Peace and blessings to all throughout the Holiday Season and the New Year!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wishing You All A Wonderful Wintertime and Truly Magical New Year!
Peace and blessings to all throughout the Holiday Season and the New Year!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Elf Train Song
The Elf Train Song (my first song ever), written and
performed with our wonderful friend, Camila Arnold (music),
for our Woodland Winter Fair last Saturday at our Waldorf-
inspired home-based Woodland Nursery School. More details
at: www.woodlandchildcare.org or email Charong Chow at:
charong@woodlandchildcare.org. Happy Holidays!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
My New YouTube Channel
Please take a look at my new YouTube channel, AlexanderChowStuart. It is in its infancy, but I think it will be fun. While you're visiting, please subscribe.
I have posted a film I made when I was sixteen (time is infinite:) and my wife Charong Chow's wonderful I Am The Daughter of Fu Manchu, plus our unexpected and unlikely sighting of a UFO while we were swimming one Saturday afternoon last year (2008) - we could not believe it, and I was surprised that when I posted it on an earlier YouTube page, it had over 4,000 viewings and I had a lot of contact about it, along with other videos sent to me, including one apparently of the same craft on the same afternoon!
Soon there will be a video of me reading from The War Zone, and other surprises to come. In the meantime, have a Wonderful Wintertime (I love Christmas, although I have been a Buddhist for twenty years - it is the season and the tree and the magic that delight me in a childlike way, not any particular religious interpretation).
I have posted a film I made when I was sixteen (time is infinite:) and my wife Charong Chow's wonderful I Am The Daughter of Fu Manchu, plus our unexpected and unlikely sighting of a UFO while we were swimming one Saturday afternoon last year (2008) - we could not believe it, and I was surprised that when I posted it on an earlier YouTube page, it had over 4,000 viewings and I had a lot of contact about it, along with other videos sent to me, including one apparently of the same craft on the same afternoon!
Soon there will be a video of me reading from The War Zone, and other surprises to come. In the meantime, have a Wonderful Wintertime (I love Christmas, although I have been a Buddhist for twenty years - it is the season and the tree and the magic that delight me in a childlike way, not any particular religious interpretation).
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The War Zone now available on Kindle
The new, updated and fully revised 20th Anniversary Edition of my novel, The War Zone (written under my original/professional name, Alexander Stuart), is now available on Amazon Kindle for $9.99, and as a regular book from Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com and other bookstores.
A dark, ironic, emotionally-charged novel about incest, adolescent fury and parental morality, the novel won Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize for Best Novel (now the Costa Book Awards) when it was first published, only to have the prize snatched away amid much public controversy when one of the judges politicked behind the scenes.
Dubbed a contemporary Catcher in the Rye by Time Out magazine, The War Zone was turned into a powerful, multi-award-winning film by Oscar-nominated actor-director, Tim Roth, which premiered at Sundance and went on to attract great acclaim at film festivals around the world. (The film can be streamed from Netflix and is available on DVD through Amazon.)
The new 20th Anniversary Edition is fully revised and updated and includes both the original British and American opening chapters, as well as an Afterword by Tim Roth, my diary of the making of the film, and an introduction that includes the striking prepublication letter that Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, sent me, along with his cover quote:
"This is a pungent shocking book, superbly written (sharp, sensuous, bitter) which...presents the theme of incest...as a symbol of social breakdown. I was horrified but seduced from first to last. The writing is remarkable."
For more information about the new edition, read Merrel Davis' excellent review of the novel at his blog, Uncompleted Works.
The War Zone: $9.99 on Amazon Kindle, $14.39 from Amazon.com, $15.99 from BarnesandNoble.com, £12.49 from Amazon.co.uk and available from other booksellers.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The Future of the Media Industry
This article by Edo Segal from Yodspica Ltd Blog Group is without doubt the most intelligent and thought-provoking analysis of where the media industry must go that I have read.
Apple did create something seamless and easy with iTunes and the suggestion that in a sense it is "alive," changing constantly and changing the way consumers think about media and applications (and fusing media and applications into one), is brilliant.
This is the first piece I have read that actually proposes a real vision of the future, rather than merely lamenting that traditional media are dead. (Thanks to the power of Twitter for alerting me to this:)
The Future Of The Media Industry
This post was written by Edo Segal.
The prospects for the old media industry appear bleak, as the rest of the media industry follows the music industry into decline. Indeed in my discussions it is apparent that the smart money in Hollywood already sees the writing on the wall. While the trend will take longer, it is clear which direction the wind is blowing. The main lesson to learn is that the market will punish you if you don’t deliver the goods.
