# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/81 "2014-02-17T03:27:09Z")
Add me to the voices who appreciate the explanation. ---
**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 17, 2014, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/82 "2014-02-17T03:41:07Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > 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. Would you mind giving your opinion as to how many pages of the approximately 800 taken down should have been printed in the interview, if 10 were far too many? ---
**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, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/83 "2014-02-17T03:55:18Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Would you mind giving your opinion as to how many pages of the approximately 800 taken down should have been printed in the interview, if 10 were far too many? I will attempt another explanation in a private message, as this amounts at this point to a personal tutorial in responsible editorial process. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/84 "2014-02-17T04:28:53Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > 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. Wendy is _dedicated_ to revisionism. Whether or not that is justified in her mind, or by some objective standard really doesn’t matter. On her site, she presents a fantasy version of reality, and rails against the world for not going along with it. I don’t think _Playboy_ was cruel, and to call them “prigs” as she does is just bizarre. The reasons she had for granting the interview in the first place remain valid, and I can’t think of another magazine of the time that would have given her the opportunity to tell her story. And having read her Whole Earth Catalog letter (thanks again, btw) for the first time since I was a teen, she really doesn’t tell short stories. Stewart Brand might have printed the whole thing, but I, and any other editor, would have cut it down to two or at most three paragraphs. ---
**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, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/85 "2014-02-17T04:56:15Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Wendy is _dedicated_ to revisionism. Whether or not that is justified in her mind, or by some objective standard really doesn’t matter. How is she “dedicated to revisionism”? In stating that all her recordings (all of which were recorded after her transition) are Wendy Carlos recordings? Or for not including in her own archive some photographs that recall an embarrassing and painful period where she was expected to carry on a charade, and in which she is, quite clearly, wearing a costume? Hell, I don’t want old hippie pictures of me from high school on Facebook, and I’ve asked friends to take them down – does this make me also dedicated to revisionism? > [@gaffa](#): > > On her site, she presents a fantasy version of reality, and rails against the world for not going along with it. Where on her site does she do this? I’ve read, I think, her whole site now (whew!) and I don’t find anything that could be construed as fantasy. She acknowledges the issue without naming it (with more understanding than most septuagenarians have of the workings of search engines) and she speaks from the heart about what she feels as her being pigeonholed by online sources as a trans woman rather than a composer. She is afraid that this unwanted identity will be her legacy, more than her music, and in this I am afraid she is probably correct. > [@gaffa](#): > > I don’t think _Playboy_ was cruel, and to call them “prigs” as she does is just bizarre. The reasons she had for granting the interview in the first place remain valid, and I can’t think of another magazine of the time that would have given her the opportunity to tell her story. I disagree entirely. I believe _Playboy_, and Arthur Bell in particular, misled Ms. Carlos into giving what she expected would be an interview for a profile feature, where she could quietly come out as an aside in the feature. Bell instead discarded the bulk of the material that would have been retained for any other profile feature, instead focusing disproportionately on only the topics of transition and sexuality. This was Arthur Bell’s M.O., after all. He was a provocateur and an activist, and he turned out to be exactly the wrong person for Ms. Carlos to trust for a light touch and a “simpatico” interview. ---
**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, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/86 "2014-02-17T05:34:56Z")
> [@](#): > > I can’t think of another magazine of the time that would have given her the opportunity to tell her story. Nonsense. Trans women have been profiled in the press since the 1950s. Just to pick three examples: Christine Jorgensen was on the front page of the _New York Daily News_ on December 1, 1952, featured in a five part story in _The American Weekly_ in 1953, in _Time_, February 23, 1953, _People Today_, June 3, 1953, and [many, many other publications](http://www.christinejorgensen.org/MainPages/Publications.html) long before 1979. Renée Richards was all over the press from 1976 to 1981, including the _New York Times_ This Day In Sports, August 27, 1976. Arthur Bell himself [wrote about Candy Darling](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1299&dat=19720518&id=9eVLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9YsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6345,1338873) in the _Village Voice_ as far back as 1972, where he manages to get her trans status out of the way in only a few paragraphs, then move on to her career and personality. She was again profiled by Thomas Berger in _Esquire_ in 1973. