[HN Gopher] Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an el...
___________________________________________________________________
Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music
pioneer
Author : lentil_soup
Score : 227 points
Date : 2022-12-14 10:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (english.elpais.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (english.elpais.com)
| ProAm wrote:
| This was a good podcast about birth of the synth built by Bob
| Moog and Don Buchla on each coast of the US.
|
| part 1: https://www.20k.org/episodes/synthwar
|
| part 2: https://www.20k.org/episodes/digitaldoom
| m0llusk wrote:
| Kind of interesting how electronic music then got taken up by the
| [ware]house scene which made the form into a kind of social
| public sharing experience yet was also strongly influenced by gay
| and trans communities.
| vr46 wrote:
| Poor Wendy. I was literally thinking of her yesterday when I
| pulled out my original Clockwork Orange record. I would love her
| to do a masterclass and be able to extract some of her knowledge
| for my own experiments in electronic music. The whole world has
| lost out here. It's not too late though, I hope we see something
| from her.
| sassyonsunday wrote:
| I visited the Moog museum this summer with a friend while
| visiting Asheville, NC. I asked if they had any Wendy Carlos
| related memorabilia and they didn't seem to. I think may be there
| was a Switched on Bach vinyl up on a wall in the back.... It made
| me feel a little sad. I think living with gender dysphoria hurts
| people's self-esteem tremendously. She also lived in a time when
| April Ashley, who was the image of feminine beauty and grace, was
| accosted by old ladies in parks to shame her for "pretending" to
| be a woman once she was outed by UK tabloids just as her career
| began to take off. It's understandable why she'd want to avoid
| embracing fame. Even today trans people, and especially women,
| are an acceptable punching bag for both the public at large and
| public figures to take out their frustrations on....
|
| She didn't become world famous like she may have if she'd been
| lucky enough to be born cisgender, but the thing that matters
| most is whether she found happiness in her private life. I hope
| she did.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| The final paragraph of the article is interesting though:
|
| > Her self-imposed seclusion is a cautionary tale for us today,
| something that she admitted in the 1979 People interview. "The
| public turned out to be amazingly tolerant or, if you wish,
| indifferent," she said. "There had never been any need of this
| charade to have taken place. It had proven a monstrous waste of
| years of my life."
|
| While that kind of tolerance/indifference wasn't available to
| everyone -- it probably helped to be wealthy enough to do what
| you want, and to be already established as a respected musician
| (Carlos actually was and still is world-famous!), and I'm sure
| it wasn't even as universal for Carlos as she was feeling it to
| be when she gave that quote in 1979 -- the quote makes me
| wonder if things have gotten _worse_ over the past few years.
|
| While there's more public acceptance in some quarters, it's
| also become a much bigger controversy in fact. It's hard to
| imagine a public figure feeling the kind of "indifference"
| Carlos described, where it didn't actually effect her career
| much, it wasn't a big deal to it. It was seen as an oddity,
| yes, but trans was perhaps not the cultural flashpoint like it
| is now.
|
| Rather than "even today", I wonder and suspect that some things
| may actually have gotten much worse than they were in 1979 --
| for all kinds of things, actually.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| As that one quote says, paraphrasing: when you get old you
| realize that nobody was thinking about you this whole time
| anyway.
| runjake wrote:
| This reminds me of Henry Rollins' song, "Icon" from his
| Weight album. It's about the trappings of fame/being a rock
| star. I feel like he wrote it as a reminder to himself, just
| as much as he wrote it for others.
|
| The lyrics[1] to the song are great, but one line in
| particular: There'll be another messiah right
| here next week
|
| 1. https://genius.com/Rollins-band-icon-lyrics
| nkozyra wrote:
| I have to imagine living in New York in the late 60s through
| 70s also contributed to the acceptance/indifference that
| might not be afforded to others at that time (or even today).
| sassyonsunday wrote:
| > I actually wonder if things have gotten worse over the past
| few years.
|
| They've gotten consistently worse since about 2015.
|
| I started transitioning in 2009 when I was 18. I come from a
| very conservative environment and growing up I'd even tried
| to come out as gay a few times only to be "shot down" more or
| less but in college I used my own money and I found doctors
| to help me look how I wanted and I started dating men openly
| and as awful as it is to say, because I looked and acted the
| part people got over it pretty fast and begrudgingly accepted
| that I - at least - wasn't a man. My parents even got upset
| with me a long while ago when I insinuated that I was a part
| of the gay community because they said it was disrespectful
| to my then boyfriend who is now my husband (he had only dated
| cis girls before me and is straight to anyone who hasn't run
| a DNA test on me ha).
|
| These days I can feel a change even from people who were kind
| to me before. All the coverage on conservative media outlets,
| the JK Rowling "trans women are a threat to women" and the
| Matt Walsh "trans women are mentally ill perverts" talking
| points have eroded goodwill so much that more religious and
| conservative members of my own family avoid me now as where
| they didn't before and I feel that I'm only able to have a
| good life because I'm in the fortunate position of being
| "passable" and attracted to men.
|
| In 2012 when I came out to someone they'd usually just be
| curious about my experiences. Even conservative Christians
| and Republicans. In 2022 almost nobody is curious except
| about which surgeries you've had because they've already made
| their mind up about how they feel about you. For about 50% of
| the population that means you're a piece of scum who deserves
| ridicule and punishment (if it looks like you could still
| pass as male physically) or excommunication (if it looks like
| you're so feminine and far gone that you couldn't fit in as a
| man), for about 40% of the population that means indifference
| akin to what you'd get back in the good old days and for
| about 10% it means an outpouring of support and love in an
| attempt to make up for the 50% who are openly hostile.
|
| I think more and more trans people are taking the Wendy
| Carlos approach these days because of this. Much of the
| community wants to avoid attention and get along with their
| lives. There's a growing trend of people "boy moding" or "man
| moding" which is where they take hormone replacement
| therapies but dress in drag to try to fit in as their gender
| assigned at birth in public the same way that Wendy did. As
| an amusing sidenote, many of these people begin "male
| failing" which is where the hormone replacement therapies
| make it impossible for them to pass as their gender assigned
| at birth and so they are read as being trans still but coming
| from the other direction.... It's so sad that it has to be
| this way.
| lezojeda wrote:
| Being trans myself, I start to feel that the tolereance
| upward trend I noticed while growing up has stopped and
| even coming down in some cases/niches. I started
| transitioning in 2020, live in a relatively tolerant
| country like Argentina but feel that it's not like 5-10
| years ago. IMO it has to do with the global economic
| downturn and political polarization, I think there is a
| correlation between tolerance and wealthiness
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I am happy if gender therapy helped you I think it is fine
| for society to be critical however. I don't want to see
| documentaries in 20 years about people having regrets.
| Sadly any discussion is immediately considered a personal
| attack so we two camps.