Apple has created a media consumption experience that has reduced friction to such a point that soon the consumer will not know if he is buying music, a movie or a game. The notion of App is changing. The lines between these different forms of media are quickly blurring and soon will be completely artificial. Already these distinctions are merely fossilized conventions that stem from consumers’ discovery habits. As those evolve, like learning that it is easier to go to Amazon and search to find a product than going to aisle 9 at the store. The coming confusion of the consumption experience where a user won’t care or know if what they are buying is a movie, a game or a music track presents vast opportunity.
But the entertainment industry has a vested interest in the success of this new type of convergence, as within it lies the secret to its continuing prosperity. The only way to block the incredible ease of pirating any content a media company can generate is to couple said experiences with extensions that live in the cloud and enhance that experience for consumers. Not just for some fancy DRM but for real value creation. They must begin to create a product that is not simply a static digital file that can be easily copied and distributed, but rather view media as a dynamic “application” with extensions via the web. This howl is the future evolution of the media industry. It has arrived from a company that is delivering the goods. Apple has made it painless for consumers to spend money and get the media they want where they want it, proving that consumers are happy to pay for media if delivered in ways that make it easy and blissful to consume. For all the criticism Apple draws on the walled garden nature of its business, it has even come around to stripping DRM and allowing users to download mp3 files.
Even today if you look in the iTunes App Store you will see a myriad range of “Apps” that are just evolved ways to package media. While the traditional part of iTunes still mirrors the product taxonomy of a Tower Records, the App Store is creating a folksonomy of media products. It is where new ideas evolve, thrive and go instinctively based on market power. The App Store is where the action is. This is where evolution is unfolding as direct consumer spending spurs media development.
In preparing this post, Erick asked me, “Is Apple is a media company?” I thought about that and the answer is really that Apple is what media companies are missing. The missing part of the puzzle is what made media conglomerates such juggernauts in the past. Namely, distribution. The internet is stripping them of their control over the how their products are distributed. Media companies used to be able to create scarcity merely by delaying the distribution of their products across different channels—theaters, pay-per-view, DVD, cable channels, network TV, and so on. The internet disrupts this ability to create media scarcity. It is such a huge disruption, in fact, that it threatens the fundamental profit engine of the media business.
Both during my time interacting with senior management at Time Warner (where I worked at AOL after it acquired the company I founded, Relegence) and with some of my current portfolio companies that are working with the film and music industries, it is clear to me that many of the smart people running these media companies understand which way the wind is blowing. The music industry, as the one that has suffered most of the carnage, is ripest for change. Executives there are receptive to new ideas and move forward quickly, leaving me somewhat optimistic. It is also clear to me that it is hard for the industries which have not endured their level of pain to flee the golden cage of media’s past. But for those firms which rise to the occasion, there will be vast rewards. People’s hunger for good content will not subside. It will continue to grow, but so shall the unbearable ease of pirating it. The premise of extending the media experience to the cloud is a core necessity for the survival and growth of the media industry. It is the only way to for media companies to weather the coming tsunami of increased bandwidth and the ever open web. Hybrid media packaging with both files and an application layer in the cloud is core to a lucrative future.
For a great example of how change is happening see what Britney did today at @BritneySpears. It was, I believe, the first time a major artist premiered a music video on Twitter. This drives people to Amazon or iTunes to buy the track but in the not too distant future it could be the start of much more than that. A complete experience will unfold that will be interactive and convert to new revenue streams. Not just a purchase of a track but of an app that pulls consumers into an experience and further promotes user engagement and virality. Media becomes a platform with a funnel of traffic and conversions to alternative revenue streams. All boosted by the frictionless billing that Apple has created in the App Store. Media executives will have realtime metrics for their success as it maps to revenue and in turn this will accelerate innovation and help redefine media.
If you are a media exec and you look at your product and at the end of the day it’s a digital file that can be copied, then you have a serious problem with your format. Think of your product like a pie chart of the value you are giving the consumer. If 100% of the value is in that file, it is not a sound approach for defending the future of your business. However, if a portion of the experience is derived thorough an integration with a Web component that will yield additional value in functionality or social elements, then it will be more sustainable. There are many such examples emerging in the app store (I am T-Pain, TapTap and many more). Applications that let consumers interact with the media. Create things and share them with their friends. These will not only make the consumer the one who markets your product, but also create an unprecedented level of engagement. That level of engagement will directly map to reduction in piracy as consumers will pay for this experience and wont be able to copy it. Sell access and experiences, not media files.
