Salient

Human Nature

By Mark Taylor | 9 Oct, 2006

PART ONE

I was walking along one day when I came across a large bearded man at a bus stop. He was seated and was smoking a cigarette. He carried an umbrella which was extended even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. More

Trivial Pursuits

By Mark Taylor | 2 Oct, 2006

Dr Seuss held both hands above his head like a cricket umpire signaling a six. His creation Yurtle the Turtle was no help to him now. More

The Goodnight Kiwi

By Mark Taylor | 25 Sep, 2006

Once upon a time, 1989 to be exact, there were two TV channels in New Zealand, called One and Two. One and Two were good friends and were owned by a man called the State. The State was a real nasty piece of work. More

The Wind

By Mark Taylor | 18 Sep, 2006

Traipsing across our wonderful little country the vagabond can come across all sorts of iconic regional symbols. Gore has its trout, Taihape its gumboot and Hokianga its sticky buds. More

Mr. Whippy and Frosty Boy

By Mark Taylor | 11 Sep, 2006

It was a story I couldn’t ignore. A government consumed with Cold War paranoia, a nation consumed with beaches and a father and son who saw it all through a van window. I met with New Zealand’s most successful cold war spies, Mr Whippy and his son Frosty Boy. More

Gentle Annie

By Mark Taylor | 4 Sep, 2006

Countless times you may have given her a pile of funky smelling sheets, a pair of conversing socks or some downright shameful underpants to clean. And has she ever complained when you constantly pushed her buttons? Not likely. Ladies and gentlemen I introduce to you the first lady of modern laundry, the first gentlewoman in a world of gentlemen, Gentle Annie. More

Red and Green Man

By Mark Taylor | 14 Aug, 2006

To cross now or not to cross now, that is the question that has flitted through pedestrians’ minds for centuries, and this week’s icons have managed to forge a career out of our indecision at intersections. Back here briefly to plug their new book Find Your Inner Orange Man, I chatted to New Zealand’s most famous expatriate twins, Green Man and Red Man. More

Thingee

By Mark Taylor | 7 Aug, 2006

If your family’s television ever happened to be on TV2 between the hours of 3pm and 6pm at anytime during the 1990s you might have had the pleasure of being brainwashed by one of New Zealand’s finest comic duos: Jason Gunn and Thingee. More

Maui

By Mark Taylor | 31 Jul, 2006

I was marching down a path that had not felt the foot of living men for many thousands of hangis. It would have been pitch black but for hundreds of dancing fire flies who spun, weaved and knitted a golden pathway for me to follow. More

The Cookie Bear

By Mark Taylor | 17 Jul, 2006

In a new and daring Salient exclusive we send Mark Taylor to spend time with some of our generation’s most influential and reclusive icons. More