The Best of Science Fiction 12

Samuel R. Delaney is where it is at: multi-mediumed, trans-cultural, interracial, call it multiplicity

He has never really decided whether he is a mathematician, musician, or writer. On the record, writing has the edge: at twenty-six, he has published seven novels (the latest — The Einstein Intersection, Ace, 1967) and an eighth, Nova, is due out shortly from Doubleday. But he has also worked as a singer, guitarist, actor, producer for a recording studio, and — most recently — organised his own group. The Heavenly Breakfast (4 voices, 3 guitars, an incredible variety of flutes). When 'The Star-Pit' was dramatised on radio station WBAI last winter, he wrote the script, read the narration, helped score the music, and played apprentice audio engineer. He also cooks, and occasionally paints.

He has wandered through most of Europe, has a speaking acquaintance with at least five languages; he is married to his high-school girl friend, the poet and co-editor of City, Marilyn Hacker, and they live anywhere: London, San Francisco, Greece, the East Village — well, mostly New York. He can look natural in a tux, but prefers one earring and a psychedelic red weskit.

He is unique, of course, but not as unique as you may think. You could pose him for a composite portrait of The Artist as a Young Folkrock Graduate, circa 1970. Of course, he had a headstart: dropped out of upper-middle-class Harlem (before teenyboppers were invented) and was given a scholarship to the Breadloaf Writers' Conference at seventeen for his first novel, written while majoring in math at the Bronx High School of Science. So actually, he's just a bit ahead of where it is otherwise at: approximately where the kids you worry about today will be tomorrow.

Tuli Kupferberg is a Fug. If you haven't heard him, you've probably seen him, and if you haven't seen or heard him, you've read his messages on lapel buttons. He is the proprietor of Birth Press (a mimeograph), publishing Yeah!, Birth, and anything else as the spirit moves him; author of One Thousand and One Ways to Beat the Draft (Grove, 1968), and other self-help books; inventor of the erectarine, a 'vertical tambourine'. He is one of the moving spirits behind the East Village Other, and a frequent contributor. In the Fugs, he plays rhythm instruments, writes songs, sings, and does pantomime. 'Kill, Kill, Kill for Peace' is one of his tunes; at forty-three, he claims to be 'the oldest rock 'n' roll star in America', and probably is.