# Wendy Carlos & revisionist history **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2003, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767 "2003-03-12T06:24:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/61 "2014-02-16T04:13:26Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Because people will talk about what they want to talk about, trying to put some aspects of a famous person’s life off-limits, _almost a decade after such talk was actually happening_ is bound to cause people to revive the supposedly forbidden topic. To do so while making claims that can easily be verified in this age of the internet doesn’t really help. I was not trying to put it off-limits, I was trying to answer the original poster’s question. Everything I said came either from Ms. Carlos’s website or from the introduction or body of the PB article, which I have in front of me as I write. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > BTW, the Wiki article puts much more focus on the musical career of Ms. Carlos, but the only official website listed there goes to one not updated since 2009. Is there a more recent official website available? No, there isn’t. Ms. Carlos turns 75 this year, and remains quite concerned with maintaining creative control of her work while having decreasing interest in interacting with the public. This combination has resulted in about the situation that one might expect. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/62 "2014-02-16T04:17:07Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > Am I the only one for whom Wendy Carlos means Tron? . . . The Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade! How ya gonna beat “Baroque Hoedown?” I still have the original Switched On Bach LP. Genitals be dashed: the composer has style! ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/63 "2014-02-16T04:31:08Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What do you know of the 800 pages that were not used in the Playboy interview, and why did you claim they were dismissed as “cosmic ramblings… relevant to Wendy but irrelevant to the interview”, when I have shown, from the actual interview, that it wasn’t true at all? I responded at length to this, with a nice set of references and quotes, and then the SDMB ate the reply, being apparently unable to cope with retaining a form submission over a login timeout. Bad dogs. So this will be more brief and hold fewer citations. If you have the full PB article on hand, you have everything you need to see what happened with the interview. Ms. Carlos hoped to give a feature interview to a “simpatico” interviewer, in which she would be “quietly stepping out of the closet”. (Page 76, third column). This is exactly the opposite of what happened. Instead, the interviewer, Arthur Bell, who was a pioneering gay rights activist, cofounder of the Gay Activists Alliance, and well-known provocateur through his large body of columns, as well as his books and plays, elected to “out” Ms. Carlos in his own way, focusing, as he often did, on the more transgressive and shocking aspects of her story, and to cast her into an identity which she by her own admission did not wish to acquire. She considered her reassignment surgery a medical correction of an accident of birth, and wished to move past it. Instead Bell, due, I would suggest, to his own enthusiasm as an activist, chose to focus exclusively on that topic. It’s remarkable how clearly the introduction to the interview describes grooming Ms. Carlos until she was comfortable enough to discuss these issues, and how unapologetic Mr. Bell is in saying that he then “took advantage” of her vulnerability. (Bottom of column 3, page 76). I find it deeply repugnant that her discussions of other matters were dismissed as “cosmic ramblings” (middle of column 3, page 76), and that Bell considered it a victory when Ms. Carlos was finally willing to give clinical descriptions of her transition “without the weighty explanations that usually surrounded her theories on music.” So that’s what I know. The editors and Mr. Bell are quite clear in the introduction that they discarded the great majority of the interview material, and shifted the focus away from her work and career and onto her sexuality and medical history. Perhaps your copy of the article lacks the introduction? ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/64 "2014-02-16T04:52:28Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > Am I the only one for whom Wendy Carlos means Tron? > > If I knew someone, even as a mere acquaintance, who really wanted to talk about her transexuality, I would be ashamed of myself if I couldn’t rally to be supportive. But it’s not a subject that I myself am prepared to speak of comfortably. So, if someone doesn’t want to talk about it, I would consider myself glad to be off the hook. Why not talk instead about, say the Tron soundtrack? I’d love to talk about “Beauty In The Beast”. I’m fortunate enough to have just acquired a copy, and as a longtime lister to outfits like Cabaret Voltaire and Coil, I was so pleased to hear tracks from Ms. Carlos that fit right in to that darker, more contemplative form of expressionist electronica. (As well as to hear an experimental jazz work that could have come straight out of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/65 "2014-02-16T04:53:47Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > So that’s what I know. The editors and Mr. Bell are quite clear in the introduction that they discarded the great majority of the interview material, and shifted the focus away from her work and career and onto her sexuality and medical history. Perhaps your copy of the article lacks the introduction? 1. They _had_ to discard most of the 800 pages-it was supposed to be a ten page interview, not a four volume book series. 2. I _quoted_ from both the intro and the interview itself. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/66 "2014-02-16T05:04:58Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > No, there isn’t. Ms. Carlos turns 75 this year, and remains quite concerned with maintaining creative control of her work while having decreasing interest in interacting with the public. Then perhaps you aren’t doing her any favors by reviving a decade-old thread to straighten out posters that haven’t been here in years? ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/67 "2014-02-16T05:14:54Z")
> [@Snarcasm](#): > > 1. They _had_ to discard most of the 800 pages-it was supposed to be a ten page interview, not a four volume book series. It’s not like Playboy was averse to printing the random thoughts of well-known people. Lawrence Grobel interviewed Brando for Playboy in January, 1979, and somehow managed to let a whole passel of his “cosmic ramblings” slip onto the page (with only a single mention of his weight, FWTW, and that as part of a Kennedy anecdote.) > [@Snarcasm](#): > > 1. I _quoted_ from both the intro and the interview itself. Yeah, you did. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/68 "2014-02-16T05:22:06Z")
