The “lords of in-between,” writes Lewis Hyde in his book Trickster Makes This World, are the boundary crossers who travel “a spirit road as well as a road in fact.” Hyde continues, “Every group has its edge, its sense of in and out… . We constantly distinguish—right and wrong, sacred and profane, clean and dirty, male and female, young and old, living and dead—and in every case trickster will cross the line and confuse the distinction… . Trickster will appear to suggest an amoral action, something right/wrong that will get life going again.”

There was something of the contrarian, of the trickster about Julius Eastman. He never let people think that he worked hard. Everything he did was calculated to seem effortless. He had a commanding presence but employed masks, as we learn, not only in performance.

Julius Eastman appeared in my office unannounced one day—a slim, handsome black man of medium height dressed in a long army-green trench coat and white sneakers, carrying some music scores under his arm. “Lukas Foss said I should come over and talk to you,” he said in a low, modulated voice. “I have a string quartet I’d like the Creative Associates to play.” My office at that time was a dreary little alcove tucked between the entrance to the men's room and afloor-to-ceiling wall of dark gray windows overlooking a parking lot in Baird Hall, home of the Music Department at the University at Buffalo.