Harvey Wang, a Brooklyn photographer, and David Isay, a free-lance broadcaster frequently heard on National Public Radio, have teamed up to produce a book, "Holding On" (W.W. Norton, $25), filled with portraits of some of the nation's greatest eccentrics.
The photos and stories feature such characters as Jim Bishop, who has spent a quarter of a century building a medieval castle in the Colorado Rockies, and Tommie Bass, a folk doctor for almost 80 years who heals people with herbs - but unlike other kinds of doctors, never charges them.Another character, Miles Mahan, 96, is creator of Hula Ville in Victorville, Calif. In 1955, he found a wooden cutout of a hula girl by the side of the road and has built a museum around it complete with miniature golf course.