> [@Snarcasm](#): > > Then perhaps you aren’t doing her any favors by reviving a decade-old thread to straighten out posters that haven’t been here in years? Good heavens. It’s not about convincing anybody of anything, it’s about putting the facts down accurately for future readers who find this thread via search. (What site is this again?) I noticed in a survey of this and other forums that folks seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding why Ms. Carlos states on her official site that all her recordings were Wendy Carlos recordings from the beginning, and why she refers to going through a ten year charade. It’s being called “revisionist history” in the thread topic, and elsewhere online. I was only trying to clear this up, and doing so in the thread that was the top search result seemed like the most efficient way to handle it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/69 "2014-02-16T05:22:22Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > Yeah, you did. :rolleyes: Yes, I did. I quoted directly from the intro as to what was meant by “cosmic ramblings”, unlike you. Since you already knew that I had access to both the intro and the interview, because I quoted directly from each, why did you insinuate that I didn’t? By the way, how much of those 800 pages do you think Playboy should have printed? ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/70 "2014-02-16T05:24:44Z")
> [@Snarcasm](#): > > Yes, I did. I quoted directly from the intro as to what was meant by “cosmic ramblings”, unlike you. Since you already knew that I had access to both the intro and the interview, because I quoted directly from each, why did you insinuate that I didn’t? By the way, how much of those 800 pages do you think Playboy should have printed? Wow. Haven’t seen a flame war since Usenet! Not feeding it any longer, sorry. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/71 "2014-02-16T05:24:52Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > BTW, the Wiki article puts much more focus on the musical career of Ms. Carlos, but the only official website listed there goes to one not updated since 2009. Is there a more recent official website available? As one of the Wikipedia editors, we really would _prefer_ that the **vast majority** of the article be about her musical career, but the harsh truth is that there is a huge gap in web accessible information for the period before the mid 1980s, and we need references. For instance, I would love to add information about her synthesizer reviews for the Whole Earth Catalog, and have written Stewart Brand asking for the old catalogs to be made available to Google Books for scanning (he replied that the authorship was sufficiently complicated that it was not possible). In the same way, we would prefer to have a current image, but given that the last time I tried to communicate with her, I damn near got my head bitten off, I’ll leave it image free. She is very prickly, and I feel very confident that she would not approve of Wikipedia using the publicity image from her web site until the article was scrubbed every mention of her pre-transition identity. And that is not going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/72 "2014-02-16T05:31:11Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > Good heavens. It’s not about convincing anybody of anything, it’s about putting the facts down accurately for future readers who find this thread via search. (What site is this again?) Hopefully, someone else who goes through the trouble of doing a vanity search will check the dates of the responses and be a little more receptive to Ms. Carlo’s desire to let old topics like these die down-which they already had here until you raised this zombie from the grave. > [@nphoenix](#): > > I noticed in a survey of this and other forums that folks seem to have a great deal of difficulty understanding why Ms. Carlos states on her official site that all her recordings were Wendy Carlos recordings from the beginning, and why she refers to going through a ten year charade. It’s being called “revisionist history” in the thread topic, and elsewhere online. I was only trying to clear this up, and doing so in the thread that was the top search result seemed like the most efficient way to handle it. Not “seems”-seemed. Posters no longer here being “corrected” by someone who says both that Ms. Carlos doesn’t want the subject to be brought up, and that the subject _should_ be brought up to correct those who haven’t thought about the subject for years. ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/73 "2014-02-16T05:31:24Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > As one of the Wikipedia editors, we really would _prefer_ that the **vast majority** of the article be about her musical career, but the harsh truth is that there is a huge gap in web accessible information for the period before the mid 1980s, and we need references. For instance, I would love to add information about her synthesizer reviews for the Whole Earth Catalog, and have written Stewart Brand asking for the old catalogs to be made available to Google Books for scanning (he replied that the authorship was sufficiently complicated that it was not possible). If it’s only a matter of references, last I knew our public library system here in Madison, WI had a full archive of Whole Earth Catalogs, and I’d be happy to do what I could to track down the necessary references. > [@gaffa](#): > > In the same way, we would prefer to have a current image, but given that the last time I tried to communicate with her, I damn near got my head bitten off, I’ll leave it image free. She is very prickly, and I feel very confident that she would not approve of Wikipedia using the publicity image from her web site until the article was scrubbed every mention of her pre-transition identity. And that is not going to happen. Yeah, what you said. I’m also a Wikipedian, and have also attempted to communicate with her. It’s a shame, because there’s almost nothing but love for her out there on the Interwebs these days, and she’d be an honest-to-goodness hero and inspiration to so many women in technology and electronic music. