Tuli Kupferberg
American poet, author, cartoonist and publisher (1923–2010)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg (September 28, 1923 – July 12, 2010) was an American counterculture poet, author, singer, editorial cartoonist, comic artist, columnist,[1] publisher, and co-founder of the rock band The Fugs.
September 28, 1923
Tuli Kupferberg | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | Naphtali Kupferberg September 28, 1923 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | July 12, 2010 (aged 86) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Brooklyn College |
| Occupations | Author, poet, musician, cartoonist, publisher |
| Years active | 1958–2009 |
| Known for | The Fugs 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft 1001 Ways to Live Without Working |
| Spouse | Sylvia Topp |
| Children | Joe, Noah, Samara. |
Biography
Naphtali Kupferberg was born into a Jewish, Yiddish-speaking household in New York City.[2] A cum laude graduate of Brooklyn College in 1944, Kupferberg founded the magazine Birth in 1958.[3]
Kupferberg reportedly appears in Ginsberg's poem Howl as the person "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer." The incident in question actually occurred on the Manhattan Bridge.[4] Ginsberg's description in Howl uses poetic license. Kupferberg did jump from the Manhattan Bridge in 1944, after which he was picked up by a passing tugboat and taken to Gouverneur Hospital.[5] Severely injured, he had broken the transverse process of his spine and spent time in a body cast.[6]
In 1964, Kupferberg formed the satirical rock group the Fugs with poet Ed Sanders.[7]
Kupferberg was active in New York pacifist-anarchist circles. In 1965 he was one of the lecturers at the newly founded Free University of New York.[8]
He appeared as a machine-gun-toting soldier policing Manhattan in W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, a 1971 film about the revolutionary psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich by Dušan Makavejev.
An anti-police-brutality skit from his Revolting Theatre[9] appeared in the 1971 underground film Dynamite Chicken directed by Ernest Pintoff, and featuring Richard Pryor.
In 1972, Kupferberg played the role of God in the Canadian experimental film Voulez-vous coucher avec God?. Kupferberg later appeared in the music video for Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror by Jeffrey Lewis.[10]
Kupferberg suffered a stroke in April 2009 at his home in New York City, which left him severely visually impaired and in need of regular nursing care. After treatment for a number of days at a New York hospital, followed by convalescence at a nursing home, he recuperated at home.[11]
Kupferberg died in New York Downtown Hospital in Manhattan of kidney failure and sepsis on July 12, 2010.[12] In 2008, in one of his last interviews, he told Mojo Magazine, "Nobody who lived through the '50s thought the '60s could've existed. So there's always hope."[13]
Bibliography
- Birth 1, The Bohemian Issue (1958)
- Birth 2, Children's Writings (1959)
- Beating (1959)
- Children as Authors: A Big Bibliography (1959, with Sylvia Topp)
- Snow Job: Poems 1946–1959 (1959)
- Selected Fruits & Nuts (1959)
- Birth 3, parts 1 & 2 Stimulants, An Exhibition (1960)
- 1001 Ways to Live Without Working (1961)
- The Grace & Beauty of the Human Form (1961)
- 1001 Ways to Live Without Working (1961, rev. 1968; German translation by Max Wickert & Hubert Kulterer, with facing English text, Stadtlichter Presse 2009, 2015)
- 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Beatniks : or, The War Against the Beats (1961)
- Sex and War (1962)
- The Mississippi (A Study of the White Race) (1962)
- The Rub-Ya-Out of Omore Diem (1962)
- The Christine Keeler Colouring Book & Cautionary Tale (1963)
- Kill for Peace (1965)
- Caught in the Act: a Legal Vaudeville (1966)
- The Book of the Body (with Judith Wehlau, 1966)
- I Say to Masturbate is Human, to Fuck Divine (1966)
- 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft (with Robert Bashlow, 1966)
- Fuck Nam : a morality play (1967)
- 1001 Ways to Make Love (1969)
- Newspoems (1971)
- Listen to the Mockingbird; satiric songs to tunes you know (1973)
- As They Were (with Sylvia Topp, 1973)
- Universal Housewife (1975)
- First Glance (with Sylvia Topp, 1978)
- As They Were Too (with Sylvia Topp, 1979)
- O God! (1980)
- The Crazy Paper (1980)
- Less Newspoems (1981)
- Questionable Cartoons (1981)
- True Professions (1981)
- Why Don't We Do It in the Bed? (1982)
- Was It Good For You Too? (1983)
- After the Balls Are Ova (1984)
- In Media's Feces (1986)
- Kill For Peace, Again (1987)
- Reaganation (1987)
- The Tuli Kupferberg Instant Lottery Broadside (1988)
- The Dark Night of the Soul in the Poetry Mines (1988)
- Signed By the Artist (1990)
- Don't Make Trouble (1991)
- My Prick is Bigger Than Yours (1992)
- The Land that God Remembered (1992)
- The Old Fucks at Home (1992)
- You Know Helen : Maybe Chimps Know a Lot More Than We Think (1994)
- Hey Ann! : What's The Diff Between Religion & Patriotism? (with Dave Jordan, 1994)
- Whitman said : "In order to have great art you have to have great audiences!" (1994)
- When I Hear the Word 'Culture' I Reach for My Gun (1994)
- I Hate Poems About Poems About Poems (1994)
- Great Moments in the History of Sport : No. 4, The Spartans Invent Football (1994)
- Teach Yourself Fucking (2000)
- Paris I Have Never Seen (2001)
Discography
- No Deposit No Return (1967)
ESP Disk – ESP-1035
- Tuli & Friends (1989)
Shimmy Disc – shimmy 020