Since its beginnings Tuli Kupferberg has been closely identified with the Beat generation while involving himself in a wide variety of artistic pursuits. In addition to having written poetry, plays, and political pamphlets, he has also edited several little magazines and is the publisher of Birth Press, through which he has printed his magazines and much of his own writing. With Sylvia Topp, his longtime lover and companion, he has edited the writings of children and compiled the childhood photographs of well-known people. Kupferberg is perhaps best known, however, for having been a founding member of The Fugs, the anarchistic rock group noted for its songs of political protest and social commentary.

Tuli Kupferberg, son of Lemuel and Jennie Weledniger Kupferberg, was born in New York City on 28 September 1923. In a 1979 New York magazine article, entitled "A Fix on the Founding Fug," Kupferberg briefly described his youth, saying...