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A French woman rode the Metro with a stack of papers. The one on top had a grid on it, half of the boxes filled with certain shapes from the strokes of her pencil, the other half yet to be touched. She followed a code in her head, and I decoded her code to see that she was designing a portrait, like a cross-stitch guide would look like. Square by square, she was designing, shading, planning the face of Albert Einstein. You could tell by the hair. Like a Colour-by-number book, she sat patiently, peering through French glasses, to X, circle and pencil in each 3 millimeter square to eventually prove the face of Albert Einstein.

A square by square scratch of lead or graphite in the goal of discovering or revealing or uncovering the end snapshot. Out of the lines, with varied darknesses depending on the tool used and the stress applied. A process, pure and simple, murky and complex, dark and bright, all depending on the day, or the location of the box. Life is beautiful when it can be analogized as such.

But when it can’t be it is whorish and rough. Philosophically void, spiritually null. Just a series of circumstances that lead to wealth or poverty, happiness or depression. Without cause or without metaphor. The days that lack said vision are called life. The days that are swimming in analogies can be related with the idea called heaven that we have been taught about, or can possibly be completely characterized as such. It is easy to string together an insignificant life when each day is not a square categorized by the stroke of a pencil: a part in discovering the greater whole. It is this that I call life. What is far more difficult, making it much more necessary, is to find the next step up. What is far more difficult is an eye for that daily metro rider sketching the face of an historical figure, square by square, and dwelling in the genius of the parallels it represents.

It had been a night of the senses.

We ate at a restaurant where vision didn’t exist. Completely pitch black and a blind man brought us our food. Therefore the flavour of the canned smoked salmon mystery plate was extremely rosé, the water was far colder than usual, and the bread acted like a same poled magnet to the butter on the knife. We ate like cavemen with class, hunched over our plates without each other knowing our snakelike posture, eating $30 meals of lavishness while picking our noses and chewing with our mouths open. If the darkness is is supposed to heighten the other senses, then my sense of humour must have doubled since, and my sense of taste must have tripled, because I thought those tiny escargot balls were mini wontons.

We watched an opera in the German language. A german lady melodically screaming at me about the severed head of John the Baptist. A somewhat sexualized version of John the Baptist’s beheading. After a meal of darkness, the visual stimulation of theatrical lights and exaggerated costumes exploded in the eyes of the blind. I heard tones that I never thought I would. My sense of culture was heightened tenfold through this display, translating subtitles from the original German into the French and into the English. Salome just wanted someone to love. My sense of empathy was lost when she killed the man she wanted to kiss. Like purposefully pouring a litre of milk on the ground and crying about it while you lap it up on your hands and knees. Maybe I don’t understand true love. Or maybe I just don’t understand the opera. Yet.

The walk to the metro, the metro to the house, the visual pollution of the city invaded my space, and my antiestablishment sense started acting up, so I closed my eyes and thought about eating in the dark some more.

Everyone has their own personal sixth sense. Dead people, weather prediction, gambling knowledge, horse whispering, shopping for sales, etc. My sixth sense had been throbbing all night long. The sense located in between two pieces of leather, usually in the pocket on one’s backside. My sense of frugality, likely inherited from my father, throbbed like an open wound throughout the evening. Paying for the entire evening, I can’t imagine what his was doing.

(This is my attempt at academia: Writing on a topic I know nothing about, solely in the hopes of winning money.)

There is a magician that waits backstage with his old saws sharpened and his loose gloves pulled tight on his wrinkled hands, waiting for his time-slot to convince the audience that his illusions can become realities. The Subliminal Magician hasn’t had a magic show in several decades but is hoping for the opportunity to prove that his ideas, which have been significant in the past, can come up with the power to be a significant part of the reality of the magic of advertising. Subliminal messages and advertising have been mentioned together since the beginning of large scale, international advertising, but together have not proven to be formidable enough a pair to have significantly affected the industry today. At the brink of the digital advertising revolution, the possibilities for subliminal advertising are being revisited, but it is impossible to know if it will have the impact that it is suggested it could have; if the tantalizing idea could become a relevant reality, and if the magician’s hands can bring the audience to its feet without them even knowing it.

