The weird and wonderful world of insects boasts some of the strangest creatures found in nature, and caterpillars are perhaps the most bizarre of all. While most of us picture caterpillars as cute fuzzballs munching on leaves, there is much more to them than we imagine. A caterpillar’s survival hinges on finding enough food and defending itself from the array of natural enemies lined up to pounce and consume. And the astounding adaptations and strategies they have developed to maximize their chances of becoming a butterfly or moth are only just beginning to be understood, from the Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar that resembles a small snake to the Eastern Carpenter Bee Hawkmoth caterpillar that attempts to dissuade potential predators by looking like a diseased leaf.
 
The Book of Caterpillars unveils the mysteries of six hundred species from around the world, introducing readers to the complexity and beauty of these underappreciated insects. With the advent of high-quality digital macrophotography, the world of caterpillars is finally opening up. The book presents a wealth of stunning imagery that showcases the astonishing diversity of caterpillar design, structure, coloration, and patterning. Each entry also features a two-tone engraving of the adult specimen, emphasizing the wing patterns and shades, as well as a population distribution map and table of essential information that includes their habitat, typical host plants, and conservation status. Throughout the book are fascinating facts that will enthrall expert entomologists and curious collectors alike.
 
A visually rich and scientifically accurate guide to six hundred of the world’s most peculiar caterpillars, this volume presents readers with a rare, detailed look at these intriguing forms of insect life. 

Los Angeles. A city that is synonymous with celebrity and mass-market culture, is also, according to David James, synonymous with social alienation and dispersal. In the communities of Los Angeles, artists, cultural institutions and activities exist in ways that are often concealed from sight, obscured by the powerful presence of Hollywood and its machinations. In this significant collection of original essays, The Sons and Daughters of Los reconstructs the city of Los Angeles with new cultural connections. Explored here are the communities that offer alternatives to the picture of L..A. as a conglomeration of studios and mass media. Each essay examines a particular piece of, or place in, Los Angeles cultural life: from the Beyond Baroque Poetry Foundation, the Woman's Building, to Highways, and LACE, as well as the achievements of these grassroots initiatives. Also included is critical commentary on important artists, including Harry Gamboa, Jr., and others whose work have done much to shape popular culture in L.A. The cumulative effect of reading this book is to see a very different city take shape, one whose cultural landscape is far more innovative and reflective of the diversity of the city's people than mainstream notions of it suggest. The Sons and Daughters of Los offers a substantive and complicated picture of the way culture plays itself it out on the smallest scale—in one of the largest metropolises on earth—contributing to a richer, more textured understanding of the vibrancy of urban life and art.

Stan Brakhage: Filmmaker is a collection of essays, photographs, personal statements, and reminiscences about the celebrated avant-garde filmmaker who died in 2003. The director of nearly four hundred short films, including Dog Star Man, Parts I-IV, and the Roman Numeral Series, Brakhage is widely recognized as one of the great artists of the medium. His shorts eschewed traditional narrative structure, and his innovations in fast cutting, hand-held camerawork, and multiple superimpositions created an unprecedentedly rich texture of images that provided the vocabulary for the explosion of independent filmmaking in the 1960s. Stan Brakhage: Filmmaker chronicles both the director's personal and formal development. The essays in this book—by historians, filmmakers, and other artists—assess Brakhage's contributions to the aesthetic and political history of filmmaking, from his emergence on the film scene and the establishment of his reputation, to the early-1980s. The result is a remarkable tribute to this lyrical, visionary artist.