portions of the text and multimedia, crafted by Douglas Singleton
Build a narrative. Abandon it
Speak nonsense. (Beautiful.)
A script reading of Kurnst (Soul Folk) was presented at 65 Hope Street Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on February 5th, 2004
With: Monique J. Askew, Lionel Gentle, Jennifer S. Harder,
Marie Hughley, Anthony Leslie, Erica Liez, and Robert Wells Youngs
Stage directions read by Timothy Jenkins
Video projections by Noah Klersfeld
Reading produced by the author and Renee Gregory
Videotaped by Nick Williams
Directed by Douglas Singleton
During the fall of 1996 rapper Tupac Shakur was shot and killed leaving a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas. He was rumored to have had an affair with the wife of East Coast rapper Biggie Smalls (Notorious B.I.G.), who himself was gunned down a few months later.
In the mid-1970’s Jamaican immigrant turned Bronx DJ Kool Herc began fusing together chunks of popular records using turntables, segueing together long musical collages. Actress Dorothy Dandridge, her career in ruins, was found dead from an overdose of prescription drugs in her West Hollywood apartment in September of 1965.
In Dostoyevsky’s “The Possessed” (or “The Devils”) the character Kirilov decides he will commit suicide as something of a spiritual, political statement. A late scene in the novel finds him battling himself as he contemplates the end of his life.
In 1945 alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie recorded “KoKo.” Andy Warhol’s Factory shot a 6-hour film in 1963 of a man sleeping titled, “Sleep.” In the early 90’s rebels calling themselves Zapatistas armed themselves in the hills of Chiapas and began sending fax and internet “communitats” all over the world, drawing attention to the plight of Indian peasants throughout Mexico.
Maria Callas retreated from singing after the love of her life married another, breaking her heart. Conrad’s Kurtz enmeshed himself in the darkness up a Congo river, menacing, losing his mind. Later was dropped: “Acid Trax”, A Room of One’s Own, Jackie Robinson, A Rite Before Spring. . .
Early in the spring of 1994 Kurt Cobain, frontman for the band Nirvana, disappeared from a hospital near Los Angeles he had been checked into for heroin addiction. Missing for three days he later reappeared at his home outside Seattle, a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. On January 1, 2001 a new century, another millennium, was expected (Memory, Place, Language, Movement). Two steps forward, one step back, and lift.
(Anthony Leslie)
Name’s Jackson, drove my car in a tree and killed myself dead ‘round ‘56, ‘57—don’t right remember. Used to paint, don’t much no more. (pause) Early one spring day ‘94 my good friend Kurnst come around all fucked up excited seeing if I want to get outta town. I do, already drunk, don’t need to go nowhere but go with Kurnst ‘cause I like him—he is insane as I be insane. We get along well all fucked up together now and then. Stop off somewhere and score—need a stash he do ‘cause we going on this trip somewhere. Had these stomach problems, Kurnst, say the stuff helped with the pain. . . . but not the hurt.
SCREEN PROJECTION: Film loop of old movies.
He lying dead, white people caught him.
(Robert Wells Youngs)
Could be gangs or something, Jack, anything, ain’t the point. He out somewhere in this alley running for his life, cars screeching behind him, turn a corner and gone, off running man. Then the last he suddenly out in a desert somewhere, walking around—thing’s all over the place—out in the desert and comes across this Indian woman and they start walking through this desert, talking foreign Indian tongues I guess but he don’t even seem aware of losing his own language and speaking hers. Why he’s out there, why he’s out in the desert. (he ponders) Yeah, yeah, she’s like a ghost.
Don’t spend my time thinking ‘bout people in books, Jack.
But you wrestle Kirilov’s dilemma, nowhere to run.
To be or not.
Your orientation—not to.
That the way you look at it?
Already way on the other side of it, kid. Where you?
Good question.
Where you?
(to audience )
During the summer one year we put this thing together, you know, we breathe for. Get it going too. Innocent enough at the time but we ain’t ready for none of it. I should say me, I ain’t ready for none of it—for sale. Anyway, I don’t recover, don’t recover. Lose interest, hate a lot of people and myself wondering how I got here. I go harder, go softer, can’t get this thing like I originally had it and nobody’ll talk to me who I want and really I don’t want to talk to nobody. I hate a lot of people and myself, that’s why I run.
