Notes from Source: “Anne Carson consistently dazzles with her inventive, shape-shifting work and the vividness of her imagination. Float reaches an even greater level of brilliance and surprise. Presented in an arrestingly original format–individual chapbooks that can be read in any order, and that float inside a transparent case–this collection conjures a mix of voices, time periods, and structures to explore what makes people, memories, and stories “maddeningly attractive” when observed in spaces that are suggestively in-between. One can begin with Carson contemplating Proust on a frozen Icelandic plain, or on the art-saturated streets of downtown New York City. Or journey to the peak of Mount Olympus, where Zeus ponders his own afterlife. Or find a chorus of Gertrude Steins performing an essay about falling–a piece that also unearths poignant memories of Carson’s own father and great-uncle in rural Canada. And a poem called “Wildly Constant” piercingly explores the highs and lows of marriage and monogamy, distilled in a wife’s waking up her husband from the darkness of night, and asking him to make them eggs for breakfast.”– Provided by publisher.

Further Notes: 24 cm in slipcase 24 x 18 x 3 cm

Further Notes:

From the front matter’s “Performance Notes”:

Candor

Commissioned by artist Roni Horn for a subject index of her work, with a set of instructions that I misunderstood and misapplied, but she printed it anyway.

Cassandra Float Can

A lecture in three parts, first presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2008, accompanied in performance by images of the works of Gordon Matta-Clark shown as slides and also on large posters (constructed and frequently repaired by Robert Currie), carried about the room by nine to twelve volunteers.

L.A.

Various pieces composed for Laurie Anderson, including “Short Talk on the Withness of the Body,” for the catalogue of her multimedia show Forty-Nine Days in the Bardo; “Lou’s Grace” performed by all the guests at the dinner table at Laurie’s house, Thanksgiving Day 2013, the year he died.

Pinplay

Commissioned by the artist Elliot Hundley to accompany his installation The Bacchae at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio, and performed there by members of the Ohio State Department of Greek and Latin in 2011.

Possessive Used as Drink (Me)

First presented at the English Institute of Harvard in 2007 as a lecture on pronouns, accompanied by a video by Sadie Wilcox of Julie Cunningham, Andrea Weber and Rashaun Mitchell (members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company) who performed original choreography, with an audio composition by sound artist Stephanie Rowden.

Stacks

Commissioned by dancer/choreographer Jonah Bokaer, who set the text to a dance performed at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (NYU) in 2008 by Catherine Miller, Silas Reiner, Andrea Weber and Adam Weinert, with set and additional activities by artist Peter Cole. An earlier version of Stacks, designed by Robert Currie, was presented at Hunter College in 2007 with performance by Anne Carson, Peter Cole and Robert Currie.

Uncle Falling

Lecture I (“Uncle Harry”) first performed at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe (NYC) in 2008 by Will Aitken, Anne Carson, Robert Currie, Tacita Dea, Abi Sebaly, Gary Shteyngart, Chaya Thanhauser and Laurie Anderson on video.

Lecture II (“Falling”) added in 2010 for performance at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church (NYC) with Joan Juliet Buck, Anne Carson, Robert Currie, Savitri Durkee, Rob Moose, Elizabeth Streb and Chaya Thanhauser.

Variations on the Right to Remain Silence

First complete performance in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, in 2012, with accompanying slide loop created by Robert Currie, using images partly derived from Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project in Detroit (since partly destroyed by arson).

Wildly Constant

Commissioned by Roni Horn in 2009 for performance at her installation, The Library of Water, in Stykkishólmur, Iceland, with the collaboration of Robert Currie and original music composed and performed by Kjartan Sveinsson and Ólöf Arnalds.”