Two ads have been intriguing me lately.

Wendy Nicabate

These Nicabate ads feature Wendy who is desperately trying to quit smoking by chewing gum. Her diction annoys me! The line “it’s an action” has hanuted our household for a couple months now. The series of ads show her progressing towards a life without cigarettes. But what about that weekend at her mum’s?

“Mum’s a smoker.”

I hope she didn’t cave at Mum’s house! Only the next ads will let us know.

TRANSFRIGGINFORMERS

Has anoyone else seen that car ad that features a car turning into a dancing machiney thing?

IT’S A TRANSFORMER. AND IT LOOKS REAL.

Check it out here (thanks Mike!)

Here’s how awesome this commercial is. I didn’t even notice that it was filmed in Vancouver. I think that ad fulfills the fantasy of every boy born between the mid-70s and mid-80s.

OK, without any scale, that “moth” doesn’t look all that big, but I can assure you it was the size of a small bird. The photo was taken in the servant stairwell in our building…the sketchy stairwell. I think that “moth” must have opened the door to get in there. A closer look below:

Mothra was located directly below the telephone box thingy for our building. Ever wondered why I often say our phone doesn’t work?

I don’t know how you spent your afternoon, but I watched women’s lawn bowls LIVE from the Melbourne Commonwealth Games which kicked off last night. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time (mostly in disbelief). Now I know Swaziland is a world power in the world of lawn bowls, but one or two of you may not know much about the country, so check this out (look at the map!).

So right now on the ABC (basically Australia’s version of Canada’s CBC) I see Vancouver!

Mounties and Vancouver Island!

Hastings and Marc Emery!

The D.E.A. and pot!

The first “special” I’ve seen about Canada in Australia and it’s about marijuana. Yay Canada! In this special I’ve learned that Jesus may have used cannabis oil to heal people…who knew? The special seems to be focusing on how Canada’s progressive drug laws are scaring the hell out of the U.S. and it’s “war” on drugs. It’s almost entirely focused on British Columbia too…this one scary guy in the U.S. administration looks like he’d like to invade B.C., kick ass and not take any names. It is nice to hear some Canadian voices though. Even if they sound like Tommy Chong.

The best part though is the soundtrack. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is backing large portions of this special. Nothing like a good ole cliche.

Four days after I first came to Australia for “the” visit in December 2004 I was taken aback by a McDonald’s ad on a bus stop. While McDonald’s is one of the world’s most recognized symbols and corporations, the sign really threw me due to what was written below the logo. The sign informed those who read it that there was a McDonald’s located just a few kilometres up the road in a town called Sans Souci. Amanda and I drove past this sign along the beaches of Botany Bay, the very place where Captain Cook first set foot on Australian soil.

So why does the name of a town in New South Wales called Sans Souci interest me? The answer resides in a Latin-American history class I took in my third year of university, a book, the Haitian Revolution, and a palace in Potsdam, Germany. A long story in other words. First up, Professor Bill French’s history course at UBC.

The course was largely theoretical rather than a linear study of Latin American history. The final book we studied in the course was called Silencing the Past by Michel-Rolph Trouillot. By far the most difficult book on the syllabus, the book was a revelation for me. While ostensibly (at least in how it was presented within our course) a book about the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th Century, the book was in reality about the production of history. While I don’t want to get into it here, this review has a nice overview for anyone interested.

The chief argument of the book is that the history we all accept is whatever history someone has deemed important enough to set down. In other words, history is subjective and many events, people, and ideas are simply forgotten or intentionally “silenced” by those in power. While this idea was/is not new, his argument was stunning. He illuminates his theory by presenting the history of the three faces of Sans Souci: a palace in Haiti; a palace in Germany; and the “silenced” figure of Colonel Jean-Baptist Sans Souci.

Just how silenced is this figure? Wikipedia has NOTHING. A google search for his name (as written above) returns ONE result, and it is the review I posted above. Googling my name returns more results. Sans Souci was a leader of the only successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere that helped establish Haiti as a free-republic. I write a blog.