| howinteresting wrote:
| It is actually _not_ fine for society to be "critical",
| when it means discarding the metaethics of reducing
| suffering in favor of the metaethics that flows out of
| believing that their interpretation of a 2000-year-old
| book is the absolute truth.
|
| What percentage of _detransitioners_ have been taken in
| by anti-trans panic and social contagion? What percentage
| will regret detransitioning? There are already quite a
| few examples: Elisa Shupe and Ky Schevers, who were both
| politically active in anti-trans movements, later
| retransitioned (and /or found a gender identity that
| works better for them) and regret the time they spent
| organizing against trans people.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's pretty simple actually: if it's not your body then
| it is none of your business.
| honcraft wrote:
| That's a narrowly individualistic view of the role of
| medicine in society.
|
| Medicine has a social context as well. This relatively
| recent idea that someone can become more female or more
| male through drugs and surgery is one that has
| repercussions on how we as a society view the two sexes,
| what constitutes a woman or a man, and what is an
| acceptable expression of one's masculinity or femininity.
|
| Maybe it's the right idea. But we should all reserve the
| right to be critical and consider alternatives, for this
| and any other idea with broad societal implications.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I don't have a right to determine how you use and/or
| modify your body and you don't have that right over me.
| That's called bodily autonomy, and is about as clear cut
| a human right as you'll be able to articulate.
|
| The social context has nothing to do with it, that's just
| a way to say that if enough people say that you can't do
| to yourself what you want to that that makes them right,
| which has historically led to all kinds of wrongs. See
| also: the right to euthanasia, abortion, being gay and so
| on and so on. It's always the sanctimonious groups that
| are hell bent on telling others how to live, but it never
| was any of their business.
|
| How 'we as society' view this has no bearing on something
| that is ultimately the domain of a single individual, the
| person affected.
|
| In the United States this is codified by "The right of
| the people to be secure in their persons" though of
| course there is plenty of hairsplitting going on about
| what that actually means, even though the simplest
| reading is to take it for what it says.
|
| The implications of this are far reaching (for instance:
| I'm on the one side against a vaccine mandate because it
| would infringe on that right, on the other I think that a
| lot of people have allowed themselves to be pushed
| towards this on a pretext).
| honcraft wrote:
| That is your opinion, but consider another topic:
| elective disablement. Some people are very insistent on
| having their spinal cord surgically severed or getting
| their arms and legs chopped off or being permanently
| blinded, or similar.
|
| If you naively consider the topic only from a bodily
| autonomy perspective, then the answer is deceptively
| simple: get the blades out and start slicing. But this
| ignores the wider medical ethics concerns over whether
| it's the right thing to do for the patient, if the
| surgeon is causing harm by doing so, if gratifying the
| patient's short-term desires genuinely helps them in the
| long-term over their entire life, if it's reasonable to
| expect a surgeon to perform such a procedure and how they
| may feel in the aftermath, if there are any other
| interventions that would be more effective. And societal
| questions over whether it's ethical to deliberately add
| new members to a population who already find it difficult
| to find the support they need, how this will affect
| others who may now be situational obliged to assist with
| this person's new disability, and so on.
|
| It makes no sense to focus solely on the individual and
| ignore the wider context, when there are so many other
| factors to consider.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They may have that wish, but they will not find a doctor
| willing to assist them, because doctors have as a rule a
| sense of ethics.
|
| So this strawman won't stand.
| honcraft wrote:
| Well here's the thing, this has already been a hotly
| debated topic by medical ethicists and philosophers, who
| have indeed considered many factors other than the
| individualistic bodily autonomy viewpoint.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a mis-representation of what bodily autonomy
| stands for in the context of elective surgery. The ethics
| of medicine are a complex and very well established
| domain that extremely cautiously moves forward to ensure
| they get it right. And when they do not the damage is
| incalculable, for instance gay conversion therapy and
| other such niceties.
|
| So before you go off on a tangent about what is and is
| not accepted practice and which things doctors are
| required to do and which things they abstain from on
| ethical grounds I will have to bow out because we are at
| the limits of my knowledge on the subject and that's not
| for want of reading material. Let me close with: I know
| where the line lies in simple cases, but if you start
| dragging in things that I have not spent enough time
| on/read about/have knowledge about then I simply will not
| be able to hold that conversation. If you have this
| knowledge then more power to you, but so far you have not
| convinced me of it and you come across as an ideologue.
| rodgerd wrote:
| > Sadly any discussion is immediately considered a
| personal attack so we two camps.
|
| Funny how "you shouldn't exist" is taken is a personal
| attack, I wonder why that could be?
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Every single person on the planet will have regrets in 20
| years. A significant portion will have large regrets
| about things they cannot undo. This is human. It is not
| your job to make trans people miserable today because of
| your worry some of them might hypothetically have regrets
| in the future.
| sassyonsunday wrote:
| > I am happy if gender therapy helped you
|
| It did thanks.
|
| > I think it is fine for society to be critical
|
| Of course. Critical in the sense of skeptical. However a
| lot of "critics" of trans people act much more like
| schoolyard bullies or people worried that rock 'n roll
| music will make the children worship satan than people
| with fair concerns about the wellbeing of others.
|
| > I don't want to see documentaries in 20 years about
| people having regrets
|
| There isn't any decision that people can make that will
| leave 100% of people satisfied. Gender therapy has
| existed in its modern form for about 100 years now and in
| that time study after study shows that people who go
| through with it are happy with the results 90%-98% of the
| time. This is higher than most treatments of any kind.
|
| You'll find that almost every commentator who talks about
| detransitioners or trots some out for a political show
| has the end objective of ending all gender affirming care
| for all people and replacing it with conversion therapy
| due to their ideology. In the case of someone like Janice
| Raymond that reason is radical feminism. For someone like
| Matt Walsh it is traditional Catholicism. In both cases
| they are misleading the public by insinuating that gender
| therapy is some sort of factory process where hapless
| victims are swept onto a conveyor belt and mutilated
| haphazardly.
|
| People who transition and then regret it will always
| exist. Just like people will regret getting any sort of
| elective surgery. Just like people will come out as gay
| and then later regret it and then later regret that they
| regretted it and so on.... It's a story as old as time.
|
| This study tracked people over a 50 year period and found
| a regret rate of 2%.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262734734_An_Ana
| lys...
|
| > The FM:MF sex ratio fluctuated but was 1:1.66 for the
| whole study period. There were 15 (5 MF and 10 MF) regret
| applications corresponding to a 2.2 % regret rate for
| both sexes. There was a significant decline of regrets
| over the time period.
|
| The worrying thing is not that 2% regretted their
| decision, the worrying thing is that the people who are
| against trans people would be LESS happy if the figure
| were to be 0%. They want 100% of trans people to regret
| transition and repress because that would make reality
| conform better to their ideological leanings where "men
| are men" and "women are women" because God made them that
| way.