The spectrum of today’s media outlets is broader than the minds of the creators and changing faster than the time it takes one idea to come to life. Artists, marketers and creators are then required to hastily produce original works for several platforms in a world where everything has already been done and recycled twice over. “The irony is that while there have never been more ways to reach consumers, it’s never been harder to connect with [them].”¹ Advertising has walked every possible trail between the years of the two advertising revolutions, which are characterized by the television and the internet, including the rocky path of psychological and subliminal advertisements. There is still not a single fail-proof formula to sell a product, whether it be due to the consumer’s want for new and fresh ideas, or due to an imperfect model of subliminal advertising. Celebrity spots and product placement, both ideas in the forefront of Michael Jordan’s new ‘Flight #23’ Hanes commercial in which he does nothing more than grunt on two separate million dollar occasions², are two effective forms that could fall under the broad scape of subliminal advertising, blatantly pushing products with that hint of camouflage behind names and faces. The placement of advertisements is planned so that the public either believe in the inevitability of advertisements in all the things they do, or so that in the moments when they think they are enjoying themselves commercial free, they are swimming neck deep in pitches and products. Advertisements are posed to the consumer unconsciously, without them even noticing. There are more ways to advertise to the subconscious than just flashing frames in a movie or erotic photos in cubes of ice. The job of an advertiser is to be subliminal without even knowing it, under the conviction that all ads can be created with a subliminal air.

If a portion of advertisements appeal to the subconscious, and the new age of digital advertising provides a heightened platform to do so, then the future has the potential to have its sleeves full and its rabbits waiting in black stove pipe hats. Advertising history was touched subtly by the tainted Subliminal Magician’s hands in the past, and the physical layout of the future presents the theoretical opportunity to reinvent the sleight of hand tricks that remain dusty in the vaults. Technology could allow a more effective version of subliminal advertising if it was indeed proven to be effective and relevant enough for further study, as in a recent BMW special video advertisement which used a large flash and hollowed out BMW logo behind a movie screen to imprint the BMW logo on the inside of the eyelids of the audience when they closed their eyes.³ Advertising, when the audience does not recognize it as advertising, occurs below the threshold of human consciousness, therefore it is just a piece of the magician’s kit. An example: park benches embossed with advertisements in hopes that barelegged park-goers ‘inadvertently’ become walking billboards, possibly without even knowing this has happened.⁴ The question becomes this; if the viewer does not know he or she is being advertised to, does that make it subliminal or just scheming? If you close your eyes and dream, you see BMW. If you want the advertisement to have the legs to sprint the race of relevance, the canvas is the legs of the consumer. Printing on the body, the eyelids, the legs will eventually permanently print the product in the minds of the walking canvasses that are aware that they are being advertised on.

If, however, real, image based subliminal advertising had proved in the past to be as effective as it was theorized it could have been, this practice would still be in the conversations of creators and mentioned as an everyday ‘threat’ by consumers. The digital age would usher in a new era of subliminal opportunities and this mode of advertising would undoubtedly be the most widely used and relevant form of advertising. But this has not happened, and although the future is open to the fact, there are no signs that subliminal advertising will explode in the digital age anytime soon. Instead, advertisers have opted for blatant, yet creative ways to push product to the masses. This could be seen as a shift from the subliminal hinting of advertising in the past days to the acceptance of advertising as a major part of our society, one based entirely on global capitalism. After being the recipients of major forms of advertising for over sixty years, the public is familiar with the advertising industry and understands its necessity in a capitalist society to pay for their beloved entertainment and everyday comforts. Perhaps in an effort to stop patronizing the public and be straight with them, advertisers have found a way to make entertainment and advertising indistinguishable. Mediums such as DumbDumb.com and campaigns such as the Old Spice ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’, are samples of successful ideas that are both contrary to subliminal and a hybrid of entertainment and advertising. Advertisers have chosen a psychology opposite of that of subliminal advertising, standing tall and bright on a stage for everyone to see, instead of lurking in the shadows with mind control techniques. Now, instead of worrying about sneaking ideas and images into the heads of consumers, advertisers can focus on creativity and originality by catering to the wants of the people that make their business possible; subliminal messages completely out of the question.