I loved the book, and a year later when I set out to cover Europe in five months, I made sure to make a special trip out to the palace of Sans Souci in Potsdam (a short train ride from Berlin). Walking around the palace I recalled the book and how this palace got its name (which in French means “without a care”). I took some photos and went back to Berlin that evening satisfied that I made it to Sans Souci. But the question still stuck with me. Why was there a palace in Germany named after a palace in Haiti which was named after a forgotten rebel of a largely ignored revolution?

Two-and-a-half years later, driving along the coast in suburban Sydney the question was raised again. Why is there a town in Australia named this? Wikipedia helps a LITTLE, but not much. Do the people in Sans Souci have any idea why they live in a town with a French name? I’ll tell you one thing for sure, Australians do not pronounce it correctly.

The many faces of Sans Souci continue to haunt me. Late last year I was at the Glebe markets exploring the used-book sellers and what do I see standing on display? A souvenir pictorial guide to the palace of Sans Souci in Potsdam. Sadly I didn’t buy it as I had no cash. But why the hell would that have been there? How did it get there? Who really has enough interest in the palace of Sans Souci in Australia to actually buy a souvenir book?

Is the only way for me to put this to rest to travel to Haiti?

I received an email earlier this week from my Dad asking if the World Baseball Classic was getting much attention here. I had totally forgotten the tournament was even happening, so no, it is not getting much attention here. While Australia is obsessed with sport, baseball is more or less non-existent. However, Australia does have a team in this tournament, which is the inaugural World Baseball Classic. Sadly, Australia lost to baseball powerhouse Italy 10-0. No shame in that.

Today on the news I saw the first baseball highlights I’ve been able to see on television since I left Canada. And while the highlights amounted to ten seconds, I did get to see Canada’s win over the United States. The majority of that 10 seconds was the crowd booing the Americans…which was perfect. So that’s what it takes for me to see baseball highlights here: shock wins by emerging baseball powerhouse Canada. Your reign of terror is over Italy!

So as the Winter Olympics ended in Torino this week, summer ended here in Australia. Today was March 1st, the first day of autumn…which is kind of odd. Unlike Canada where we follow the solstice to determine the passing of seasons, Australians look at a calendar. They don’t mess around with that “science” of astronomy.

“Galileo? Screw ‘em. My Lord of the Rings calendar says it’s March 1st and I’ll be damned if that doesn’t mean it’s fall.”

The more I think about it, the more it hurts my head. Everything is already backwards down here with Christmas arriving in the satanic heat of summer, how can people just decide when a season officially ends? Seriously…who makes that call? So while I don’t get it, I must say it does make some sense. Back in Canada I’ve always considered summer to be June/July/August rather than June 21 to September 21. September has too much of an autumn feeling to it. And December? That should be winter from day one. So maybe the Aussie’s have this one right. I still don’t get who decides when Spring begins though…I just don’t.

Seasons are far from the only thing that are backwards here however. When I first came to Australia in December 2004 I was shocked (SHOCKED) when on my third night here I looked up into the sky over Sydney Harbour and saw Orion…UPSIDE DOWN. Like he was diving into the harbour. Orion, the great hunter, appears in Australia as though he is falling to his nebular death whilst still clutching his sword and shield (or is it a bow and arrow?).

It was very, VERY weird to look up into the sky and have it not appear as you’ve known it your entire life. What bothered me almost as much was that I had NO IDEA stars worked like this in the southern hemisphere (though it makes perfect sense). Why did I know the toilets flowed the other way but didn’t know that the stars were upside down? Sadly I know the answer: they didn’t discuss the stars in that episode of The Simpsons.

So I really don’t know what’s going on now. Winter Olympics just ended (and I must say, watching the Australians trying to wrap their head around hockey was great fun). Summer just ended…but it’s not the 21st of a month or a solstice. Rules do not apply here apparently. “Science” certainly does not.

Images courtesy of Chandra (apparently that image is as good as Harvard kids can come up with)