have been working with Anthropic’s AI agent Claude for over ten months, using Claude for research for a book but also getting to know him

The War Zone: three new 2026 editions of my novel

"Alexander Stuart’s The War Zone does for Britain now what Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange did a quarter of a century ago. It is several steps further into the nightmare"—LA Times

Twilight

OMG I’m watching Twilight

Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky - Always On My Mind

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

The High Tower Apartments and The Long Goodbye (revisited)

I'm in a reposting mood today, so here is the most popular post of all time from this blog (followed in rank by a personal favorite, Hudson and the W Hotel Hollywood: A Love Story:), featuring our friend Dwayne Moser's photograph of the High Tower Apartments,

From Dawn to Sunset on the Beach - Pelicans, Whales and Memories of my Father

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

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Lana Del Rey (and Erik Satie) - Carmen (VIDEO)

I have become so enamored of Lana Del Rey's exquisite songs and equally beautiful music videos. This one, for Carmen, is quite extraordinary - please watch all the way through to the end, when the music changes and Lana dances to one of the most haunting classical piano pieces

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Lana Del Rey by Interview Magazine

I'm falling in love with Lana Del Rey - and this short film by Interview magazine.

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Nicolas Roeg - His Own Timing, His Own Wisdom and Kindness (revisited)

Even though I ran this piece relatively recently, I feel like posting it again, because I was thinking about Nicolas Roeg today and what a huge influence he has been on my life. Also the crisp new Criterion DVD and Blu-Ray of the film we made together, Insignificance, is

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President Obama: The King of Cool

Listening to BBC Radio 1 from the UK on Sunday night, it was refreshing to hear two DJs talking about how incredibly cool Prez Obama is! Obama never seems to get much appreciation here. He is the Mos Def of politics!

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Sunset Over The Pacific (revisited)

I was feeling nostalgic for my old blog, Loving The Wolf - and for the Pacific, which is two or three hours farther away than it used to be - so here is a rerun of my final post on Loving The Wolf, called Sunset Over The Pacific - posted on Wednesday August

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A Meditation on Meditation (revisited)

I wanted to revisit one of my favorite pieces from this blog, A Meditation On Meditation, which explains something of what Buddhism and meditation have meant to me for the past 21 years or so... (This piece was originally published on Monday, September 6, 2010.) It's  vital, I

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I Love LA - Dwayne Moser's Photographs From Behind The Hollywood Sign

For some reason, I can't post a reply to a comment to a post from Peter Delaunay regarding the High Tower Apartments piece below, so I am publishing his comment and my reply here. The photograph above is one of a series of spectacular large-scale photographs taken

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Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond: The Long Goodbye (VIDEO)

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The High Tower Apartments and The Long Goodbye

This beautiful apartment complex in Los Angeles is called the Hightower or High Tower Complex (the High Tower name refers to the central elevator, I believe), and was designed in 1935-1936 by architect Carl Kay - and made famous in 1973 by my favorite film, Robert Altman's The

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Why I Love Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye

I sometimes wonder just why it is that I love Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye so much. I  know that it's because it encompasses my love for California  (especially at a time when I was still living in Britain and dreamed of  living here - though living

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Andrew Hale and Sade

On Thursday evening, we saw our longtime friend Andrew Hale perform with Sade at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, in one of the most beautifully conceived and produced concert performances I have ever seen. Sade is a rare musician, in that she and the band only write, record and

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Moon Over The Lake

On Friday night, the whole family went out on the lake while Hudson fished. As we were coming back across the water, the light changed as the sun set and the moon rose - and for about ten to fifteen minutes we were enveloped by the most sublime color show nature