Although we are daily exposed to certain types of advertisements that border on the line of subliminal and indirectly convince our subconscious through purposefully placed products and distracting celebrity cameos, subliminal advertising does not exist as a real vehicle in the industry. In theory, covertly convincing the human psyche into product loyalty should be the most effective means of selling anything, but we have not yet reached this point on the map; it is not even a visible object on the horizon. The future of advertising, digital or otherwise, gives a favorable climate for subliminal possibilities but nothing exceeding that. Either this form of advertising has not reached its potential, or young consumers are too savvy to fall for the same tricks that were played on their grandparents. We have moved from suggested subliminal advertising, to parodies of subliminal advertising, to today’s form; the complete opposite of subliminal advertising by openly and shamelessly pushing products as a part of our publicized culture. “Whatever one thinks about the relatively small amount of evidence suggesting that subliminal communications play any real role in most advertising messages, there is no denying that the idea is perhaps more significant than the reality. It seems to be an idea that many members of the public want to believe in.”⁵ All significant discoveries start as ideas. With the right care, these ideas can evolve into reality. All illusions are ideas that do not have the substance to become realities, and therefore rest as ideas. Subliminal advertising is an idea dancing on the line of discovery and illusion, only having an impact on the industry as an idea and not as a reality. In understanding the direction that advertising is currently taking, one would believe that the idea of subliminal advertising is likely going to stay just that, an idea that outweighs its potential as a reality, waiting for the wave of the Subliminal Magician’s wand to make it appear as relevant and real.

By Nicholas Olson and Eric Goud

‘i am a scientist what kind of job i can do in the canadian governemnt’

There are people that ask themselves this question everyday, or at least often enough to think of typing the phrase into an online search engine. Evidently, scientists do not need to have a sense of grammar, punctuation or spelling in order to work for the Canadian government, and knowing our federal government, I am in no way surprised. I just hope to heaven that it wasn’t an adult who searched such words. I hope at least that it was a young boy, propagandized by his high school Physics teacher, telling him that there would be many jobs available (besides high school Physics teacher) if he got a Physics degree. This young boy searched these hallowed words on an internet search engine, with a sense of hope in his heart, for a page that outlined high paying, low turnover government scientist jobs with which he could live well and retire. Through his search engine linking him to Balls of Rice, this boy ended up getting the counsel of myself. And then, his innocence vanished.

On the ‘Site Stats’ page of any WordPress blog dashboard, there is a section entitled ‘Search Engine Terms’ which lists all the different words or phrases that people Googled and used to eventually stumble upon your blog. Typical terms used to find Balls of Rice are:

-rice balls, balls of rice, balls rice, Nic Olson, my balls dipped in rice, etc.
-il faut que je fasse, il faut, french
-what did dolphins evolve from
-peanut butter on feet
-‘i am risky after wisky’
–arabian goggles
-windsor salt kills
–meaning in english of del potro
-currycular
-“kris olson” obituary and “january 11 2010”
-slut riddles
-zombie xmas dinner
-“lucky reds” regina
-“there does not seem to be an aim handle”
-dog vomit mizoram
-pie with a quarter gone
-camus balls, and of course…
–‘i am a scientist what kind of job i can do in the canadian governemnt’

Many of these terms bring back great memories of past posts that we all enjoyed together, either holding our sides in unparalleled laughter, or buying up boxes of tissues to prepare ourselves for the heavy brush of emotion, or scratching our chins at deeply philosophical ideas. Oh friends, the years we have spent together and the memories we made watching the growth of size, cynicisms, and writing ability of the young author of Balls of Rice! These past years have been characterized completely by a list of nonsensical terms, proof of the timeless nature of Balls of Rice. I urge you to stick around for the years to come so together we can further watch the deterioration of the author’s mental sanity and so we can laugh at all the phrases that people used to stumble across this dusty URL.