Author Edo Segal
Sunday, October 11, 2009
THX Sound System logo by Hudson
Huddy (five years old) made this with wooden blocks this morning - he has been writing/drawing the THX logo a lot recently. As a result of his Waldorf/Steiner education, he has barely seen any movies, but he loves the THX logo in the Pixar films.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Amy Weisberg: Listen
Our son started a new kindergarden this week, a big and exciting step for him (and for us), and we find ourselves very fortunate to have him under the care and guidance of a wonderful teacher and writer, Mrs Amy Weisberg, one with great experience, wisdom, kindness and a remarkably open approach both to her role as a "guide" to her children and to the children's own differing sensibilities, levels of awareness and achievement, and the fact that their minds are at a precious and vital turning point between a wonderful acceptance of and unity with the world and the beginnings of "critical thinking," if you like - which brings with it the further growth of both character and the ego, and so is a stage that needs delicate attention and nourishment.
Mrs Weisberg has her own wonderful blog, Between The Words, and I asked her if I might reproduce here a marvelously atmospheric piece she wrote about her classroom, just before the school year begins. It is called, Listen, and one of the things I liked most about it was her appreciation of silence, along with that of the children "unhampered by thoughts of how things should be."
Anyway, here it is, and thanks to Amy Weisberg for letting me reproduce it:
The classroom is mostly quiet now, with the exception of the hum of the blessed air conditioner and the occasional ringing of the two bells indicating the necessity of the plant manager. The chairs are pushed in and the tables almost clear of the materials readied for the new year, a year that will be different, yet the same, as many others. Right now the playground is waiting patiently for the laughter of children that will fill it next week and the dolls in the playhouse wait patiently in their crib, clothing in tact and the plastic multicultural foods await preparation in the labeled bins. The smell of fresh, new crayons is in the air and the computers are happily waiting to begin their whir and hum of activity. For me, even music is not necessary yet; the silence is a giant space, open with possibilities and fresh with optimism. A bigger class this year, 24 or 25 new little students, some scared, some overly confident, most excited to begin an adventure that will last for the next 13 years. They enter the institution in the best of possible ways, a soft landing filled with songs, games, colorful paint and new stories told while they sit in squares on a colorful carpet rapt with attention. Friends wait to be made, blank paper filled with colorful drawings and easels beckon for young artists unhampered by thoughts of how things should be, instead filled with the endless imaginings of how things can be. Soon enough, the rhythm instruments will ting and jingle, sticks will tap and little children will bounce around the room, most unable to sit for long. They will be introduced to letters sounds, counting songs, The Pledge of Allegiance and happy songs of friendship. They will make life-long friends here in this safe place and will tell secrets, whisper, and hug with abandon unable to keep from expressing the simple joy of loving a friend or the happiness of running out the door to play. They will learn to appreciate the stillness of their own breath while in yoga postures stretching their bodies and minds to appreciate the stillness and space that allows for peacefulness. The silence is space, yet it is full of possibilities, experiences yet unknown and the peace of planning for future memories that will resonate in a happy place contained in the hearts of the future residents of Room K.
(Photo above of the parents gathered for the principal's commencement address.)
Friday, August 21, 2009
A Brief Extract from The War Zone: 20th Anniversary Edition
A brief extract from The War Zone: 20th Anniversary Edition, a newly updated (see two posts below) and revised edition now available from Amazon, Barnes&Noble.com, AuthorHouse and other booksellers:
"There is a moment which is so beautiful it makes everything else
worthwhile. You stand on the cliff above the village, early in the
morning or late in the evening, and you gaze out at the sea – a
huge, changing wash of light and movement, bigger than any of us,
a joker with a patience longer than any one life and an inconceivable
strength that can snap your back against the rocks as easily as you
might flick a fly off your nose.
I can feel how cold it is, even when it’s warm. Even when the water’s
not skimmed with a purple film of oil, and the pebbles and seaweed are
stewed in the sun, I can sense the ocean’s cold heart further out, out
by the skyline. Jessie’s tried to paint it, but she can’t get close. Either
the beauty is there or the darkness, but not both...
It’s not just the color, it’s the color of light, it’s the mood of the sky
and your own cross-wired soul. Down on the beach, it’s the druggy
thunder-hiss of the surf dragging at thousands of pebbles, as if the sea’s
in training for the greatest glue-sniffing contest on earth. Up here, with
a view of the sheep and the cottages and the coastline, there’s just the
image, no sound, and a faint tang of brine in the air, like a taunt or a
memory."
It’s more than a moment. It’s repeatable, though it’s never the same
twice. It’s where I go to stay sane down here, it’s where I go when I
miss London, when I want to work out what the fuck I’m doing with
my life."
worthwhile. You stand on the cliff above the village, early in the
morning or late in the evening, and you gaze out at the sea – a
huge, changing wash of light and movement, bigger than any of us,
a joker with a patience longer than any one life and an inconceivable
strength that can snap your back against the rocks as easily as you
might flick a fly off your nose.
