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BARNABY TAYLOR

  • Superpower of the Day No. 6

    October 27th, 2014

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    ‘talk to animals‘

    What’s yours?

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  • Superpower of the Day No. 5

    October 26th, 2014

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    ‘breathe underwater‘

    What’s yours?

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  • Superpower of the Day No. 4

    October 25th, 2014

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    ‘feel no shame‘

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  • Superpower of the Day No. 3

    October 24th, 2014

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    ‘shoot bright green lasers from their eyes‘

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  • Superpower of the Day No. 2

    October 22nd, 2014

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    ’cause impossibly heavy objects to float like feathers’

    What’s yours?

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  • Superpower of the Day No. 1

    October 21st, 2014

    muybridge_05_horses_phryne-web

    ‘bend time to their will’

    What’s yours?

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  • #253 Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets by Barnaby Taylor

    September 28th, 2014

    Ashe's avatarOne-Eleven Books2

    Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don't Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets by Barnaby TaylorFalcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets by Barnaby Taylor

    Super heroes are pretty awesome right? They perform all these superhuman feats and then they still have this pretty interesting alter-ego, except for Clark Kent, he’s just a nerd, well, at least he’s a nerd in the movies I grew up with; in the newest movie he’s like a muscled lumberjack/fisherman. What if super heroes weren’t so super and were actually a bit inept?

    Barnaby’s book is about such a super hero; it’s actually about two super heroes, but one of them doesn’t talk, much like the duo of Penn and Teller. In a world where everyone seems to be waiting in line all of the time, there is a nefarious plot afoot. That nefarious plot involves someone called Dr. Don’t Know.

    The whole thing started with…

    View original post 1,414 more words

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  • Breaking News

    September 27th, 2014

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    Hi everyone

    Here is the next thrilling installment from Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planet

    Please take a look and let me know what you think. All feedback is gratefully received. Click the link to find out more …

    2. Dr Don’t Know meets Juniper Jarvis

    Like almost all of some parts of the rest of the world, Panic Town had the choice of nearly twenty-seven television channels. Yet for most people, 123 Celebrity News was the only channel of choice.

    123 Celebrity News was beamed, bounced, screened, recorded, streamed, downloaded, torrented, zipped, compressed, shared, copied, replayed, burnt, backed-up, archived, data-managed and saved for later all day every day so that Panic Town could gorge itself on celebrity news until it falls into an audiovisual stupor.

    The breaking news this morning was coming live from the steps of the Town Hall and was a celebrity feast like no other has ever been witnessed. It was guaranteed to revitalise even the most constipated of viewers.

    ‘Hi everyone, my name is Juniper Jarvis and I’m reporting live for 123 Celebrity News. I’m with that well-known bad guy and all-round celebrity supervillain, the legendary Dr Don’t Know.’

    For most people in Panic Town, the concept of twenty-four hour news meant exactly what it said. They imagined that presenters like Juniper had to present the news for twenty-four hours at a time.

    As a result, these same people were permanently perplexed when they bumped into Juniper while they were walking down the street. Or shopping at a supermarket she had been invited to open. Entered a talent contest she was judging. Or looking in through the front window of her ground floor apartment as they just happened to be walking past.

    ‘Why aren’t you reporting the news?’ people asked when they saw her.

    ‘Shouldn’t you be on the television instead of standing in this queue?’ people would say, as Juniper patiently queued to pay her television license at the Panic Town National Bank.

    ‘Who’s going to give me the latest celebrity gossip while you’re busy treating yourself to a week’s groceries?’ inquired the cashier in Food and Things, Panic Town’s most successful supermarket superstore.

    Some of the same people also thought that whenever they met Juniper out and about, that she was reporting live for some reason or other, and so they were somehow part of the story. Even the obvious absence of cameras and other news-reporting equipment didn’t stop people believing this.

    ‘They can build a camera so small nowadays that it is only visible to house flies, microscopes and scientists.’

    ‘Juniper’s left eye is a camera lens and whenever she talks to anyone, she is simultaneously transmitting live footage to the watching world.’

