1934-
Piles of golden brown manuscript were evenly scattered around a dark marble floor in a very intricate pattern of chaos. A rosewood table and chair were centered in the tiny ill lit room. Seated atop of this chair was a heavy set man around his sixties. His name was Alexandr Konstantinovich Glazunov, famous composer and not-so-famous prophet and mage, and he was writing his saxophone concerto (op. 109A, for anyone who cares). He was angry. No, he was very angry. It was his twenty first attempt at this piece, and he was still failing. Some might say he had writers block (or to be more accurate, composer's block). But to him, he had very carefully fallen off of the composer's truck and crawled his way into Afghanistan. It was bad. Not nearly as bad as the time he burnt his op. 19 eating sausage on his way to the publisher, but it was still pretty bad. The thing with Glazunov is that he likes to make things terribly difficult for himself. He had constructed a new language with his music, in which the notes represent different letters of the alphabet. And he insisted that his music read something when letters were assigned to them. For instance, his op. 18, Mazurka in G major for orchestra, was actually a recipe for a mean chicken noodle soup. And his op. 86, Russian Fantasy in A major for balalaika-orchestra, explained how to surgically remove a gull-bladder from a person with diabetes.
"Hot damn, I've got it!" exclaimed Glazunov.
He began to furiously draw little black dots on the yellow paper, carefully spelling out, "Incredible Power." It was followed by, "How to achieve it by continuous never-ending playing of the alto saxophone." Glazunov worked the rest of the night, finishing early the next morning around 3:34 am. He went to his cupboard and took out a greenish flubber like substance, and, with a quick flick of his wrist and a twisting motion in his neck, applied a drop to the manuscript. The paper hummed a little, got a little hot, then gave out in a wisp of nitrous oxide.
"Sweet," declared Glazunov.
He was done. He immediately sent his latest work out to the publishers, who distributed the 'pamphlet' on immense power across the globe.
Ever since, the world went haywire.
Piles of golden brown manuscript were evenly scattered around a dark marble floor in a very intricate pattern of chaos. A rosewood table and chair were centered in the tiny ill lit room. Seated atop of this chair was a heavy set man around his sixties. His name was Alexandr Konstantinovich Glazunov, famous composer and not-so-famous prophet and mage, and he was writing his saxophone concerto (op. 109A, for anyone who cares). He was angry. No, he was very angry. It was his twenty first attempt at this piece, and he was still failing. Some might say he had writers block (or to be more accurate, composer's block). But to him, he had very carefully fallen off of the composer's truck and crawled his way into Afghanistan. It was bad. Not nearly as bad as the time he burnt his op. 19 eating sausage on his way to the publisher, but it was still pretty bad. The thing with Glazunov is that he likes to make things terribly difficult for himself. He had constructed a new language with his music, in which the notes represent different letters of the alphabet. And he insisted that his music read something when letters were assigned to them. For instance, his op. 18, Mazurka in G major for orchestra, was actually a recipe for a mean chicken noodle soup. And his op. 86, Russian Fantasy in A major for balalaika-orchestra, explained how to surgically remove a gull-bladder from a person with diabetes.
"Hot damn, I've got it!" exclaimed Glazunov.
He began to furiously draw little black dots on the yellow paper, carefully spelling out, "Incredible Power." It was followed by, "How to achieve it by continuous never-ending playing of the alto saxophone." Glazunov worked the rest of the night, finishing early the next morning around 3:34 am. He went to his cupboard and took out a greenish flubber like substance, and, with a quick flick of his wrist and a twisting motion in his neck, applied a drop to the manuscript. The paper hummed a little, got a little hot, then gave out in a wisp of nitrous oxide.
"Sweet," declared Glazunov.
He was done. He immediately sent his latest work out to the publishers, who distributed the 'pamphlet' on immense power across the globe.
Ever since, the world went haywire.