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Splendorous Americans

More remembering of Harvey Pekar and Tuli Kupferberg

by
Marc Tracy
July 14, 2010

Michael Kazin has a beautiful joint obituary.

Nearly every photo of Tuli Kupferberg shows him with a delicious smile on his face, his long and stringy hair flying around his head; while Harvey Pekar was a celebrated, short-haired grump. When he was young, Tuli tried to kill himself by jumping off the Manhattan Bridge. His friend Allen Ginsberg wrote about this in “Howl,” mistaking it for the Brooklyn Bridge. Tuli said he did it because he was afraid he had lost the ability to love. The young Harvey doubted if anyone would ever find him loveable. Fortunately, both men’s fears proved groundless, and we got to enjoy their feats of perceptive rebellion. American splendor, indeed.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.