Steve Schmolaris's Album Review: David Alpert

He walked over to Abel's body and picked up a piece of his skull, one of the larger fragments that somehow missed being bludgeoned into a grainy powder. In his hurry, Cain had forgot the hammer, and David picked it up and looked at it with a kind of wonder. He brought the red end to his nose and sniffed Abel's blood. He stuck out his tongue and tasted it. And that was what he was doing when The Man Upstairs came back and saw Abel. He looked at Abel with that said he wasn't so much surprised, like he had an inkling that something like this would eventually happen — a kind of resigned acceptance that's often paired with a long exhale. That didn't prevent him from getting angry. And you know how angry The Man Upstairs can get. Throwing dishes and chairs, cursing and yelling like the devil. And he sees David standing over Abel, holding the bloody hammer in one hand and a piece of an orbital bone in the other, and what else could he have thought but that David has done it and not Cain. Of course, we know David didn't do it, and David knows he didn't do it, but that didn't stop The Man Upstairs from flying off his handle and nearly doing the same to David as Cain did to Abel. 'What do you think you are? An animal?' I remember him yelling. He yelled a lot of other things I'd rather not repeat here, but I remember him yelling that, because then The Man Upstairs chained him to a post in the backyard where the horse is usually tied. 'If you act like an animal, then I guess I'll have to treat you like an animal.' I remember him saying that too. And he stayed that way until the snow started to fall and then The Man Upstairs had to unchain him else he would freeze to death, and that's when David explained what really happened and The Man Upstairs apologized for assuming David did what Cain did. Of course, by that time Cain was long gone and could be anywhere. • • • To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice . • • • Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, 'the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,' which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, 'the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,' left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists' songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.