| jancsika wrote:
| > It was an oddity, but trans was perhaps not the cultural
| flashpoint like it is now.
|
| That's a wonderful wish, but I don't think it holds up to the
| evidence.
|
| Off the top of my head:
|
| 1. If you watch HBO's _Lady and the Dale_ , you'll see that
| in the mid 1970s a local reporter was hounding the company
| not because he suspected fraud. (Apparently the entire
| company was fradulent.) Nope, he wanted to reveal that
| Carmichael was really a man who was dressed as a woman. (If
| someone told me that Eugene Levy's character from _Splash_
| was based on this reporter, I 'd believe them. :)
|
| That documentary had later commentary from the same reporter
| (in the 80s/90s, I think)-- still proud that he outed a trans
| person.
|
| 2. Check out Gloria Steinem's mid 70s musings on
| transgenderism. Her thoughts in a 1977 essay on the subject
| would be right at home today on the alt-right podcasting
| space, and there are probably also many HN'ers lurking here
| who agree whole-heartedly with her anti-trans surgery
| statements.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't have access to the relevant article
| ATM, but I'm pretty sure this quote was written in the
| context of the same anti-trans-surgery chapter-- "If the shoe
| doesn't fit, must we change the foot?"
|
| The point is-- we're talking about _Gloria fucking Steinem_!
| And her non-apology apology to the trans community didn 't
| appear until 2014 or so[1].
|
| The fact that Amazon sells trinkets with the "shoe doesn't
| fit" phrase tells me that there's probably a lot more anti-
| trans history that's been swept completely down the memory
| hole.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| That seems sensible too. What then do you make of Carlos'
| quote there from 1979? Maybe not even true for her as she
| was saying it? (why might she have said it then?) Or she
| somehow had very unusual experience? (for unclear reasons?)
| Other? Who knows, but you don't think it was an accurate or
| representative thing to say?
| jancsika wrote:
| Look back in the article at what she was sacrificing in
| order to avoid potential problems. She had Stevie Wonder
| and George Harrison _in her house_ and couldn 't make
| herself walk down the stairs to meet them. When she did
| meet face to face with people, she pasted on sideburns
| and dressed in a suit to appear as a man.
|
| I mean, think about that last part for a moment. Gender
| dysphoria caused distress in Carlos. Transitioning eased
| that distress for her. Then she was dressing in drag to
| present publicly for her career-- dressing in the exact
| way which previously caused her so much distress that she
| decided to transition in the first place!
|
| Those practices are almost certainly the "monstrous waste
| of years of my life" she's talking about.
|
| Anyhow, both things are true. First, the public was
| _vastly_ more tolerant /indifferent than what she was
| protecting herself against (and, therefore, the
| precautions she had taken turned out to have been too
| extreme). Second, transphobia was so common during the
| time that even well-known feminists could spew forth with
| literally no repercussions for decades (and even then, no
| discernible repercussions AFAICT).
|
| In short, Stevie Wonder and George Harrison are pretty
| cool guys. :)
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Makes sense. Do you think a public musician today might
| have the experience of ""The public turned out to be
| amazingly tolerant or, if you wish, indifferent", though?
|
| It still seems to me that something has changed here, for
| the worse. That it's very unlikely that such a public
| figure today could discover that despite their fears"the
| public" was largely indifferent and unconcerned about it.
| sassyonsunday below, who I was replying to, seems to
| agree at least in part too. Which doesn't necessarily
| conflict with anything you said.
|
| Anyway, either it is or not, we can have different takes,
| and we're not going to work out the answer here!
| jancsika wrote:
| > Which doesn't necessarily conflict with anything you
| said.
|
| Yeah, I guess I don't see any conflict or disagreement
| here.
| thewebcount wrote:
| > in the mid 1970s a local reporter was hounding the
| company not because he suspected fraud. (Apparently the
| entire company was fradulent.) Nope, he wanted to reveal
| that Carmichael was really a man who was dressed as a
| woman.
|
| That local reporter was Tucker Carlson's father, Dick
| Carlson.[0] Let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from
| the tree.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Carlson
| jancsika wrote:
| OMG that is amazing!
|
| Did they mention that in the documentary? If so, I can't
| believe I missed it.
| thewebcount wrote:
| I don't recall if I heard it in the documentary or during
| an interview with the filmmaker.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Like father, like son, apparently.
| howinteresting wrote:
| I'm trans myself, and my general belief is that Steinem's
| position is far more defensible if we didn't have our
| personal lived experiences with gender dysphoria, or the
| evidence for things like regret rates for gender-affirming
| surgeries being very low. Second-wave feminism on trans
| issues was largely incorrect and harmful, but that is
| mostly a contingent fact rather than a necessary one.
|
| This is as opposed to second-wave feminism on, for example,
| sex work issues, which is necessarily bad because it is
| more interested in moralizing than in caring about freedom
| or materiality.
|
| Of course, anyone spreading the same propaganda _now_ will
| not be part of the global struggle against fascism, as
| Judith Butler put it.
| jancsika wrote:
| > Second-wave feminism on trans issues was largely
| incorrect and harmful, but that is mostly a contingent
| fact rather than a necessary one.
|
| Not sure I understand what that means.
|
| Just to clarify: I don't have the research in front of
| me, but I'd be willing to bet that by 1977 there were at
| least two or three decades of research on trans issues
| relevant to Steinem's words about trans people. E.g.,
| more than enough to persuade any good faith writer on the
| topic (or even a writer who knew and talked to a friend
| in that field of research) that the "shoe doesn't fit"
| quote is at best wildly misleading.
|
| In other words, I'm claiming Steinem was wrong by 2022
| standards, wrong by 1977 standards, and non-apologetic by
| any standard.
|
| > Of course, anyone spreading the same propaganda now
| will not be part of the global struggle against fascism,
| as Judith Butler put it.
|
| I agree.
|
| For some reason, Steinem's words on this topic irk me,
| it's my day off, and I want to keep writing this post. :)
|
| I get that Steinem was writing a political essay. And I
| can even imagine a line of thinking that says, _hey, good
| for trans people, but that 's a medical intervention for
| a specific condition (that turns out to apply to both
| sexes, btw), and I think it's a distraction from the
| specific feminist battle against oppression I'm trying to
| describe_.
|
| Then all she would have had to do in 2014 is say, "Sorry
| trans people, your battle should have been part of my
| battle all along. Accept my apology, and let's work
| together!"
|
| But nooooo, she had to concoct her own artisanal
| justification to exclude trans people, using only wit and
| first principles, and add a little zinger for book sales.
| Then, when called out, shift the conversation away from
| her previous lack of knowledge, and claim a lack of
| understanding on the part of her opposition.