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/87 "2014-02-17T05:57:32Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > How is she “dedicated to revisionism”? In stating that all her recordings (all of which were recorded after her transition) are Wendy Carlos recordings? Yes. I, like millions of other people, bought _Switched-On Bach_, an album credited to Walter Carlos. Yes, I can understand that she was always a woman in her mind, but a male identity was presented. To pretend throughout her site that Walter was some record company creation _is_ revisionism. > [@](#): > > Or for not including in her own archive some photographs that recall an embarrassing and painful period where she was expected to carry on a charade, and in which she is, quite clearly, wearing a costume? Hell, I don’t want old hippie pictures of me from high school on Facebook, and I’ve asked friends to take them down – does this make me also dedicated to revisionism? Yes, if you did that, you would be revising history. > [@](#): > > Where on her site does she do this? I’ve read, I think, her whole site now (whew!) and I don’t find anything that could be construed as fantasy. She acknowledges the issue without naming it (with more understanding than most septuagenarians have of the workings of search engines) and she speaks from the heart about what she feels as her being pigeonholed by online sources as a trans woman rather than a composer. She is afraid that this unwanted identity will be her legacy, more than her music, and in this I am afraid she is probably correct. Read through the Talk page on the Wikipedia article and you’ll see that most of the editors are dedicated to presenting a balanced view of her life, and really would prefer that there is more discussion of her music than of her transition. But to ignore it, and to pretend that it never happened (as she obviously would prefer) would be a violation of everything that Wikipedia editors believe. Her music section is thin because of one simple reason - she hasn’t created any new music in _decades_. Specifically the decades that are well indexed on search engines. If she wants to better secure her legacy, she should spend more time composing and less time railing against the world. > [@](#): > > I disagree entirely. I believe _Playboy_, and Arthur Bell in particular, misled Ms. Carlos into giving what she expected would be an interview for a profile feature, where she could quietly come out as an aside in the feature. Bell instead discarded the bulk of the material that would have been retained for any other profile feature, instead focusing disproportionately on only the topics of transition and sexuality. This was Arthur Bell’s M.O., after all. He was a provocateur and an activist, and he turned out to be exactly the wrong person for Ms. Carlos to trust for a light touch and a “simpatico” interview. I can’t imagine that any other interviewer would have produced a significantly different interview, given the subject and the space constraints. And a gay man, who doubtlessly had to pretend to be straight at various times in his life, was going to be much more sympathetic than a straight one. Honestly, see the end of the introduction - he implied that when Wendy visited his home he was attracted to her. I read that and thought the interviewer was a straight man. And unless she had secured an agreement with _Playboy_ that gave her control over the form of the final interview (which would not happen, especially then at the height of their popularity) that is the interview that was going to result. As I said earlier, I really would like to have read more about her “early microcomputer-driven full Fourier synthesis instrument she was working on” (presumably dropped because computers at the time were not fast enough, and was replaced by the GDS systems) but that is not Playboy’s area of interest. Again, her reasons of the time were valid. She chose Playboy because they were about liberation, more specifically _sexual_ liberation. Liberal old Hugh Hefner was one of the few publishers who would let her say even what was in the edited interview. Suggest a magazine of the time that would have been a better choice, please. ---
