Abalone and after by Jeremy Rosenstock

Jeremy AbaloneRosenstockandafter for speaking performer trio, abalone shells, and fixed media

Abalone and after, for speaking performer trio, abalone shells, and fixed media Program Notes

While we cannot speak to the abalone, we understand its plight as an animal at the mercy of its environment. We can see the legacy the abalone leaves behind with its shell, an object of polish and toughness. Even without the snail, we observe the effort put in by the creature to create its armor, perhaps seeing an analogue with the human desire for a legacy post mortem Through this lens, the shell is a literal body of work, an object of coherence with history and detail. The shell becomes its own narrative, an autobiography inscribed with iridescence and grit.

A shell is an index of time and death. The mollusk creates an exoskeleton from which it is separated upon passing. Though this object was created across the duration of the organism’s life, people often view the shell after its construction is “complete,” when it can only imply the animal’s living conditions. In the case of the abalone, this leaves behind an object composed of mother of pearl and calcium carbonate; where the outside is rough and textured, the inside is layered and smooth, simultaneously reflective and distortive.

The texts set in this piece include “Renunciation of Time” from Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil, an excerpt from Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson, and three short excerpts from “The Spiral,” a short story from Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino. Thanks to Michael Pisaro for his guidance throughout the creation of this work, and to Rafa Prendergast for being a trusted friend and collaborator.

= Short, medium, and long fermatas (in order from top to bottom). Short fermatas are 10” or less, medium fermatas are between 10 and 20”, and long fermatas are 20” or longer The lengths of specific fermatas may be indicated in the score or inferred if the fermata is above a rest; the fermata should be slightly longer than the rest in the latter scenario. Performance Notes Non boxed text (excluding titles) is to be spoken as notated during performance. Each performer will need two abalone shells. All shells should be polished, about 6” in length, and from mature Red Abalones (Haliotis rufescens). There are three fixed media recordings necessary for performance. Two electronic interludes are to be played at the points indicated in the score and function as the piece’s second and fourth movements These interludes may be accompanied by (optional) video, which should be projected behind the performers on a large screen

The third fixed media recording (audio from a close miked beach) is played during the fifth movement (as notated) All recordings are in stereo and can either be triggered by an offstage sound engineer or an onstage performer In addition, each performer may also need amplification.

Abalone and after, for speaking performer trio, abalone shells, and fixed media Key = For Performer 1. = For Performer 2 = For Performer 3 = For ALL performers. Note that black colored actions in colored boxes should be performed by only the performer to whom that action belongs (as determined by the color of the box).

= Action to occur during piece. Actions occur at location of underlined space, syllable, word, phrase, or fermata = Any repeating/ongoing action. Actions continue until next negating action or described/notated end of action.

Oceanic blue lighting may be diffused across the stage and, potentially, across the entirety of the performance space Stage Diagram

Abalone and after, for speaking performer trio, abalone shells, and fixed media Shell Morphology Exterior 5.4.3.2.1.Index:LengthWidthApexDepth(deepestpartofshell,approx.location)Pore Interior 2.1.Index:ColumellaAnteriorMargin 4

Abalone and after I. Renunciation of Time Time is an image of eternity, but it is also a substitute for Theeternity.miser whose treasure has been taken from him. It is some of the frozen past which he has lost. Past and future, man’s only riches. The future is a ﬁller of void places. Sometimes the past also plays this part (‘I used to be,’ ‘I once did this or that…’). But there are other cases when aﬄiction makes during fermata: rub/tap shell exteriors against each other; fade in over 10 15” speak text at relaxed pace speak first sentence in hocket with Performer 2, at relaxed pace; after, freely weave in and out of sync rub/tap shell interior against exterior; fade in throughout underlined excerpt

the thought of happiness intolerable; then it robs the suﬀerer of his past (nessun maggior dolore…).

The present does not attain ﬁnality. Nor does the future, for it is only what will be present. We do not know this, however. If we apply to the present the point of that desire within us which corresponds to ﬁnality, it pierces right through to the eternal. rub/tap shell interiors (anterior margins/ columellas); fade in throughout sentence speak first sentence in sync with Performer 2, at relaxed pace; after, freely weave in and out of sync

The past and the future hinder the wholesome effect of affliction by providing an unlimited field for imaginary elevation. That is why the renunciation of past and future is the first of all renunciations.

That is the use of despair which turns the attention away from the future.

When we are disappointed by a pleasure which we have been expecting and which comes, the disappointment is because we were expecting the future, and as soon as it is there it is present. We want the future to be there without ceasing to be future. This is an absurdity of which eternity alone is the cure. Time and the cave. To come out of the cave, to be detached, means to cease to make the future our objective.

A method of purification: to pray to God, not only in secret as far as men are concerned, but with the thought that God does not exist.* Piety with regard to the dead: to do everything for what does not exist. The suffering caused by the death of others is due to this pain of a void and of lost equilibrium. Efforts henceforward follow without an object and therefore without a reward. If the imagination makes good this void debasement. ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ And as to our own death, is it not the same? The object and the reward are in the future. Deprivation of the future void, loss of equilibrium. That is why ‘to philosophise is to learn to die’. That is why ‘to pray is like a death’. following “exist,” speak underlined part of “Editor ’s Note” at bottom of next page; return to sentence starting with “Piety” afterwards

When pain and weariness reach the point of causing a sense of perpetuity to be born in the soul, through contemplating this perpetuity with acceptance and love, we are snatched away into eternity.

