The 46th Annual Schmolaris Prize

I have just returned to East Schmelkirk from a – in my opinion – very successful Canada-wide book tour, promoting, of course, my second book, Bad Gardening Advice: Winnipeg Music Reviews From Artist Redacted to Zrada. I met many wonderful people, all clamouring to know about (and to listen to) Winnipeg music. On my last stop in Winnipeg, McNally Robinson was packed – literally – to the ceiling with ardent and adoring fans. Although the event was exceptional (Winnipeg not only has exceptional music, but even more exceptional fans), I was met with similar crowds at nearly every stop on the tour.  

I was asked questions about everything under (and over) the sun. Audiences were greedy to know my opinions on everything from neutrino science to their city’s latest political scandal. And, of course, I was as erudite and eloquent as could be, in my usual sesquipedalian fashion.

By far, the question I received most often was who would win the 46th annual Schmolaris Prize, the most prestigious music prize in all of Canada. I was honest when I responded, that it is the jury, and not me, that makes the selection. Plus, as I was away from home, and separated from the jurors, I was unaware of any progress they may have made. I, too, wanted to know who would be the winner.

So when I opened their cages to find out who would be awarded Canada’s most prestigious music prize, I very quickly found out that while I was on tour, the jury had been derelict in their duty. Not only had they not selected a winner, I found that two of them had died.

After seconds full of grief and anguish, I saw that it would be up to me, Steve Schmolaris, to select the winner. And so I did what anyone would do were they to be thrust into the position that I found myself in: I walked deep into the boreal forest on the Canadian shield and ingested a heroic dose of magic mushrooms.

I came to an opening amongst the jack and white pines. A large and seamless slab of ancient granite lay below me. There were junipers and blueberries growing in clumps around the edges. Lichen of various colours – blacks, whites, greens, blues – spotted the rock like birth marks. The sun shone on me with a religious fervor.

I spread my blanket, sat down, opened my neon-yellow fannypack containing 12 grams of Golden Teacher, and ate until the fannypack was empty.

With eyes closed, I made my intentions as clear as I could. I held the Schmolaris Prize in my mind. I held each short-listed artist as closely as I could. I listened. I contemplated. I cried. And I chose. And, Bad Gardeners, I chose wisely.

It is with great pleasure that I share that the 46th annual Schmolaris Prize is awarded to Ael for their album Stone.

As I fell deeper and deeper into a hallucinogenic trance, I began to hear a choir of angels singing in harmonic unison. I opened my eyes expecting to see the source of such heavenly sounds. Where were these divine beings – these messengers of song – that I was sure would guide me through my journey.  

There were no angels. Instead, to my joy and wonder, there was the natural world. And it was alive! The trees swayed with intention. The rocks hummed with a crystalline consciousness. The berries and fruits and pods and seeds danced with excitement. And, all the while, they sung!

Their collective beauty was unparalleled. Each was painted, sculpted, and composed in exquisite detail.

It was then that I recognized what they were singing. It was the first song from Ael’s Stone, “Everyone’s Waiting for Rain.” The organic and inorganic – in all their numinous awe – were singing that they craved rain, that they were starved for life. And yet, in such soaring psalms, I also heard pain and heartache. The plants, the animals, the world – they were all waiting in vain.

Would the rain never come? I asked silently, not wanting to impose myself on their tenuous existence. What was wrong? Where were the rains that would wash all their worries away?

Looking closer, I saw their leaves were yellow with illness. Some were black from being burned. Despite all their orchestral tenacity, they were sick.

What can I do, I asked. What should I stop doing? Anxious, and afraid for their well-being, I began to gather fallen limbs and cones. Feathers and shells. Fragments of quartz. Moss. I gathered up their dead. And I made a shrine.  

I wept as I did so. Tears streamed down my face, falling on the small shrine before me. Soon the sky was drowning in my tears. And the shrine, made of little more than rocks and water, came to life.

At first it moved like a child, as if nothing could harm it. It jumped off boulders, it climbed trees, it hovered briefly in the air before me. How innocent, I marveled. It lives without anguish. It sings without shame. And, yet, I could see that it would not last. A sobering knowledge was already festering inside it like a disease.

My child, I said to it, can you save us? Can you save the world?  

By the time I finished speaking, it had doubled in size. It sprouted wings, giant ones, and I touched them with a reverence I had never before experienced. Here before me was a great spirit. Although its life, so far, had been brief, I could tell that it was wiser than anyone I had ever met.

Without moving its mouth, I knew it wanted me to climb onto its back, and, once I did, it lifted me and flew up and into the sky. The small opening with its jack pines and white pines became smaller than mote of dust. The world, the only world we will ever know, shrunk as I was carried higher and higher into the atmosphere.  

The angel – for what else should I call it? – pointed down. What I saw was terrifying. I was shown a world in distress. I was shown chaos. COVID and QANON infections had turned the Earth pallid and charmless. I saw division. I saw irrationality crowned as a king. I saw science abandoned for the comfort of ignorance. I saw tempers and oceans boiling. I saw floods. Fires. It was a state of emergency.

The angel took me back to the opening, landing on the rock. Suddenly, just as I was about to lose hope, I felt an overwhelming love embrace me. Back on solid ground, I was again near my friends, near the trees and mosses. And I could feel their love with renewed vigour.  

I felt as if I were born again, like I had a new purpose in life. I rejoiced and began to sing along with the abundance of life I saw around me. Here was an irresistible beauty! Here was an incomparable art!

Angel, I cried, with you I know there is nothing we can’t accomplish. With you, the world can change its vile ways. With you, a magnanimous healing will cure our abominable improprieties, our constant taking, our corruption.

And at that the Angel, once again, began to fly. I could see in its eyes the child – the shrine – it had once been. There was happiness. There was positivity. And a fatalism, too.

It flew above me, above the trees, within the clouds. I saw the angel rise and rise and rise. Higher and higher. It passed into the outer spheres of the Earth. Into space. Passed the moon. Passed Venus. Mercury. And toward... into...

The Sun.  

The angel, in seeking the brightest thing imaginable, drove itself into a darkness. Into the only darkness that has ever existed: non-existence. It was an act of great humanity. It showed us that even angels die. It was an act that said suns, too, will, die. That life on Earth, will, one day, die, too. That forever does have an end.

I fell to the ground in despair. I pounded on the immense granite slab below me.

When I opened my eyes I saw my reflection in a thousand mica mirrors.  

I was an atom. Locked in the rock.  

I’ve been here for two billion years.  

Maybe longer.  

Time has practically stopped.

Here, the weight of the world is as light as an electron.  

I am every electron.  

Simultaneously. 

I am held together by a miraculous freedom.  

In such nothingness, I am everywhere at once.  

I am everyone and everything.  

I am one.

I am many.

The beginning and the end.

By then I must have fallen asleep, because the next sounds I recorded were of waking up. Boots scraping against the dry needles. The microphone being pulled through bushes. Twigs snapping. Breathing in. Breathing out. The truck door closing. Turning on the radio. Switching it to Bluetooth. Playing Enhanced Therapy Podcast with Darek Dawda. And driving back home to East Schmelkirk.

We may not be able to change reality, but we may be able change how we feel about it. Not everything is set in stone.

Congratulations Ael,

Steve Schmolaris
September 19th, 2023