**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, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/88 "2014-02-17T07:08:43Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Yes. I, like millions of other people, bought _Switched-On Bach_, an album credited to Walter Carlos. Yes, I can understand that she was always a woman in her mind, but a male identity was presented. To pretend throughout her site that Walter was some record company creation _is_ revisionism. This is what she says about the “different name” on the older LPs: > [@](#): > > Please be assured that these are all Wendy Carlos albums, and were so when they were first completed. But-- to cut to the chase, in those less enlightened times strong selfish opinions were voiced (synthesizers are a “male” enterprise, don’t you see…?). I was flabbergasted to be denyed fair credit (the first S-OB’s had no cover credit at all, in fact, just: “Performed on the Moog Synthesizer,” creating another misconception: that the Moog synth did it all. CBS signed our instrument, not us, to a contract – talk about getting no respect…). Well, politically incorrect fears and dissembling perpetuated a fictionalized identity including faked pictures, for 10 years (grrr…). I naively let them run amok, forced to hide from the public until 1979, when fed up, I pulled the plug on the whole mess. Yes, a depressing tale – old “news” by now. People can be cruel. She describes the promulgation of that fictionalized identity in detail in the _Playboy_ interview. Nowhere does she suggest she did not transition, only that, by the time these recordings were made, she identified as female, in a field that was not ready for that identity (or, obviously, for someone in the midst of a transition). Of course she’s doing everything she can not to talk directly about “the whole mess” as it is for her a painful topic. But discretion isn’t revisionism. She goes on to say: > [@](#): > > On the other hand many female authors have used male pseudonyms, especially if it was believed their writings might be received “more eagerly” with a male image in front of it. Think of George Sand, Sig-O to composer Frederic Chopin, and many more up through Alice Sheldon, the writer whose excellent SF novels were credited: James Tiptree, Jr. A few men have recently written us in (threatened?) outrage, insisting we should perpetuate the folly, and still refuse accurate album credit, “to maintain consistency” (once wrong, always wrong?). Unbelievable cheek (proof we haven’t come so far?). Arrgh! Please feel free to bop a few heads for us… I’m bopping as hard as I can, Wendy. Some heads are harder than others. Gotta love the Alice Sheldon shout-out, by the way. > [@gaffa](#): > > [QUOTE=nphoenix] > Hell, I don’t want old hippie pictures of me from high school on Facebook, and I’ve asked friends to take them down – does this make me also dedicated to revisionism? Yes, if you did that, you would be revising history. [/QUOTE] Yikes. Really? I think the term “revisionism” rather strongly suggests that one is seeking to change established facts, rather than hoping to de-emphasize them in order to move on. To take my case again, I’m not saying I was never a greasy hippie. I just don’t advertise it, and I prefer that those who know me now as a greasy IT geek continue to see me as I wish to be seen. I think that’s fair. Difference in philosophies, I suppose. I would suggest that my perspective on this is, in this case, probably normative, even if it is not always respected. > [@gaffa](#): > > Read through the Talk page on the Wikipedia article and you’ll see that most of the editors are dedicated to presenting a balanced view of her life, and really would prefer that there is more discussion of her music than of her transition. But to ignore it, and to pretend that it never happened (as she obviously would prefer) would be a violation of everything that Wikipedia editors believe. I agree that it needs to be mentioned, if only because it affects the attribution of her earlier recordings. Personally, I think her whole story is important and worth telling, and I wish she were comfortable with the topic, so it did not have to wait to be told in its entirety until she’s no longer with us, but that’s ultimately not anybody’s choice but her own. Has she tried to have that section removed from Wikipedia? The only mention I find of Wiki anything on her site is in a section referring primarily to knock-off recordings made to capitalize on S-OB. > [@gaffa](#): > > Her music section is thin because of one simple reason - she hasn’t created any new music in _decades_. Specifically the decades that are well indexed on search engines. > > If she wants to better secure her legacy, she should spend more time composing and less time railing against the world. _ **She’s 75 years old** _. Jeez. Yes, of course she _should_ do plenty of things. She _should_ make the talk show circuit, become a poster child for trans _and_ cis women in music and science, release all her music for digital download, and sell the rights for her life story to some major Hollywood people—it’s fascinating and poignant enough, she _should_ do it while she can benefit from the royalties. But she’s a human being, after all, and I think, having once been used as a tool for somebody else’s agenda, is not about to let that happen again. > [@gaffa](#): > > I can’t imagine that any other interviewer would have produced a significantly different interview, given the subject and the