*God does not in fact exist in the same way as created things which form the only object of experience for our natural faculties. Therefore, contact with supernatural reality is at ﬁrst felt as an experience of nothingness. [Editor’s note.]

once finished speaking, continue shell action until all performers have finished speaking; after, fade out shell actions in unison over 10 15” to end movement

II. seaEars (interlude one) during fermata: sit in silence, look downward while fixed media plays; the fixed media is 4’39” in duration 10

III. Creative Evolution

drag anterior margin across exterior length of other shell (from margin/right of pore to columella/left of apex); each drag = 4 5”, with a 1” pause between each drag drag pore across exterior length of other shell (from margin/right of pore to columella/left of apex); each drag = 4 5”, with a 1” pause between each drag during fermata: Performer 2 should stop speaking/striking shells long enough for Performers 1 and 3 to complete one drag action each, potentially in unison stop shell pattern; last shell action should be depth strike

strike depths, pores as notated; repeat pattern for 1’ before next measure; begin below text on notated pore strike continue shell pattern while speaking in unison (tempo = one syllable per half note); phrases may be in or (slightly) out of sync with shell pattern; take half note duration of silence for hyphens, commas, and periods

For our duration is not merely one instant replacing another; if it were, there would never be anything but the present no prolonging of the past into the actual, no evolution, no concrete duration. Duration is the continuous progress of the past which gna ws into the future and which swells as it advances. And as the past grows without ceasing, so also there is no limit to its preservation.

Memory…is not a faculty of putting away recollections in a drawer, or of inscribing them in a register. There is no register, no drawer; there is not even, properly speaking, a faculty, for a faculty works intermittently, when it will or when it can, whilst the piling up of the past upon the past goes on without relaxation. In reality, the past is preserved by itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing

starting when Performer 2 is between “a” and “fa,” begin speaking from “Memory ” to “outside”; speak at relaxed pace, independent of Performers 2 and 3

Performer 1 should reach “outside” while Performer 2 is speaking this underlined excerpt Performer 3 should reach “outside” while Performer 2 is speaking this underlined excerpt gradually fade out drag action while Performer 2 is speaking this underlined excerpt speak underlined text in relation to notated shell rhythm; return to opening pattern (as notated) afterwards; dynamics apply only to shells starting when Performer 2 is between “no” and “re,” begin speaking from “Memory ” to “outside”; speak at relaxed pace, independent of Performers 1 and 2

against the portals of consciousness that wo uld fain leave it outside. fade out drag action Performer 2 is speaking this underlined excerpt fade out to end movement; on depth strike if

gradually

desired 13

while

end

IV. breathe, scratch (interlude two) during fermata: sit in silence, look downward while fixed media plays; the fixed media is 4’44” in duration 14

V. We Mollusks…

How could we have thought that the cemetery of all our shells was the real shell, the one we had tried to construct with all our strength, and thought we had failed to construct? Now it is clear that the construction of time consisted precisely in the very defeat of our attempts to construct it; except we had not worked for ourselves but for you. We mollusks, who first had the intention of lasting, have given our kingdom, time, to the most volatile race of inhabitants of the temporary, namely humanity: during fermata: rub/tap shell exteriors near apex/depth; fade in over 10”, then continue action for 40 50” before beginning speech speak at relaxed pace, through “Someone”

It needed the cross-section of the Earth’s crust to throw up our shells, which we had abandoned some hundred, three hundred, five hundred million years before, for the vertical dimension of time to open up to you and release you from the continual cycle of the stars’ circuit in which you continue to pigeonhole the course of your fragmentary existences.

had it not been for us they would never have thought of it.

Someone had to start not so much to construct as to speak “Someone” in unison with Performer 1; after, continue to speak at relaxed pace through “Starting” rub/tap shell interior against exterior, holding outside shell columella by index finger and inside shell columella by other fingers (excluding thumb) during fermata: begin playback of water recording; fixed media should crescendo continuously from silence to louder than (but not overpowering) speech/shell sounds; recording should be loudest by beginning of fermata before “How “

become, to become something, to come into being in what it was making, to ensure that everything that was left or buried was a sign of something else, the imprint of fishbones in clay, the carbonized petroliferous forests, the Texas dinosaur’s footprint in the mud of the Cretaceous period, the splintered pebbles of the Paleolithic period, the mammoth’s carcass found in the Beresovka tundra with the remains of the buttercups it had grazed on twelve thousand years previously still in its teeth, the Venus of Willendorf, the ruins of Ur, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Lombard spear tip that popped up at Torcello, the

Templars’ temple, the treasure of the Incas, the Winter Palace and the Smolny Institute, the car cemetery…

Starting with our interrupted spirals, you have put together a continuous spiral you call history. I don’t know if you’ve got that much to be happy about; I can’t make any judgement on this thing that isn’t mine: for me this is only time as a footprint, the trace of our failed enterprise, the reverse of time, a stratification of remains and shells and necropolises and registers, of what has been saved as it perishes, of what by stopping has managed to reach speak “Starting” in unison with Performer 2; after, continue to speak at relaxed pace through “How “ tap anterior margins/columellas; tap columellas, then margins in rapid duplets or triplets (if margins tapped twice after columella tap); the rhythm may be reminiscent of that of a galloping horse (albeit more inconsistent/sparse)

Howshell…

you. Your history is the opposite of ours, the opposite of the history of what by moving has not arrived, of what has been lost in order to survive: the hand that modeled the vase, the bookcases that burned at Alexandria, the way the scribe spoke, the flesh of the mollusk that secreted the

during fermata: fixed media begins decrescendo to silence over 20”; performers should wait 10 15” to say “How “ Performers 1 and 3 speak word in unison; ALL shell actions stop with “How ” during fermata: sit in silence, wait for fixed media to fade out entirely; after, continue sitting in silence, end piece