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| The Birth of Athena by René-Antoine Houasse |
When the sons of Zeus, Apollo and Dionysus clashed in the great polemic of aesthetics, the dialectic was so great and so prolonged that the people of earth suffered generations of confusion. Eventually, Athena took pity on the people of earth and beseeched her father Zeus to put an end to the age of aesthetic dichotomy. Zeus granted his daughter's wish by sending a bolt of his own being down into the mind of a man named Bobby Goldberg. This bolt would fill Bobby's mind with the grandest of ideas, which would eventually manifest into an art so resplendent that both Apollo and Dionysus would rest their tongues, for Zeus knew of that which was higher than such materialistic dualism. This third element, which transcended both order and emotion, summoned by Zeus and imparted to Bobby, would then unfold and rise back towards its heavenly origins naturally through the expression of Bobby. And that which rises to such heights is bound to pass by the domain of the gods, whence both Apollo and Dionysus would fall to their knees in adoration. Bobby spent decades cultivating his craft and inscribing the voice of the most high third aesthetic he encountered every night. But, before Bobby could realize the desire of the transcendent third principle, a lowly jongleur by the name of Sean, happened upon Bobby's manuscripts when the two crashed on the great highway. Surreptitiously, Sean was able to secure the manuscripts out of the wreckage without a shred of suspicion. Sean then fled to New York back to the year 2020 so as to escape the immanent warrant for his arrest, since Bobby was backed some rather important figures. Since then, Sean has clumsily began to attempt to decipher the outlandish inscriptions as recorded by Bobby. He has hastily begun to learn many instruments such as guitar, saxophone, piano, drums, etc. so as to not arouse suspicion for his stolen insights, and intends to parade around the ideas imparted to Bobby Goldberg as if they were his own until fate catches up with him. The rgms is the first full fledged confused attempt by Sean to put some of these elysian musings into practice. Previously, he has worked on encoding mysterious messages into notated music at various universities, capturing and analyzing the music of many peers to gain insight into the supposed divine spark of music, and wildly improvising, hoping to accidentally stumble upon the deeper meaning within Bobby's manuscripts.
The ‘Great Highway Theft’, as it came to be known, shook up a storm of something fierce in the time of Bobby Goldberg. When consorting with Athena, Bobby could not but feel a great indignity cast over him as the goddess raged. Being unable to intervene by divine law, Athena charged Tony Goldberg, Bobby’s brother, with the task most high of recouping the stolen manuscripts. You see in that time, more than just aesthetics were at stake; for in the wake of the Apollonian and Dionysian dialectic a dark force had reawakened, unbeknownst to even the gods. Cronus, the great Titan, who had once consumed his own children, but had been slain for his throne by his only spared son, the mighty Zeus, had returned undercover. In the shadows he was called the ‘Coroner’, for he was the father of time, reaper of all humankind. Once before, Tony and Bobby working together on early manuscript conjurings had fended off the undercover Coroner without realizing his titanic nature (see more), but now with the manuscripts gone and the fissures of duality growing ever deeper, the Coroner again amassed his form. Thus, Tony was sent back to scour through time for the stolen manuscripts. In the era before the Great Phoenix, ca. 2017, he encountered the master soundscapist Davis Connors. Having suspected an acquaintance of Davis, named Sean, to be in power of some mighty aesthetic force outside of time, Tony implicated himself as a mentor/daimon to Davis so as to catch a glimpse of the wild horses that so seemed to steer the chariot of rgms. Tony bequeathed to Davis the sacred rhythms on taut animal hides and the technomancy of aural replication, all of which Sean recognized as necessary elements for the kairosis of the manuscripts lifted from Bobby and forged a partnership with Davis. Patiently, Tony observes as the rgms unfolds and the coroner gathers his army.
