Sir, Handsome Records | Snowmen & Scientists

Snowmen & Scientists by Maybe Smith

sir006 | Released: September 2007

Snowmen & Scientists is free companion EP to Maybe Smith’s most recent full-length album, Animals & Architects.

Recorded over a lone weekend in the spring of 2007, Snowmen & Scientists is a humble attempt at paying tribute to some of the music that inspired Animals & Architects. Here Maybe Smith’s characteristic vocals are layered over samples from classic pop songs by The Ronettes, The Crystals, The Shirelles and others—perfect songs that really shouldn’t be messed with in the first place. But karaoke is fun.

Written and produced by Colin Skrapek in Saskatoon, May 2007 (with the exception of the many samples—those are used without permission but with the utmost respect and admiration for the original artists). Mastered by Joel Grundahl. Illustrations by Todd Gronsdahl.

Evolution Bamboozles Man, Scientists Bamboozle Man Again: Man is Thoroughly Bamboozled

by Sheena B. Miller

The overwhelming heat and humidity this summer exposes man’s greatest flaw: freckled, hairless skin. So says scientist-turned-snitch Dr. Jacob Geissler in his recent report entitled “Humanity’s Greatest Deception.” In his report, Geissler claims that global warming is a hoax fabricated by the world’s greatest 20th century scientists who have been conspiring to secretly create a new race of beings, one that will reign over the earth’s next colder climate cycle. Known as “Project Snowman,” this undercover program has been ongoing since the 1960s in a classified laboratory hidden deep in the mountains of Japan.

“It’s absolutely the most heinous betrayal ever carried out by human hands, and I can no longer be silent,” proclaims Geissler, “Every person deserves to know the truth about our fate.”

And this fate is a grim one. According to his report, humans have been doomed since we stood upright and began to walk on two feet. While evolution has allowed our race to advance its mental and physical capacity, this biological anomaly has put us irreversibly at odds with the natural cycle of our planet’s atmospheric composition. This cycle, Geissler declares, includes drastic increases and decreases in atmospheric temperature.

Geissler’s allegation disregards the current threat of global warming as a falsification contrived by 20th century scientists in order to preoccupy the general public’s concerns from the reality of climate change. While this reality identifies the current warming trend, it also unveils the eventual and unavoidable atmospheric temperature plummet, one our evolved human state is abominably unprepared for.

“While we are certain there is a pattern of warming and cooling, we are uncertain what changes it will mean to the face of our planet. Continents, bodies of waters, land masses, even slight changes in soil content. Emerging from the change is being reborn into a new world.”

And human’s fate in this new world?

“Non-existent,” proclaims Geissler bluntly, “at least not how we could ever expect. Humanity as we know will cease to exist.”

Geissler claims that scientists have known about this eventual climate change since the middle of the 20th century, and have been working on creating a hybrid race of super-intelligent abominable snowmen at a secret base in Japan.

Abominable snowmen, also referred to as Yeti, are a species of cryptids, a creature whose existence has not, to a wide public capacity, been proven. While hypothetically, Abominable Snowmen inhabit snowy and mountainous regions, the secret scientific observations have proved that they can and will inhabit a variety of terrains and face a variety of temperate zones. Like humans, they are an evolved form of the genus Australopithecus, a group of perceived extinct hominids. Unlike humans, they have evolved far less quickly and dramatically. While Abominable Snowmen possess the ability to walk on two feet, use and create tools, and have opposable thumbs, they have adapted to a variety of temperate zones without losing the thick hair which covers their primate-like bodies. This, Geissler says, was the secret group’s main attraction to them as candidates for inter-breeding.

“While their brains are not as advanced as our species, they are incredibly intelligent and capable beings,” says Geissler, “The act of breeding these creatures with the best and brightest 20th century scientific minds has been exceptionally successful. They have succeeded in artificially inseminating female yetis with sperm samples from Einstein and Bohr. Natural insemination has been successful as well. Initial testing shows heightened intelligence, beyond the threshold of what would be considered primate mental capacity.”

I asked Geissler if there was any hope for humankind, to which he replied, “Absolutely not. Within the next century or so we will all be gone.”

While Geissler has been cut off from the secret group since his publication, he has heard rumours that interbreeding has even been tested on pop stars.

“There is buzz that a select few actors and even musical stars have also become involved in the project. Chances are if someone is touring Japan, they are most likely involved with the project.”

So does this mean we will be seeing superstars like Madonna and Angelina Jolie toting around a new furry accessory?

“Think of artists who are a bit more clandestine. Maybe ‘John Smith’ artists that are a bit more so-so; individuals who fly under the radar of celebrity but whose talents supersede their fame. These maybe smiths and so-sos will be undoubtedly be faces in this new humanity. It is, perhaps, a shame that the individuals who are literally fathers of the future of humanity will go nameless as long as Project Snowman remains classified.”