|
| She's like the original HN troll account.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Well, the issue is that a lot of the trans research that
| had been conducted by then got burned by the Nazis. The
| modern idea of gender identity which is now widely
| recognized as the best possible explanation for the
| empirical outcomes we see was just being formed, and the
| dominant players in the field were still "sexologists"
| who decided whether someone was trans based on how
| attracted they personally were to their patient.
|
| (John Money, who created the idea of gender identity in
| the 50s, was wildly off base about the specifics, which
| resulted in the tragic human rights violation of David
| Reimer, a cisgender man forced to live as a girl with
| crippling gender dysphoria. He also lied about the
| success of his forced gender reassignments, which
| resulted in routine intersex genital mutilation -- the
| one procedure that every single right-wing US bill
| banning gender-affirming healthcare for minors carefully
| excludes!)
|
| Or at least that's my read of the situation! I could be
| wrong.
| jancsika wrote:
| You have a bibliography on the subject?
|
| I know Robert Sapolsky did a talk on essentially this
| subject, but it looks like he's on sabbatical writing a
| book atm.
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| I actually had an endocrinologist who interned with John
| Money and was horrified by his actions.
|
| Money's main failure was his belief that gender is more
| or less exclusively a social constuct. Gender _roles_
| certainly are, but one 's innate sense of their own
| gender is not.
|
| Anyway, it's pretty easy to look him up:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Money
| jancsika wrote:
| Sorry, I mean a bibliography of research into SRS across
| the past 70 years.
|
| I'm particularly interested in pre-1977 research that
| Steinem would have had access to.
|
| In short I, want to use my annoyance at her non-apology
| apology to fuel my education in the history of trans
| research. :)
| mallvinegar wrote:
| > This is as opposed to second-wave feminism on, for
| example, sex work issues, which is necessarily bad
| because it is more interested in moralizing than in
| caring about freedom or materiality.
|
| The radical feminist position on prostitution is about
| reducing harm to women as a class. That a minority choose
| to willingly engage in sex work doesn't negate the
| structural issues at play here. Most women in
| prostitution are from marginalized backgrounds and many
| are trafficked. Where is their freedom?
|
| Fundamentally this is about men holding physical, sexual,
| and economic power over women, enforced by violence or
| the threat of it. Treating women as a product to be
| consumed and profited off, rather than co-equal
| individuals. What is so bad about wanting an end to this?
| howinteresting wrote:
| I'm specifically talking about people like Andrea
| Dworkin, who said:
|
| "Prostitution in and of itself is an abuse of a woman's
| body. [...] In prostitution, no woman stays whole. It is
| impossible to use a human body in the way women's bodies
| are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being
| at the end of it, or in the middle of it, or close to the
| beginning of it. It's impossible. And no woman gets whole
| again later, after"
|
| This doesn't distinguish between survival sex work and
| people who are doing it more by choice, nor does it seek
| to improve the material conditions behind the lives of
| those forced into sex work, so that they have other
| choices and survival sex work can organically disappear.
| Nor does it connect survival sex work to other sorts of
| difficult jobs with great bodily risks.
|
| Instead, politically, second-wave feminism has sought to
| orient the full weight of the carceral state against sex
| workers (i.e. the Nordic model), with all the expected
| consequences.
| headhasthoughts wrote:
| Dworkin had to prostitute herself in order to survive in
| the 1970s. I think you're barking up the wrong tree. If
| anyone was sympathetic to the struggle, it was Dworkin.
| She just acknowledged that it was also harmful and
| contributing to oppression.
| kgwgk wrote:
| "In order to survive" may be a bit too dramatic: "I
| fucked for food and shelter and whatever cash I needed."
| somebody78978 wrote:
| > Most women in prostitution are from marginalized
| backgrounds and many are trafficked. Where is their
| freedom?
|
| The exact same problem applies to migrant farm workers,
| but nobody is proposing to solve it by making farming
| illegal.
| gertrui wrote:
| > She also lived in a time when April Ashley, who was the image
| of feminine beauty and grace, was accosted by old ladies in
| parks to shame her for "pretending" to be a woman once she was
| outed by UK tabloids just as her career began to take off.
|
| The old ladies in the parks were very rude and shouldn't have
| done that, but, having "feminine beauty and grace" isn't a
| requirement of womanhood, it's not what makes someone a woman.
| This is unfortunately yet another gendered imposition, with
| women feeling like they have to adhere to a beauty standard
| that comes from the male gaze.
|
| It doesn't help either when males who opt-in to this beauty
| standard for their own pleasure get praised as if they are
| being good women. On the plus side, at least Wendy Carlos
| wasn't trying to be an ultra-feminine caricature or anything
| like that, just living life making amazing music while also
| trying to achieve a more reasonable bodily satisfaction for a
| less distressing sense of self.
| 8zah6q7 wrote:
| > This is unfortunately yet another gendered imposition, with
| women feeling like they have to adhere to a beauty standard
| that comes from the male gaze.
|
| Women who are trans feel this pressure enforced against them
| with public humiliation, overt misogyny, and violence.
|
| > It doesn't help either when males who opt-in to this beauty
| standard for their own pleasure get praised as if they are
| being good women.
|
| Trans women aren't males and don't opt-in to the male gaze.
| Are you referring to drag queens? There's a more nuanced
| conversation to be had there, but not in the current climate
| of terroristic acts against transgender people. Drag is often
| a critique of gender roles.
|
| There is nothing grotesque about femininity or a trans woman
| expressing it.
| sassyonsunday wrote:
| _edit_
|
| In retrospect this was sort of mean of you to say:
|
| > It doesn't help either when males who opt-in to this beauty
| standard
|
| Do you go around telling girls they have to try to look less
| pleasing to men and more pleasing to your own sensibilities?
| Aren't you just taking the place of the "male gaze" at that
| point and replacing it with your own gaze and your own
| demands to be satisfied? I like looking a certain way. I also
| like when it gets me attention from men. I have the same
| motivations as the majority of heterosexual women and I'm
| trying to live a fulfilling life. You don't need to make it
| all about you.
|
| _end of edit_
|
| I only felt the need to point it out to drive home the point
| that there is/was no winning move as a trans person. I feel
| the need to do this because I've met many people in my life
| who've tried to tell me things like that it 's obvious that I
| was "born to be a woman" so I shouldn't worry about
| transphobia because they think transphobia is only directed
| at people who look masculine but wear feminine clothes or sex
| pests who change their pronouns to try to seem less creepy.
| It's led me to believe that this might be a common position
| among people who are anti-trans. They think: "these bathroom
| policies will only hurt the bad ones who don't pass, the
| passable ones will be fine" as a way of soothing their
| conscience.