    ‘Juniper has a microphone embedded in her index finger and this gives her the real edge when it comes to news reporting.’

    ‘Juniper’s feet are actually the metal feet of a tripod that were grafted onto her body whilst she was on a so-called ‘holiday’.

    ‘Juniper has gills inserted into her neck so that she can do interviews in monsoons, waterfalls or underwater.’

    As you can imagine, it was hard work being Juniper Jarvis but she would never let this get in the way of doing her job.

    ‘The breaking news this morning is that Dr Don’t Know has kidnapped Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird, and is holding them both prisoner in an undisclosed location.’

    Juniper paused briefly to let the impact of her news sink in.

    ‘Even despite the cataclysmic severity of the situation, and bearing in mind any possible calamity now facing the entire Solar System, Dr Don’t Know has kindly agreed to take time out of his busy schedule to be interviewed.’

    Whether working with international master criminals, small children underachieving in some delightful way, celebrity ponies and other quirky mammals in the public eye, film stars – the obviously famous and their not so obviously-famous counterparts – even the occasional over-achieving citizen, they all got the same balanced approach from Juniper.

    ‘So, Dr Don’t Know, perhaps you could tell our viewers why you have decided to commit such an act?’

    In case you hadn’t heard, are new to this type of thing, or are simply flicking through the channels looking for something to watch while the adverts are on, Dr Don’t Know is an internationally-known career criminal, reportedly responsible for more than three-quarters of all the crimes that have taken in and around Panic Town over the last fifteen years.

    Dr Don’t Know is also the world’s leading authority on being nondescript. The trick to being such a successful international criminal mastermind is to be absolutely and completely one hundred and fifty-six percent nondescript.

    In fact, Dr Don’t Know is so completely nondescript that my description of him will run out of words right about now.

    ‘Don’t know,’ says Dr Don’t Know.

    These are the only words that anyone has ever heard Dr Don’t Know use and so, unsurprisingly, this is the name he has been given by the press. Why are these the only words that anyone has ever heard Dr Don’t Know use? I don’t know. You would have to ask him, but you don’t have to be a genius to guess what the answer would be.

    Dr Don’t Know’s name will be of the utmost importance to all of us a little bit later on. However, for now, all you need to know is how frustrating it is when the only answer that someone gives to a question is ‘Don’t know.’ Try it now with someone you know and see how it feels. When you have finished come back to the story. We’ll be waiting.

    ‘Ok. Thank you for that,’ continued Juniper. ‘Perhaps you could tell our audience why what you are planning to do is so criminally important, that you have to keep our two favourite heroes prisoner somewhere secret.’

    ‘Don’t know,’ said Dr Don’t Know.

    I imagine you are starting to feel as frustrated as everyone else is with the interview so far. Dr Don’t Know hasn’t told us anything we want to know. And isn’t likely to. We are no nearer to knowing anything. Or knowing anything more than nothing. Or simply knowing nothing.

    Juniper held the microphone even closer to the Doctor.

    ‘Is all this necessary because you are close to committing some wickedly evil crime and need the world’s most intrepid twosome out of the way in case they try to deflect your diabolic aim?’

    ‘Don’t know,’ said the inscrutable supervillain once again, and even though I know you are probably extremely upset by now with the whole lack-of-information thing, I can only give you my word that you will know more of what you need to know a little later on.

    ‘So there you have it, folks. You heard it first on 123 Celebrity News. My name is Juniper Jarvis and I will see you all the next time you see me.’

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  • When Toyshops Attack

    September 23rd, 2014

    Welcome everybody to the latest installment in the Pearly Stockwell franchise. I know I keep telling you but I feel that I need to tell you again that this is an excerpt from

    Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets

    If you want to know more then please feel free to click the title. In case you were unsure, the adventures of Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins are a key feature (and franchise) of (in) the Falcon Boy universe. The Pearly Stockwell adventures are currently being developed as a separate series and as I have more news I will give it to you. Until then, here you are …

     

    When Toyshops Attack

    Much to the delight of everyone, a new toyshop had opened in Fallstown.

