Article on Wendy Carlos in the Guardian.

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A reasonably sensitive article about this amazing woman.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/11/she-made-music...

There was also a long article on facial feminisation surgery in yesterday's.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/10/female-femin...

Comments

From her site

shiraz's picture

This is on Wendy Carlos' site : http://www.wendycarlos.com/

Bogus "Bio" Alert
Please be aware there’s a purported “Biography” on me just released. It belongs on the fiction shelf. No one ever interviewed me, nor anyone I know. There's zero fact-checking. Don’t recognize myself anywhere in there—weird. Sloppy, dull and dubious, it's hardly an objective academic study as it pretends to be.
This slim, mean-sprited volume is based on several false premises. All of it is speculation taken out of context. The key sources are other people’s write-ups of interviews done for magazine articles. There’s simply no way to know what’s true or not—nothing is first-hand.
The book is presumptuous. Pathetically, it accepts as “factual” a grab-bag of online urban legends, including anonymous axes to grind. The author imputes things she doesn’t understand, misses the real reasons for what was done or not done. She’s in way over her head, outside any areas of expertise, and even defames my dear deceased parents—shame!
=====
Well, now you know, and have the victim's honest reactions. Wish there were more one could do about needless personal attacks, but we have to understand how essential freedom of speech is, even when it permits such abuse. Have dealt with stereotyping most of my life, a pretty tough hide by now. But aren’t there new, more interesting targets?
Unless you consider “academic” books a form of contact sport, you really might want to reconsider your time and money. —Wendy Carlos, August 2020.

- - - -

Paperback cover Boat That Frocked.png

Obviously a very secluded person

BarbieLee's picture

I don't fault her one bit for desiring her privacy and her personal life be left out of all the things she has accomplished publicly. But it is a contradiction in the flow of society's norm in of itself in so many ways. She produces "music" for public consumption necessary for paying bills and upkeep. The more publicity, the better the sales. Then she wants Wendy Carlos to be a non entity which doesn't exist.
Ahhh, a paradigm of biblical proportions which only inflamed those who delve into the darkest secrets of everyone's life. Thus she inflamed the fire to know more about her by being a recluse.
Wendy, it's too late but sometimes the most obvious solution to what we ourselves might consider dirty laundry is best hung out on the clothesline so everyone can see it. They come, they look, they go away, noting of news to report except normal dirty laundry. I honestly believe the majority of trans just want a life considering the numbers and then those who are out and vocal. Lynn Conway only wanted to be left alone but for all she has done and accomplished, she's my idol. Like all those who have stood up and reluctantly proclaimed, "Yes this is me, I'm that woman.:" after being publicly outed, we provide a path for all who are caught up in the boy-girl gender blender. They shouldn't follow us exactly but find their own way using and discarding some of the things we have done.
On a related note, the Amarillo VA sent me an email thanking me for the way I presented myself Friday. It's a lot of little things we do which makes it easier for those who follow, ladies and gentlemen. Do what you must, but if necessary to give a smack down, do it with a light hand.
Hugs Angharad
Barb
Life is a gift, treasure it.

Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl

hmmm...

charlie98210's picture

I am a little sad about the "bogus "Bio" alert (from Wendy Carlos' site, shiraz' comment). I've read Amanda Sewell's biography (Wendy Carlos: A Biography), which, I assume is the bogus bio Wendy Carlos is referring to, and I thought the Sewell biography was very sympathetic to her and her history, and concentrated a lot on her music and how she went about making and constructing it. I loved the sections which talked about how Sonic Seasonings came about and was created (personally, it is my favorite of all her albums). I still have the double LP record album and continue to listen to it when I want to decompress and chill out.

charlie

As I Guess Barbie Said...

...Wendy Carlos seems to want it both ways, and has done so from the start of her career.

I remember Rachel Elkind's original liner notes from "The Well-Tempered Synthesizer", critical of the fact that all the buzz about the first album ("Switched-On Bach") was about the instrument and not the performer. Unfortunate, but since there was literally (IIRC) no information about the performer on the back of that first album, it seemed clear where they wanted the emphasis to be placed. The gender issue was probably the main reason then -- somebody mentioned that she'd already transitioned but needed to use her male identity to earn the royalties/rights fees.

But when, as apparently in this case, no biography exists for a noted figure, and decades later the subject and all her close associates decide not to talk, odds of the book being abandoned would seem a lot less likely than producing an unauthorized biography -- and complaining about inaccuracies afterward while inferring that it's the author's fault that the direct sources weren't used seems naïve at best.

Eric

The Guardian

jacquimac's picture

Is a newspaper that should have closed down and destroyed years ago, it's a hate everything publication even Anti-British which might seem for a UK news sheet , much like the BBC