| 8zah6q7 wrote:
| Transphobes don't want trans women to be masculine,
| androgynous, or feminine. When they're honest, they just
| don't want trans women to _be_.
| gertrui wrote:
| > Aren't you just taking the place of the "male gaze" at
| that point and replacing it with your own gaze and your own
| demands to be satisfied?
|
| No, women should be free to present however they please,
| that's my point. We shouldn't feel pressure to conform to
| imposed ideals of femininity, to be praised for it or
| knocked for not complying.
| golemiprague wrote:
| sassyonsunday wrote:
| > No, women should be free to present however they
| please, that's my point. We shouldn't feel pressure to
| conform to imposed ideals of femininity, to be praised
| for it or knocked for not complying.
|
| I agree with you 100%. When I was in middle school I
| wanted to look very neat and proper and it caused me
| problems with boys. I can remember getting picked on for
| looking too... well groomed? I feel like the opposite
| pressure exists for people assigned female. I was born
| with the default option of not needing to look "pretty"
| in the sense of enhancing my feminine features with
| clothes and makeup but I enjoy life a lot more when I'm
| allowed to. I feel for people who have the same problem
| but from another direction.
| somebody78978 wrote:
| > This is unfortunately yet another gendered imposition, with
| women feeling like they have to adhere to a beauty standard
| that comes from the male gaze.
|
| Beauty standards are set and enforced by both men and women.
| A lot of women dress up to impress other women, not just men.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _Now 83, she supposedly remains active in music, but is still an
| elusive figure who fiercely protects her work...
|
| Her self-imposed seclusion is a cautionary tale for us today,
| something that she admitted in the 1979 People interview. "The
| public turned out to be amazingly tolerant or, if you wish,
| indifferent," she said. "There had never been any need of this
| charade to have taken place. It had proven a monstrous waste of
| years of my life."_
|
| It's really hard to say how things might have gone had we taken
| some other path and she remains a _reclusive figure_. Some things
| are intractable problems, like it or not. (And I definitely don
| 't like how hard the world makes it for trans individuals.)
| daneel_w wrote:
| Owed to my father's long interest in electronic music, I'm the
| thankful owner of several of the 1960s/1970s original print
| Walter Carlos-attributed vinyl records and a few of the 1980s
| Wendy Carlos-attributed ones. Switched-On Bach/Brandenburgs,
| Sonic Seasonings, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer etc. all played a
| large part in my discovery of electronic music as a child.
| wslh wrote:
| The first Bach I heard as a kid were those vinyl records. Never
| thought about them as electronic music, just after getting a
| little bit older I realized this was connected with computers.
| I was always impressed by the covers [1].
|
| The interesting thing is that these vinyl records were at home
| and at my grandparents home who love classical music. The
| impact of Wendy Carlos evidently goes beyond electronics.
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/search?q=wendy+carlos+electronic+bach...
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Would you be willing to work with an archivist to make these
| public? (I'm not one, to be clear.) Carlos recordings seem
| impossible to find!
| daneel_w wrote:
| Ripping these original vinyl editions is already somewhere on
| my list of things-to-do-before-I-get-too-old. Currently I
| don't have a functional pickup for my record player. I will
| get around to it, some day. The Switched-On Boxed Set (CDs)
| was released in the late 90s, and I happen to have ripped
| that one about 20 years ago. I should do another FLAC or
| high-quality AAC rip of that box, for posterity, before
| eventual CD rot happens.
| quesera wrote:
| These are still copyrighted recordings, and they seem to be
| available in the usual places you would find copyrighted
| digital audio.
|
| Her work is not licensed for digital distribution, and
| largely out of print.
|
| So, there's unfortunately no way to compensate her directly
| for her works.
|
| And "work" is an understatement. Moog synths of the day were
| barely instruments. Imagine playing a symphony (symphonic
| arrangement) using only a single glass filled with water.
|
| You could get any note you wanted, but only _one at a time_
| and even that required constant retuning.
| anamexis wrote:
| The Discogs marketplace seems to have plenty of them.
|
| https://www.discogs.com/artist/16261-Wendy-Carlos
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Maybe I'm just today's lucky ten thousand then.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| You have no idea how long I've looked for this, thank you
| so much lol.
|
| edit: wait, is this just a place that sells physical
| copies?
| Blackthorn wrote:
| Looks like it :-/ was hoping I could find digital
| recordings.
| anamexis wrote:
| Yes, Discogs is basically the IMDb of musical recordings.
| Its marketplace is probably the best place on the
| internet to find and sell physical copies of pretty much
| any musical recording.
|
| They don't sell or host digital recordings, presumably
| for copyright reasons.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| Shame, I've been wanting to buy a Wendy Carlos digital
| album for ages. Guess I'll have to keep wishing. _sigh_
| kabdib wrote:
| I was 8 when my dad handed me a set of headphones and had me
| listen to the first few minutes of _Switched On Bach_. Still
| vividly remember that experience, it was like a rapture.
|
| Wendy's works are tough to find on streaming services these
| days. I'd love to listen to _Timesteps_ again, from _A
| Clockwork Orange_.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Youtube provides:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOjCTifs-uY
| ideonexus wrote:
| Love the Tron soundtrack and am happy to learn about Wendy
| Carlos. Unfortunately, she has fought tirelessly to keep her
| music from being digitized and available online or streaming. I
| did however find this delightful collaboration she did with Weird
| Al Yankovic remaking Peter and the Wolf:
|
| https://archive.org/details/peter-and-the-wolf-wierd-al/
| bane wrote:
| I grew up in a very religiously conservative household and was
| raised to not think "well" of trans people. Simultaneously one of
| my favorite soundtracks of all time was the music to the original
| 1982 Tron. I had never heard anything quite like it
| compositionally, or sonically. Sweeping orchestras blended in
| with synthetic beeps, and bold vistas. It fit the aesthetic of
| the movie perfectly and was such a daring film production I can't
| believe it was even made.
|
| One day I looked up the soundtrack at the local record store and
| bought it..."Composer Wendy Carlos" huh, never heard of her and
| couldn't find anything really other than contributions to
| Clockwork Orange and Hooked on Bach and not much else. I moved
| on.
|
| Later, when there was more Internet to be had, I decided to look
| up Wendy and was shocked to learn she was trans. It started me
| down a journey of reflection, challenging my upbringing, and
| reexamining many "truths" that I had been taught. Along that
| journey I learned about the tragedy of Alan Turing and other
| stories.
|
| Wendy's music planted a seed that significantly transformed my
| inner life, much for the better. It helped me develop
| significantly in my thoughts on freedom, empathy, justice and the
| kind of future world I'd like to live in and leave behind.
|
| In 1982 it took a lot of daring for a Disney exec to green light
| bringing her music to their audience. This was during an age of
| great an unjust moral panic on a variety of topics.