Oh, how low we have climbed from, and how high we will go.
-quote from an anonymous Canadian Scientist

(post 533)

I travelled in time last night. I have scarlet fever to prove it. I believe that it is fully possible that I had the ability to travel through time while I sleep. I feel like this is the most likely time that it will occur. I distinctly remember waking up at 3:45am, then at 7:54am, then at 4:30am then at 8:00am, fifteen minutes before school started. I remember waking up at 7:54am, telling myself that I didn’t have to get ready for school because I could just travel back in time a few hours. I did it, and tried doing it again when 8:00am rolled around, but quantum physics knew that I needed to get to class to learn how to conjugate the verb ‘savoir’ in past simple and past anterior, oddly similar to the name of a man people base their lives around. (Je sus, J’eus su). Little do these people know that when they say his name, they are really just saying, ‘I know, I know…’ in an annoyed voice in the most holy of languages, French, with the most holy of accents, Quebecois.

But regardless of languages or religions which God decides to smite or not, I travelled through time, and if I could only remember what I saw. Was it airplanes like birds , or humans like amphibians? Was it the nuclear mess of the future, or the industrial mess of the past? Was Sheen the President and Strombo Prime Minister? Did Apple Computers eventually create the iPad: Jesus Edition with the tagline, ‘So perfect, you’ll think it’s the second coming’ that we’re all expecting? Did I ever learn not to be flaky? If only I could’ve written down the formula for time travel in my sleep. Estimation:

I would be on the cover of Time magazine as Sexiest Canadian Time Traveller Under Twenty-Five Since Michael J. Fox. I played Dr. Filby in my grade nine production of ‘The Time Machine’, and if memorizing that script and not living up to my potential as an actor doesn’t prove that I have enough credentials to travel through time in my sleep when I am twenty-two, then I think we are much further from the concept of time travel than we once thought.

I found a wormhole in my bed. A tear in the space time continuum occurred on the floor of my scummy apartment. Had I slept on a bed I wouldn’t have experienced it. Had I used a cellphone as an alarm clock I wouldn’t have known it happened. But it did, and I did, and if I am acting odd for the next two weeks, you know why. Because Morlocks and Elois have trapped me in their bleak version of the future that we so naively created for them all by ourselves.

This song was a part my time travel.

All hail PM Stromboulopoulos.

“We think,” he said, “that we are our own masters when we get in our hands the object of our desire – but we are really our own masters only when we are able to cast out our desires from our minds.”

Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World

I am swimming towards the shore, the current encourages my seizing legs and resigning arms onward. Ten feet before the destination I realize that I am approaching a waterfall and not the shore. I try to change my bearing  to reach true land, when the once encouraging current becomes the flow/direction/undercurrent of my demise.

Dramatic, I know.

The thing about reaching a goal is that it is mostly impossible. Dreamers will tell you otherwise, but it is because they have never reached their goals either, and are too blinded by their want to reach their goal that they can’t see the negative reality. They might call it determination. I might call it delusion. Once you think you’ve reached a goal, you realize that there is far more to it than you once thought. I am a real motivational speaker.

I have reached the written level of my French class. I thought I was arriving on the shore, but have come to realize that I have only come to a cascade into a pool of overwhelming mass with no shore in sight.

And while I wade in the waters deep of what I once considered grandeur, I toil through the daily misfortunes of soggy, sour shoes, of forehead pimples, of NHL catastrophes and business made decisions, of self-inflicted hunger, of crust splitting earthquakes and ten metre waves. And these make the once deep waters of grandeur seem even more like the deep waters of being swallowed.

And the deep waters seem even wider than they did upon the echoes of my complaints and defeatism and apathy. Deep and wide.

Finding yourself whistling hymns from childhood while walking in the wet March precipitation is something to take consolation in. That you remember them and that you still think they are brilliant.

The waters only get deeper and wider.

EDIT: I wrote this before the earthquake happened in Japan. I added the line about ten metre waves after. It all seems somewhat inappropriate now.