I can feel how cold it is, even when it’s warm. Even when the water’s
not skimmed with a purple film of oil, and the pebbles and seaweed are
stewed in the sun, I can sense the ocean’s cold heart further out, out
by the skyline. Jessie’s tried to paint it, but she can’t get close. Either
the beauty is there or the darkness, but not both...
It’s not just the color, it’s the color of light, it’s the mood of the sky
and your own cross-wired soul. Down on the beach, it’s the druggy
thunder-hiss of the surf dragging at thousands of pebbles, as if the sea’s
in training for the greatest glue-sniffing contest on earth. Up here, with
a view of the sheep and the cottages and the coastline, there’s just the
image, no sound, and a faint tang of brine in the air, like a taunt or a
memory."
It’s more than a moment. It’s repeatable, though it’s never the same
twice. It’s where I go to stay sane down here, it’s where I go when I
miss London, when I want to work out what the fuck I’m doing with
my life."
(Image above from Tim Roth's film of The War Zone: the family on the beach)
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Twitter Contest: Win a Signed Copy of The War Zone: 20th Anniversary Edition
My friend, fellow blogger and Twitter-ist, Merrel Davis, suggested an exclusive Twitter contest to commemorate the 20th Anniversary Edition of my novel, The War Zone, by offering a signed copy of the book to the person who provides the best answer, in three "tweets" or less, to the question:
“WHAT EXPERIENCE IN ADOLESCENCE MOST SHAPED YOUR LIFE OR WORK?”
To win, simply submit the best answer in three tweets or less to my Twitter account @AlexanderChow (just to confuse things, and for a degree of privacy sometimes, I am Alexander Chow on Twitter) by midnight PST Sunday August 23rd 2009. [Full Disclosure: Merrel is co-judging this Twitter contest. You can follow him at @UncompletedWork.]
Stay tuned for the second part of Merrel Davis' Stepping into The War Zone, where he reviews and compares The War Zone novel to Tim Roth's film of my book.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
More iPhone Dawns
Friday, July 24, 2009
Huddy's Fifth Birthday/Sunset from Griffith Observatory
We had a wonderful time at the Griffith Observatory yesterday evening as part of Hudson's Fifth Birthday Treat. We saw Saturn through the big telescope, we saw twin stars (one white, one blue) through a smaller telescope, and we saw the amazing planetarium show about the origins of the universe.
Huddy loved it all - not least this amazing sunset over the Hollywood Hills (actually over the Hollywood Sign). Happy 5th Birthday again, Hudson xxxxx
Monday, July 20, 2009
iPhone Dawn
Dawn with rare summer cloud (rare for California, anyway). I like the Van Gogh effect of this picture. This is a series of photographs of dawn that I have been taking, using my iPhone camera. I love the quality of pictures the iPhone creates, kind of in the way that Warhol loved Polaroids - although the colors and resolution here reflect more accurately what I see with my eyes:)A friend said that if you look at this picture upside-down, it resembles waves on the sea breaking onto a beach.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Pixar's UP - Geniuses of LOVE
I'm repeating what I said on Twitter after we saw UP yesterday: Pixar are geniuses of LOVE.
Who but Pixar could even make a film about the friendship between an old man and a boy – and a floating house?
And without giving too much away, the way the story of the old man’s life is told is sublime…or quite possibly divine.
Wholly original beautiful moving cinema. See it - and see it in 3D if you possibly can, although it would be just as magical projected on a paper bag:)
Friday, June 5, 2009
GATE: Jim Carrey, Eckhart Tolle and John Raatz
I attended an astonishing event last night at 20th Century Fox Studios: the first gathering of GATE, the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment, a creation of John Raatz, Jim Carrey, Eckhart Tolle and others - including the phenomenal Melissa Etheridge and Donovan - dedicated to raising the bar among those of us who create entertainment, so that we think about the impact our work has on people and try to make that impact as positive, meaningful and, ultimately, transcendent as possible.
It doesn't mean avoiding the dark side - that can be addressed intelligently, since it is clearly a part of life and the world - but listening to and watching this group of people was a truly inspiring event. Jim Carrey seemed a thoughtful (and funny) man, and Eckhart Tolle is like a magical, highly enlightened, plain-speaking, extremely moving elf! (He spoke of his mother's death in the most personal yet relevant way.) Melissa Etheridge just made me cry when she spoke and sang - she is extraordinary.
I cannot blog fully about it now as I'm under deadline on a script, but I hope @thecitizen on Twitter will not mind me posting his lively account of the evening here (read from the bottom up!). By the way, I'm with Eckhart re: Groundhog Day - I think it is one of the best and funniest, most illuminating comedies ever...aside from all of Jim Carrey's films, of course:) There is a great chapter on Groundhog Day in a fascinating MoMA book called, The Hidden God.
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