|
| for reference: I remember my mother receiving a letter from her
| pastor outlining why "Back to the Future Part II" was the work of
| Satan and they should never allow it in their household. The
| central argument was a table that counted the number of time the
| seven dirty swear words were mentioned in the movie, challenged
| its rating, and attributed the low rating (PG I think) to a
| conspiracy by Satan worshipers to corrupt God's youth. This was
| 1989.
| mt_ wrote:
| Create art about whatever you want but if you bind it with your
| identity and sexuality you're more an idealogue than a
| craftsman.
| puppable wrote:
| This is a bad take both on the nature of art and Wendy
| Carlos.
|
| Art encompasses all aspects of the human experience. How
| could this not include identity and sexuality, and yes, the
| treatment one lives through as an aspect of those things.
| Also wrong is the supposition that a ideological art is
| somehow a lesser form of creativity. Some of the greatest
| works in history were made by "ideologues", and made
| specifically as tracts for their beliefs, either expressly or
| subtextually. To demand that art be politically inert and
| sanitized of the identity of its creator is to demand art
| that says nothing to the viewer and means nothing to the
| artist. It is to chide a mural for not being a wallpaper.
|
| But even then: Wendy Carlos is perhaps one of the weakest
| examples of someone doing this, as the article itself makes
| abundantly clear. Her identity as a transgender woman was
| something she had to hide for over a decade, and even then
| the social stigma has driven her into seclusion ever since.
| Rather, the story of Wendy Carlos is one that massively
| underscores the sheer importance of having the loud-and-proud
| expressions of people's identity and experiences that we're
| (and I am) fortunate enough to have today. If you don't like
| that, well, maybe you can be the one to close your blinds
| this time.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is nothing more closely tied to your identity (and
| consequently, your sexuality, which is strongly intertwined
| with your identity) than art.
|
| In fact, that is the one thing that sets art and craft apart.
| So for 'ideologue' insert artist. A bricklayer is a
| craftsman.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Prince, Beyonce, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe are ...
| ideologues? Their identity and sexuality is right up front in
| their art.
|
| Or when it's straight and cis you don't feel the same way?
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| Ridiculous assertion. You're guilty of engaging in ideology
| just by suggesting it.
| wpietri wrote:
| You seem to think that an artist by default creates art that
| is purely impersonal and unconnected from who they are and
| then manipulatively goes back to add stuff that you don't
| like. But it's the other way around. If the work is divorced
| from who they are in favor of consumer needs, it's just
| craft. Art is inevitably personal.
|
| So what I think you're really asking for is for people to
| hide who they are if you don't like parts of them.
| thefounder wrote:
| >> I grew up in a very religiously conservative household and
| was raised to not think "well" of trans people
|
| I wonder, who was raised to think well of trans people? I can't
| remember last time when I've seen(in person) a transexual
| person not to mention being discussed as a family matter.
| Something tells me that trans surgeries were not that popular
| either.
| jacquesm wrote:
| In Amsterdam drag and trans people always were part of the
| background and not considered anything special, they
| sometimes looked extravagant but they were simply also
| people. We're talking 1970's or so here, my earliest memories
| of that.
| rideontime wrote:
| You should get out a little, then.
| pavlov wrote:
| _> "I can 't remember last time when I've seen(in person) a
| transexual person."_
|
| How do you know? Presumably you're not doing a genital
| inspection on most people.
|
| If you assume you can just tell, it's easy to err into many
| false positives. (A section of the American far right seems
| to genuinely believe that Michelle Obama is trans -- not just
| as an insult they like to throw around, but literally.)
| jacquesm wrote:
| > A section of the American far right seems to genuinely
| believe that Michelle Obama is trans -- not just as an
| insult they like to throw around, but literally.
|
| Which is pretty incredible all by itself. But people seem
| to be very susceptible to contracting this kind of mind-
| virus and then becoming instrumental in spreading it. But
| at the root of these things are some very malicious people.
| One of them is on trial in NL right now, and I'm really
| happy to see the structural and deliberate approach to
| finding out where the limits on just being able to spout
| off are. The damage these characters do is real, and -
| ironically - the biggest risk to free speech comes from
| them.
| yunch wrote:
| > genital inspection
|
| Such a weird meme, why are people so obsessed with this
| idea of genitals being inspected these days.
|
| Feels a bit like the obsession with koro or fan death. Like
| come on, no-one wants to look at your nob or your gash, no-
| one is demanding this. A very silly suggestion.
| howinteresting wrote:
| > I wonder, who was raised to think well of trans people?
|
| Well, we should all try and make the world better, right?
| Many kids and young adults today have been raised with a
| sense of curiosity and empathy rather than one of scorn and
| judgment, and that includes fully supporting trans people.
| That is surely true of older adults as well, especially those
| whose parents are trans themselves or have close
| friends/relatives who are trans.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| My girlfriend's kids were
| [deleted]
| renonn wrote:
| "I grew up in a very religiously conservative household"
|
| do you not have anyone you can talk about this in real life
| with? what type of person is going to continue reading this?
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site
| guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's quite strange that someone clearly nuts like that pastor
| can be considered sane, wise, and morally authoritative. While
| in the same circles a trans person like Carlos is considered
| inherently deviant and somehow immensely threatening - even
| though all they have to offer is a life-long list of creative
| achievements, and absolutely no evidence of harm to anyone.
| jacquesm wrote:
| My conversations with my deeply religious grandmother left me
| with the impression that religion is a very dirty game: it
| inserts itself into your psyche in a way that it can become
| nearly impossible to distance yourself from it without
| massively breaking open what you consider to be your
| identity. This makes what the OP did all that much stronger,
| to be able to overcome that conditioning.
|
| My grandmother never managed to, but, to her considerable
| credit, she did realize that some of her views were no longer
| supported by the evidence available, she was just too rooted
| in her ways to change.
| notch565b wrote:
| It's foolish to think that lack of religion makes you
| experience any less of a dirty game.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That may be so, but religion seems to go out of its way
| to embed itself in the psyche of its subjects to the
| point that they experience severe identity crisis when
| trying to break free of it.
|
| There are other groups that employ the same mechanisms.
| notch565b wrote:
| Generally agree, although it seems religion is a
| difficult thing to classify.
|
| To me it seems religious to think that trans people don't
| suffer from some form of mental illness, thus it would be
| a religious viewpoint to think trans is a healthy
| behavior. It seems maladaptive from an evolutionary
| basis, although of course these persons should not be
| disparaged or treated poorly because of that.
| true_religion wrote:
| Rather than maladaptive, I'd characterize being trans and
| in the early stages of the journey to be painful
| emotionally and physically.
|
| Merely having to look in the mirror and think constantly
| "this is not who I should be" is damaging. That's why
| people deserve sympathy and aid from society.