space constraints. And a gay man, who doubtlessly had to pretend to be straight at various times in his life, was going to be much more sympathetic than a straight one. One might have thought that, yes. But Bell was not a sympathetic interviewer, by and large. He pushed those topics that fit his agenda, and I have no doubt Playboy had a say in what they felt would sell. I believe it’s rank conjecture, by the way, to suggest that _Playboy_—as you say, at the height of their popularity—was really so limited by space constraints that they could not make the Wendy Carlos interview as humane and comprehensive as their interviews with Marlon Brando, Dennis Kucinich, or Tom Selleck that ran in the same editorial year. As to constraints of topic, my thesis throughout is that the choice of topic was theirs and was narrowed down in bad faith, after being granted permission to run a comprehensive profile feature. > [@gaffa](#): > > Honestly, see the end of the introduction - he implied that when Wendy visited his home he was attracted to her. I read that and thought the interviewer was a straight man. Nah, after reading his Candy Darling profile, I would suggest that that passage, with its emphasis on her outfits and elegance, goes to Bell still regarding her as a man in drag, rather than a woman. And something like that “way of all flesh” comment was basically required if one covered trans women at the time. The only way they were acceptable is if they could be objectified like cis women. ---
**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 17, 2014, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/89 "2014-02-17T12:40:55Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > I will attempt another explanation in a private message, as this amounts at this point to a personal tutorial in responsible editorial process. I got the message…in which you never managed, during your entire explanation of the editorial process, to actually answer the question I asked. ---
**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 17, 2014, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/90 "2014-02-17T12:48:50Z")
> [@nphoenix](#): > > I disagree entirely. I believe _Playboy_, and Arthur Bell in particular, misled Ms. Carlos into giving what she expected would be an interview for a profile feature, where she could quietly come out as an aside in the feature. Bell instead discarded the bulk of the material that would have been retained for any other profile feature, instead focusing disproportionately on only the topics of transition and sexuality. This was Arthur Bell’s M.O., after all. He was a provocateur and an activist, and he turned out to be exactly the wrong person for Ms. Carlos to trust for a light touch and a “simpatico” interview. Leaving aside the personal attacks on Arthur Bell(what is your source for such venom, other than the the writings of Ms Carlos, btw?), what do you personally know about the contents of those 800 pages? Have you read through them yourself, or is your opinion of what was discarded totally reliant on the claims of Ms. Carlos? ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/91 "2014-02-24T06:44:52Z")
**Miller** pointed me to the updates in this thread. What’s remarkable to me, reading it after 12 years, is how much I’ve been educated about the topic. Knowing what I know now; I wouldn’t have even started this thread. For what little my opinion matters, I still have exactly the same opinion of Carlos’s website as I did back then. I still don’t think it’s salacious or insensitive to be curious. Education does more good than denial; because so much of the terminology emphasizes transition, it honestly never occurred to me that, e.g., she’d always been Wendy and didn’t “become” Wendy. Knowing what a rotten situation the record labels & publicists put her in doesn’t change my opinion; “this is a lousy thing that happened to me” is a better response than “this never happened.” (And for that matter, I can’t imagine _ever_ being surprised that _Playboy_ wasn’t more sensitive about a personal topic, especially one related to gender). If that recent _[Grantland.com](http://Grantland.com)_ story proves anything, it’s that people still have a lot to learn. > [@Trinopus](#): > > The Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade! How ya gonna beat “Baroque Hoedown?” > > I still have the original Switched On Bach LP. Switched-On Back was Carlos. Baroque Hoedown was done by [Perrey & Kingsley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrey_and_Kingsley). ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2014, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767/92 "2014-02-24T07:03:31Z")
Son of a Gun! I’d always thought that Carlos did the Main Street Electrical Parade music. It’s so obviously synthesized, and so darn much fun. I’m sure someone told me it was, and I never thought to question it. Dawgone! Thank you for setting me straight. Well, anyway, Switched on Bach and the Well Tempered Synthesizer! The music is the joy. (The medium is the message!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wendy-carlos-revisionist-history/160767.md?page=4)