Kupferberg, Tuli, 1923-2010

Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg (1923-2010) was an American counterculture poet, publisher, performance artist, cartoonist, activist, and founding member of the underground rock band, The Fugs. He grew up in Manhattan and attended Brooklyn College, graduating in 1944. Before graduating from college, Kupferberg had already become active in the literary and political scenes in downtown New York City, publishing poems, short stories, and essays in local journals and newspapers, including the The Village Voice, Midstream, and Liberation. He also drew cartoons and collages beginning in the 1950s, his earliest work including drawings with captions of witty, altered aphorisms, which were accepted in a number of publications and in book form. Throughout his life, Kupferberg was also known for being politically active, participating in protests and rallies; during his appearances with his band The Fugs; his published articles, as well as co-authoring a satirical anti-war book 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft (1966) with Robert Bashlow. Kupferberg met Sylvia Topp (1935- ) in 1957 and were together until his death in 2010. Initially, they lived together in the East Village, starting a publishing company, Birth Press (also known as Vanity Press) in the late 1950s, working out of their apartment. They published not only Kupferberg’s works, but other authors of this period as well. Between 1958 and 1965 they released a number of publications from the Birth Press imprint, including the zines Birth, Yeah, and Swing, as well as the collage-and-quotation-assemblages 1001 Ways to Live Without Working; Beatniks: or, The War Against the Beats; The Rub-ya-out of Omore Diem; The Christine Keeler Colouring Book & Cautionary Tale; The Mississippi (A Study of the White Race); and Children As Authors: A Big Bibliography. Topp and Kupferberg also edited a number of mainstream reference books, including As They Were, As They Were Too, and First Glance: Childhood Creations of the Famous. Simultaneously his cartoons and articles were also being accepted in publications like The Soho Weekly News, The Village Voice, and High Times. Throughout this time, Topp worked as a freelance copy editor for various publishing houses, including Grove Press and Academic Press, which also published Kupferberg’s material. Kupferberg was also involved in the New York music scene, becoming a founding member of the rock band, The Fugs, in 1964 with poet Ed Sanders and Ken Weaver. The Fugs performed in galleries, clubs, and theaters throughout New York; recorded six albums; and toured regularly. The Fugs’ involvement in counter cultural politics and the anti-war movement enabled Kupferberg to be present at a number of seminal events, including the 1967 March on Washington and 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. During the early 1970s, while on a break from The Fugs, Kupferberg, along with Sylvia Topp, formed a satirical experimental theatrical group called the Revolting Theater. The material originated from Kupferberg’s 1966 solo album, No Deposit, No Return. Kupferberg also appeared as an actor in a number of movies: W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971) depicting the life and work of Wilhelm Reich; Kupferberg and Revolting Theater members performed a sketch in the Richard Pryor film Dynamite Chicken (1972); and he starred in the Canadian experimental feature film Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec God? (1972). Kupferberg began writing what he described as "parasongs" in the 1970s, which consisted of new lyrics adapted to known melodies. Many were published in his 1973 book, Listen to the Mockingbird, which had multiple editions over the next 20 years. In 1989 Kupferberg became involved with television, producing a show with Lannes Kenfield, Theater of the Real. They went on to make the show, Revolting News, broadcast on a local New York City community channel starting in 1992, on which he delivered satirical “newspoems” and “perverbs,” and discussed a variety of topics, including Judaism, sexuality, spiritualism, and militarism. Throughout the 1990s, Kupferberg sold cartoons, books, and records from a table on the sidewalk of Spring Street near his New York apartment. Until his death in 2010, he videotaped and posted online readings and performances of his works, as well as continued to draw and write, with many regularly published in newspapers and magazines.