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/74 "2014-02-16T05:33:56Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > Wow. Haven’t seen a flame war since Usenet! > > Not feeding it any longer, sorry. This isn’t a flame war-this is a request for information. The only “flaming” here came from your side. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/75 "2014-02-16T05:56:05Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > If it’s only a matter of references, last I knew our public library system here in Madison, WI had a full archive of Whole Earth Catalogs, and I’d be happy to do what I could to track down the necessary references. If you could, adding a section to the Wikipedia article about her reviews would be very welcome. The Chicago Public Library’s copies were in horrible shape. Since I last checked, the Whole Earth web site has added an “Electronic Edition”, but it is in the utterly evil Scribd format and [is an unreadable mess.](http://www.wholeearth.com/issue-electronic-edition.php?iss=1040) One line from one of her reviews in a copy of the Catalog I owned as a teen dismissed the beloved Minimoog as “a toy”. Well, yeah, if you owned [her system](http://synthvibrations.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/wendy_carlos-moog.jpg) it might seem that way. > [@](#): > > Yeah, what you said. I’m also a Wikipedian, and have also attempted to communicate with her. Still have all your fingers? > [@](#): > > It’s a shame, because there’s almost nothing but love for her out there on the Interwebs these days, and she’d be an honest-to-goodness hero and inspiration to so many women in technology and electronic music. I think it’s true that our personalities and ability to relate to other people is pretty much set in concrete by the time we’re teens. And I get the impression that her grade school and high school years were dreadful. So it’s probably not possible for her to accept that love, or even trust it. ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/76 "2014-02-16T06:13:25Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > If you could, adding a section to the Wikipedia article about her reviews would be very welcome. The Chicago Public Library’s copies were in horrible shape. Since I last checked, the Whole Earth web site has added an “Electronic Edition”, but it is in the utterly evil Scribd format and [is an unreadable mess.](http://www.wholeearth.com/issue-electronic-edition.php?iss=1040) I despise Scribd but we have ways of making it talk. 😉 Do you have a date range for those reviews? > [@gaffa](#): > > One line from one of her reviews in a copy of the Catalog I owned as a teen dismissed the beloved Minimoog as “a toy”. Well, yeah, if you owned [her system](http://synthvibrations.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/wendy_carlos-moog.jpg) it might seem that way. Yeah, she invokes Sturgeon’s Law in her American Mavericks interview, referring to musical tools. > [@gaffa](#): > > Still have all your fingers? Yeah. 🙂 > [@gaffa](#): > > I think it’s true that our personalities and ability to relate to other people is pretty much set in concrete by the time we’re teens. And I get the impression that her grade school and high school years were dreadful. So it’s probably not possible for her to accept that love, or even trust it. Certainly possible. Some of her social strategies and ways of writing and speaking about music and equipment also make me wonder if she’s somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Pure conjecture. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/77 "2014-02-16T06:42:20Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > Do you have a date range for those reviews? Not sure, but it was either in The Last Whole Earth Catalog, June 1971 or the Whole Earth Epilog from October 1974. Those are the two that look most familiar. > [@](#): > > Certainly possible. Some of her social strategies and ways of writing and speaking about music and equipment also make me wonder if she’s somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Pure conjecture. I doubt it. Probably just a socially stunted geek like the rest of us. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/78 "2014-02-16T17:46:33Z")
Thanks to **nphoenix** , a reference to the synthesizer reviews in _Whole Earth Catalog_ have been added to the Wikipedia article. ---
**Author:** ![pricciar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@pricciar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pricciar)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/79 "2014-02-16T20:03:03Z")
Thanks for your contributions to this thread, **nphoenix**. I learned a lot about Wendy Carlos that I never knew before. You did an excellent job explaining what her problem with the Playboy interview was. ---
**Author:** ![nphoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6de8d8/32.png) [@nphoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nphoenix)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/80 "2014-02-17T02:44:13Z")
> [@pricciar](#): > > Thanks for your contributions to this thread, **nphoenix**. I learned a lot about Wendy Carlos that I never knew before. You did an excellent job explaining what her problem with the Playboy interview was. You’re welcome! I hope, if Ms. Carlos comes across this thread, that it’s clear that I’m on her side, and am only citing ancient history to try to set to rest the suggestion that she is engaging in revisionism or somehow delusional in her statements about her work’s attribution and the cruelty of interviewers. I understand that these are painful details. But considering the long memory of the Internet, and the tendency for the scum to rise to the top in searches, I felt that laying out these matters in a sympathetic and supportive context would go a long way toward dispelling some common falsehoods and negative perceptions of Ms. Carlos that have been allowed to breed freely in a climate of secrecy and innuendo. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767.md?page=5)