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Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

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Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#91

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 whi…

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.

Indeed. Sophie Wilson (of ARM fame), too!

Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#92
post #73
post #19

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 p…

Create art about whatever you want but if you bind it with your identity and sexuality you're more an idealogue than a craftsman.

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.

Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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. :)

Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#95
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> “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.)

> 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.

Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#96
post #19

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 p…

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.

Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

OMG that is amazing! Did they mention that in the documentary? If so, I can't believe I missed it.

I don't recall if I heard it in the documentary or during an interview with the filmmaker.

Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

My girlfriend's kids were

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Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 me…

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.

> 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?

Re: Wendy Carlos: The brilliant but lonely life of an electronic music pioneer

#100

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

+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.

It's a very good documentary.
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