A delicious, darkly comic work of new urban noir from an original new literary talent. Meet Virgil Strauss, a physically and emotionally unkempt yet somehow appealing tabloid photographer whose passion is bearing photographic witness--à la Weegee--to the obscene, malevolent and sanguine viscera of New York culture. To his disapppointment and defeat, The New York Graphic--the city's most renowned shock-based tabloid daily--has routinely rejected Virgil's work. But when Virgil and his friend Larry Onions rip off a local church, he gets the picture of a lifetime, a job at the Graphic, and a generous measure of trouble, leading to serious indiscretions that include (but aren't limited to): grave robbing, straining his neighbor's dog's feces for an inadvertently consumed diamond, widely circulating the work of a renowned "art terrorist," and being an FBI informant in a serial bombing case. Helping Virgil through his hard times is Marcy, HIV-positive porn-star girlfriend, whose wispy, hardened, tragic strength brings tenderness and humanity to Virgil's cold-blooded reality. New York Graphic is a winningly fresh contribution to the noir genre: alternately hilarious, vulgar, touching, seriously disturbed--and a delightfully heady reading.

Most of us will never live to see 100 years on this earth, but Lloyd Baker has been looking at 100 years in his rear view mirror for over 7 years. Wyoming's oldest living cowboy, Lloyd has stories to tell and wisdom to impart. In this book, Lloyd tells of his fondest family memories, his work accomplishments, his faith and testimony, and of course, his secrets to a long and healthy life.

Ephemera is a photographic and poetic journey through geologic history and ancient mythology to modern day warfare, politics and man's ultimate corruption of nature. A rich lyrical strata of shrapnel, mahogany and mastodons, this is the opus of Lloyd Baker, a somber and surrealistic artist who's elegiac words and striking photography ring with prophetic verity. A native of Eastern Oregon, born during the Great Depression, Lloyd writes with reverence for the high desert of his childhood. As a young boy, he practiced falconry, taxidermy and ballistics and observed first-hand the treatment of Japanese Americans at the internment camp at Tule Lake. The son of a uranium miner, Lloyd fought against the storage and burial of toxic 2, 4-D chemicals near Lakeview and has witnessed the destructive impact of technology, greed, and waste upon nature and cultures. A man of diverse artistic talents, he studied ceramics in Finland on a Fulbright from Indiana University, and has been a professional photographer since his service during the Cold War. Enthralled by ancient and native cultures, Lloyd lived for a time among the Huichol Indians and engrossed himself in the study of mythology and ancient languages from Sanskrit, Anglo-Saxon to Hittite. Lloyd's life-long engagement with languages, etymology, ornithology, geology, archaeology, history and literature enriches his poetry. A haunting poetic epic, Ephemera is sure to be intellectually engaging and stimulating for the anthropologist, the romantic and nature-lover alike.