    ‘I can’t wait,’ says Windy to his brothers. ‘I can’t think of anything better than spending some time browsing in a toyshop.’

    ‘Better than catching a criminal?’ Wes snorts. ‘The only toy I like is a cricket bat and that is only because they are good for whacking crooks.’

    ‘I once disguised myself as a giant teddy bear and hid in a toyshop for two weeks,’ says Wanderley.

    ‘We know,’ say Wes and Windy, laughing together. ‘We were the poor fools who had to try and find you.’

    ‘I’ll think you’ll find it was me who actually found him,’ Pearly corrects the brothers. ‘It was also me who revealed the truth about Blinko the Balloon Magician and his plot to flood the magic accessories market with cheap foreign imports.’

    ‘We know,’ sigh all three of the Interesting Twins together.

    All of this happens, of course, in Pearly Squares the Magic Circle. Blinko turns out to be in the pay of Export International, a nefarious multinational company intent on dominating global markets through skulduggery, lies and blackmail.

    One of their shadowy operatives had convinced poor old gullible Worcester Knudsen, a retired civil servant now barely scraping a living as Blinko the Balloon Magician, that his bookings would treble if he used a new brand of super-modelling inflatables.

    Needless to say, Pearly eventually gets to the bottom of the goings-on and Worcester receives a four-year prison sentence for his part in the plot. As always happens, in real life and in stories like this, Export International could not be sufficiently implicated in the scandal and is allowed to continue its financial finagling for another day.

    On the day of the toyshop opening, Fallstown is stunned to discover that the only things on its shelves are thousands and thousands of tiny toy helicopters.

    After some clumsy plot exposition involving a new employee at the Fallstown Telephone Exchange and a pair of open windows, it is eventually revealed that the shop’s proprietors, Kurt and Irena Flue, are a husband and wife spy team, hell-bent on using Fallstown as a launch pad for their hundred-thousand-strong toy helicopter fleet.

    During a daring raid on the warehouse at the back of the shop, the Interesting Twins are captured and Pearly has to rely upon her native wit and big city sense to free them and save the country from being destroyed by the fleet of tiny toys.

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  • McManus (BF Taylor, 2014) – Audiovisual Exploration No. 38

    September 16th, 2014

    In my other life I am rapidly approaching the start of the semester (again) and so my thoughts turn once more to what I will be doing in my classroom. In place of the book that I never started to follow the first book that I did manage to complete – details of which can be found here and here – I have been (spasmodically) running a blog called From Robin Wood to Robin Askwith. Here is where I have been compiling, dumping or indeed simply forgetting about things that (may) relate to my research interests. In many ways this blog still exists simply to taunt me by reminding me of where I am and where I thought I would be all those years ago as I started my undergraduate degree at the University of Kent. Nevertheless, I do occasionally return to the blog to see how it is getting on (almost) without me.

    While I was there this morning I found this; a feature-length tribute to one of the heroes of the Golden Age of British Wrestling, Mick McManus. If you are wondering who I am talking about then you really should click here.

    This tribute probably serves several functions, most notably as a simple cinematic exploration of duration and endurance. The film was inspired by a class discussion on what makes films unwatchable. I certainly think that this film goes a long way to answering this question.

    I could tell you that this film is an audiovisual reflection on certain forms of masculine spectacle and I suppose that it is (to a certain degree). I have used it in class before but not as a contribution to any seminar on British popular culture. I normally tend to use this film as a means of getting a reaction and it certainly does always manage to provoke a response from the class it is inflicted upon. The film is a good conversation starter and a good conversation ender at the same time.

    I’m not suggesting that you should watch it –  I just thought it might provoke a response. I’ll leave the final words here to Roland Barthes:

    A boxing match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator; in wrestling, on the contrary, it is each moment which is intelligible, not the passage of time.

    Roland Barthes, ‘The World of Wrestling’, Mythologies, 1972

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