|
| When people say it's maladaptive and characterize it as
| psychological disorder they are falling into the trap of
| believing that mental anguish must always have a mental
| solution. Thus they would prescribe therapy, drugs, and
| asylums.
|
| On the converse, it is much easier in reality to change
| physical gender than it is to change one's mind.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Idk what maladaptive from an evolutionary basis means,
| dude. We're not beholden to survival of the fittest
| anymore. We got glasses, bro. We do shit like
| microdosing, keto, and cryo therapy.
|
| If someone wants to take estrogen and call themselves
| Jessica, why should I give a shit any more than when some
| gym rat (therefore on artificial testosterone) wants me
| to call him Jake instead of Jacob?
|
| I don't think there's any religion in this, just good ol
| fashioned icky feelings about things that aren't really a
| problem, they're just icky feeling.
| notch565b wrote:
| I don't give a shit in the sense I care about stopping
| them from expressing themselves but at the same time it
| can be helpful to recognize the situation. I have family
| members with depression. If you just don't give a shit
| about a loved one's particularly, often maladaptive,
| mental space then it can be difficult to make sure they
| have support and environment they need to thrive.
|
| Trans people are at high risk for suicide, and based on
| my exposure to other persons at high risk of suicide I
| understand these maladaptive mental processes demand a
| certain amount of respect. I don't think just ignoring
| differences in mental state is a great solution.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You are mixing cause and effect with abandon.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Your understanding does not match the scientific
| evidence. One of the reasons being trans is not a mental
| illness is that cis people experience gender dysphoria
| all the time as well, like cis men when they're called
| girls, cis women with facial hair, or the revulsion many
| cis people experience when they even so much as think
| about the idea of taking hormones that don't align with
| their gender. To the extent that this is a "mental
| illness", the vast majority of people have it.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Idk what you're talking about... I don't look at
| depressed people like some evolutionary whatever whatever
| lol
| jacquesm wrote:
| The times when we had to run and hide from tigers, when
| men were real men and women were left behind in the
| compound to rear the children is long behind us. And the
| simple fact is that even then there were gay and trans
| people, they just weren't recognized as such and ended up
| having problems to fit in.
| notch565b wrote:
| My thesis has never been gay/trans people are
| better/worse at fighting tigers or tending children.
| elefanten wrote:
| I agree with your observation, but I don't think religion
| is uniquely notable along those lines.
|
| Ideology comes to mind as a pretty clean analog.
|
| But looming in my mind is culture. Terminally, it seems
| indistinguishable from religion: it's arbitrary, self-
| perpetuating, operates by getting deep psychological hooks
| into people and relies on (often blunt) communal
| enforcement.
|
| And further, it seems "culture" has been elevated to the
| exalted, sacred status religion once commanded in society.
| In my view, this shift happened over the latter half of the
| 20th... cemented by 2010.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You are probably right, but because until very recently
| here religion was so strongly intertwined with culture
| that it is hard to see the difference and that the bulk
| of the people that stepped out of it haven't had time
| enough to establish a real culture of their own other
| than some common labels it is hard to make the
| distinction (for me, at least). This is probably yet
| another example of such conditioning. And in the meantime
| Islam has made an appearance and is gaining a lot of
| strength, to the point that it is only a matter of time
| before it will be the dominant religion, and given the
| cultural distance this is likely only going to cause even
| more issues.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thanks for the recollection, it is a nice testimony to how
| prejudiced we can become due to our environment, and props to
| you for recognizing it for what it was and dealing with it the
| way you did.
| wedowhatwedo wrote:
| I was a huge fan of Switched-On Bach. My dad bought the album
| for me and it said "Walter Carlos". Many years later I was in a
| music store and saw the CD and it said "Wendy Carlos". I
| thought it was a typo and would be worth lots of money so I
| bought it.
|
| Years later I learned the real story.
|
| I'm still glad for my purchase and Wendy Carlos has made my
| life just a little bit better because of her art.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I think for some, that could have been a
| very uncomfortable story to share, but it's just so important
| that stories like this are spoken out loud. We all have
| capacity for such growth.
|
| Regarding the BTTF 2 is a work of Satan anecdote: it's so
| convenient that any time the actions of any authority are at
| odds with how a group expects/wants things to work, instead of
| challenging their own priors ("why did the majority steer so
| far from our beliefs?"), they just declare it a conspiracy by
| Satan. This is exactly what we see in politics these days as
| well.
|
| It's exceedingly difficult for one to completely up-end their
| foundation of understanding, culture, and being. It's easier to
| do absolutely ridiculous things like declare a contrary outcome
| as a conspiracy by Satan or the Deep State or whatnot. I think
| that overcoming that ontological inertia speaks volumes to your
| individual strength as a person, and the power Carlos'
| brilliant work.
| ivan888 wrote:
| Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" is a great read;
| it puts into many important words the capacity that we all
| possess for growth and large mindset changes, which you
| mention in your first paragraph
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| I have an early copy of Switched-On Bach, and I sometimes wonder
| if I should put a bit of tape on the front. It's probably
| sufficient to remember, and call her Wendy.
| [deleted]
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| The Clockwork Orange score still goes hard today. Love it.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I have this two CD compilation of Carlos' work on _The Shining_ ,
| probably a bootleg but how else could I get it? It's quite
| interesting and I think Kubrick ought to have used more of it.
| glhaynes wrote:
| Didn't know this existed! Thanks, off to look for it.
| trynewideas wrote:
| There was _Rediscovering Lost Scores_ , a two-volume CD set, as
| mentioned in the article.
| https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls1.html
| https://www.wendycarlos.com/+rls2.html
| racl101 wrote:
| Every time I hear the _Shining_ theme I feel the room get cold.
| So powerful.
|
| Same with _A Clockwork Orange_ (Queen Mary 's funeral theme).
