THE BLACK ROSES AND THE URBAN TALES chronicles three tales set deep in the urban society,dealing with men of color and all ages,some as sweet and appealing as roses but having metaphorically speaking thorns just as well.One tale involves a loyal handsome man whose welcomed a beautiful baby boy whom he conceived with his girlfriend into their lives,but chaos breaks out when he discovers she's been keeping a deep dark secret that could affect their entire family.The man discovers that his loyalty in putting off his own secret urges and desires for others of the same sex and the opposite sex may not have been enough.Warning:Strong sexual content and violence,nudity and language.

From the Bram Stoker Award–winning author who “pretty much invented the punk vampire thing”: A vampire vigilante is in Deadtown to destroy her own (Seconds Magazine). As the convenience store doors close behind him, DeShawn can already hear the sirens. He sprints down the street, clutching his meager haul, but the police are gaining on him. He turns the corner onto a cobblestoned alley and the sirens stop. The police have turned back, and for a moment, DeShawn feels lucky. It doesn’t last. A crawling man leaps up from the shadows, wraps his arms around DeShawn’s neck, and feeds on his blood. Welcome to Deadtown. A city within a city where the undead roam free, Deadtown is dangerous for humans and vampires alike. As a gang war rages between the old guard and the new, Deadtown’s innocents are caught in the crossfire. Only Sonja Blue can save them. A vampire with a sense of justice, she will play both ends against the middle to save Deadtown—or else burn it to the ground.

Presents descriptions of hundreds of urban legends and their variations, themes, and scholarly approaches to the genre, including such tales as disappearing hitchhikers and hypodermic needles left in the coin slots of pay telephones.

An indispensable sampling of the vast assortment of publications which exist as an adjunct to the mainstream press, or which promote themes and ideas that may be defined as pop culture, alternative, underground or subversive. Updated and revised from the pages of the critically acclaimed Headpress journal, this is an enlightened and entertaining guide to the counter culture - including everything from cult film, music, comics and cutting-edge fiction, by way of its books and zines, with contact information accompanying each review.

Will the bayou with its mysteries protect them or pull them down into its depths? Proprietress of the Rose Noire salon and New Orleans native Mia LeMay has secluded herself in the French Quarter—a place safe for those with secrets—for as long as she can remember. But when Mia is witness to a murder, fear and desire morph into one when agent Rick Ryder barges into her cloistered world. With Mia as his guide they enter the glades of Louisiana looking for a killer, but find more mystery and specters in the swampland. The darkness is a lure to Mia and Rick as they discover attraction in the shadows that are a welcome cover for a killer. Together, as they start to fall in love, nothing is what it seems—least of all the ghosts of their pasts.

The Audience in Everyday Life argues that a media audience cannot be studied in front of the television alone--their interaction with media does not simply end when the set is turned off. Instead, we must study the daily lives of audiences to find the undercurrents of media influence in everyday life. Bird provides a host of useful tools and methods for scholars and students interested in the ways media is consumed in everyday life.

A cultural history of the South Bronx that reaches beyond familiar narratives of urban ruin and renaissance, beyond the “inner city” symbol, to reveal the place and people obscured by its myths. For decades, the South Bronx was America’s “inner city.” Synonymous with civic neglect, crime, and metropolitan decay, the Bronx became the preeminent symbol used to proclaim the failings of urban places and the communities of color who lived in them. Images of its ruins—none more infamous than the one broadcast live during the 1977 World Series: a building burning near Yankee Stadium—proclaimed the failures of urbanism. Yet this same South Bronx produced hip hop, arguably the most powerful artistic and cultural innovation of the past fifty years. Two narratives—urban crisis and cultural renaissance—have dominated understandings of the Bronx and other urban environments. Today, as gentrification transforms American cities economically and demographically, the twin narratives structure our thinking about urban life. A Bronx native, Peter L’Official draws on literature and the visual arts to recapture the history, people, and place beyond its myths and legends. Both fact and symbol, the Bronx was not a decades-long funeral pyre, nor was hip hop its lone cultural contribution. L’Official juxtaposes the artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s carvings of abandoned buildings with the city’s trompe l’oeil decals program; examines the centrality of the Bronx’s infamous Charlotte Street to two Hollywood films; offers original readings of novels by Don DeLillo and Tom Wolfe; and charts the emergence of a “global Bronx” as graffiti was brought into galleries and exhibited internationally, promoting a symbolic Bronx abroad. Urban Legends presents a new cultural history of what it meant to live, work, and create in the Bronx.