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| We can't discuss Wendy Carlos without mentioning the still online
| old school "Wendy Carlos Homepage" that is straight out of 1996.
|
| https://www.wendycarlos.com/
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thanks for that link, it prompted me to send her a thank you
| note, which was really long overdue.
| tolloid wrote:
| No mention of the Momus $22 million lawsuit
| labrador wrote:
| I lived in Pawtucket, Rhode Island where Wendy was from in 1982
| when Wendy did this and never heard of her. Pawtucket was a tough
| multi-ethnic working class town, so I can't imagine how difficult
| it was for her to be public at that time. I was really into
| synthesizers then too. Amazing stuff.
|
| Tron Suite - Wendy Carlos (1982)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5RcNuQXuR4
|
| Clockwork Orange [1971] - Theme
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGqVkk3Uss
| jacquesm wrote:
| I still have the vinyl of switched on Bach and one day I'll get a
| record player hooked up and play it from there instead of the
| mp3s. Fantastic record and given the time when it was made
| absolutely incredible, keep in mind that this was before MIDI and
| most music related software that we take for granted today.
| lostgame wrote:
| As a trans woman; semi-professional musician, producer; audio
| engineer, and for whom Stanley Kubrick is my favourite artist of
| any medium, Wendy Carlos is one of the single greatest
| inspirations of my life.
|
| I can't personally imagine the struggle she went through all that
| time ago; having the courage to be herself when even today it's
| been a personal struggle.
|
| Gems like her really only come around every once in a while.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| Lynn Conway is another woman I look up to. The trans women who
| lived between 1950 and 1980 and still managed to advance their
| careers impress me, and I do my best to emulate them.
| yunch wrote:
| Male privilege innit. Start your career as a man, get your
| foot in the door and achieve success, continue as a woman,
| build on what you already achieved. Impressive work but not
| as much as if you had to deal with misogyny all the way
| through. Works especially well in male-dominated industries
| like computing.
| golemiprague wrote:
| DelaneyM wrote:
| It's much more impressive than that:
|
| > Upon completing her transition in 1968, Conway took a new
| name and identity, and restarted her career in what she
| called "stealth-mode". (From
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway)
|
| She managed to have groundbreaking impact in two
| disconnected careers after restarting from scratch!
| yunch wrote:
| I stand corrected, that is much more impressive than I'd
| assumed!
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| Indeed. Sophie Wilson (of ARM fame), too!
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _The Wendy Carlos Total Eclipse Page_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30096161 - Jan 2022 (1
| comment)
|
| _Wendy Carlos on Bob Moog (2005)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26553486 - March 2021 (57
| comments)
|
| _Wendy Carlos, the reclusive synth genius_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25061260 - Nov 2020 (2
| comments)
|
| _Where is Wendy Carlos? (2019)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394457 - June 2020 (2
| comments)
|
| _Wendy Carlos - Electronic Music Pioneer_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18662642 - Dec 2018 (1
| comment)
|
| _How Wendy Carlos Changed Music_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16077589 - Jan 2018 (43
| comments)
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Here's a great podcast about Wendy Carlos
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MZsp6Bfxf8PnOd7ODRmc4?si=8...
| danidiaz wrote:
| Adult Swim's "Lords of Synth" comedy short contains a homage to
| Wendy Carlos in the form of a certain "Carla Wendos"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXgNo5Smino
|
| There's also the documentary "Sisters with transistors" about
| women pioneers of electronic music
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-3hlzpV7M
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| I did actually come looking for a reference to Lords of Synth,
| and I wish I could upvote this twice.
| plasticeagle wrote:
| "Sisters with Transistors" is a superb film. Before I watched
| it, the only one of the many extraordinary women presented
| therein that I knew of was Delia Derbyshire.
|
| I had no idea that the soundtrack to The Forbidden Planet
| (which may very well be the greatest Science Fiction film ever
| made), was by Louis and Bebe Barron on equipment they pretty
| much entirely built themselves. Today, we plug in a laptop,
| back then you were a true pioneer.
| awsation wrote:
| Anyone knows if this is a available for streaming? BTW, the
| catchy synth in the trailer is here:
|
| https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=52f1ElmTy4o&feature=share
|
| Laurie Spiegel - Appalachian Grove I
| shadytrees wrote:
| +1 Sisters with Transistors. I watched this in the dark at the
| Metrograph, a theater in the outskirts of Manhattan, with maybe
| six other people, and the experience was transcendental.
| rodgerd wrote:
| It's a very good documentary.
| Blackthorn wrote:
| I love that Adult Swim short for many reasons, but especially
| that blink-and-you'll-miss-it statement that trans women are,
| in fact, women.
| racl101 wrote:
| Still love the original theme from Tron.
|
| As much as the Tron (2010) movie's score had a "cool" factor it
| lacked the heart and soul of the original.
|
| If they ever do another one I'd like to see the original Carlos'
| Tron's leitmotif woven back into it.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Didn't realize she did the soundtrack to Tron. Amazing music in
| that film.
| lordfrito wrote:
| Tron 2 soundtrack was such a huge disappointment from me, and
| I'm a die hard Daft Punk fan. Listened to it once, never went
| back to it.
|
| The original Tron soundtrack is such a joy, totally
| underrated... Amazing how she blended electronics with
| orchestration... in my memory it feels like a purely electronic
| soundtrack but it's not at all. The artistic impulse would be
| to go full electronic with something like this, she went in the
| opposite direction, and gave the score a sense of humanity
| (humans in the computer world).
|
| Carlos kept pushing the envelope on everything she did. Up
| there with Delia Derbyshire to me... total pioneer.
| drannex wrote:
| Marginally off topic here, but Occams Laser created a
| 'sequel' album to the Daft Punk score, and I feel it more
| closely _feels_ like an updated original Tron soundtrack.
|
| There are two complete albums they've released: The Grid[1],
| which is a concept album based on the 1982 original, and
| Return to the Grid[2] which is a reimagined concept album for
| Tron Legacy, both that I absolutely love listening to.
|
| 1. https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/the-grid 2.
| https://occamslaser.bandcamp.com/album/return-to-the-grid
| asmor wrote:
| I would also recommend the Tron 2.0 (which was a video game
| released before Tron Legacy) soundtrack. It reimagines a
| few tracks and otherwise expands in a similar style to the
| first movie.
| lordfrito wrote:
| Also Tron 2.0 game nailed the aesthetic, I wish Tron
| Legacy did. It just looked like your run-of-the-mill
| orange-and-teal sci-fi film. Such a wasted opportunity.
|
| edited: You know I never paid attention to the soundtrack
| to the game, just listened to it... holy cow you're right
| they did a great job! Tons of cues from the original
| film... thanks for this!
| lordfrito wrote:
| Listened to a few tracks, this is right up my alley,
| thanks!
|
| It's a little less Tron and a little more 80's film
| soundtrack vibe (which is also awesome).. The style seems
| to have come back in vogue a bit (Stranger Things etc.).
|
| This reminds me a lot of the Le Matos soundtrack for Turbo
| Kid. [1] Their soundtrack to Summer of '84 has the same
| synth vibe but adds the horror soundtrack vibe, also
| recommended.
|
| [1] https://lematos.bandcamp.com/album/chronicles-of-the-
| wastela...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I was working behind the counter at a booth at Macworld, Boston
| -- maybe 1991 or so? A woman behind the booth with me suddenly
| said, "That was Wendy Carlos!", about someone who had just walked
| away from the booth. Dumb me was busy doing something and hadn't
| been paying attention.
|
| Ha ha, those little moments in life when you're asleep at the
| wheel.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| One of the most frustrating things as a Carlos fan is that she is
| a huge fan of surround sound, records for surround sound, yet
| hasn't released any of her catalogue in true multichannel
| surround.
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