Not even an intelligible lie

I finished the book Wendy Carlos, a Biography by Amanda Sewell. Yes, this is the Carlos that popularized synthesizer music, starting with the release in 1968 of the hit Switched On Bach, though she did much more than that. I remember in my youth being quite taken with this LP. I was already a fan of classical music and this was great stuff. I also got the Well Tempered Synthesizer, the Switched on Brandenburgs, and Switched On Bach II Many years later when it was reissued on CD I bought that too and after a while I realized these performances are actually quite musical. So when I saw the book I knew I had to get it (though I did first check ratings to see it was any good, and it is). Yes, Carlos is transgender and the Switched On Bach album was originally released under her deadname (as trans activists now put it). Being trans, especially female trans, did have a big impact on her life, even though Sewell says Carlos claims being trans is the least interesting thing about her. That’s a notable thing to say because everyone else – the media and many people who know of her music – being trans is the most important thing about her. They want to focus on the trans and not the music. And when they focus on the trans they either want all the little details about her surgery or they are against trans people and say nasty things. Carlos is a well educated musician and composer. While growing up she frequently built the components she needed for a home studio. She did her graduate work at Columbia University, which was just getting into electronic music. She was an early customer of Bob Moog (rhymes with vogue) and his synthesizer components, even though she found them cumbersome and inadequate. It was on the Moog Synthesizer that she tediously created that first Bach album. She was a technical resource for early synthesizer magazines. So in the late 1960s she really did understand what Moog’s devices could do. One purpose of the album, especially the second movement of the Brandenburg #3, was to demonstrate what a synthesizer could do. Bach wrote only two chords for that second movement, relying on a violin soloist to improvise – and Carlos definitely did that. Sewell did extensive research before writing the book, examining every document related to Carlos she could get her hands on. So the book has extensive notes on where Sewell found every little fact she presents. Sewell says at the time Carlos was working on Switched On Bach she also began her gender transition. She knew she was female from a young age. Few, including Carlos, thought the album would generate small sales. She and everyone else was astonished the album soon went platinum. And Carlos had a problem. Being female transgender in 1968 was not safe. She felt she could not appear in public. She became a recluse. That meant she was not available to do all the publicity stuff related to a best selling album, including giving interviews. A whole decade would pass before Carlos felt safe enough. She came out through an interview that appeared in Playboy. And was burned by it. The interview was much longer than would fit in the magazine and the parts chosen to print emphasized the details of the transition and not the music. Even late in life when her name comes up there is more talk of her being trans rather than how groundbreaking her music was and important it still is. I recommend the book to those who are Carlos or classical music fans. Alas, Carlos, on her website, blasts the book as belonging on the fiction shelf because it so completely mischaracterizes her. How could it not be fiction if Sewell never talked to her or anyone close to her? Sewell wrote in the introduction that she repeatedly tried to talk to Carlos and was refused each time. And Carlos’ bio on her website says nothing about being trans. Being trans may be the least important thing about her, but it did have big consequences in her life. I wish we lived in a world where it didn’t. First, it forced her into seclusion for a decade. Then she was in an ongoing battle with media in how she wanted to be portrayed. She wanted to talk music, they wanted to talk surgery. It’s amazing and annoying how many people think they know more about what is going on in Carlos’ head that she does. I agree with Carlos the music is much more important. There’s also a lot of music beyond Bach on a synthesizer. I also agree there is no such thing as a Transgender Symphony in the same way there isn’t female music and male music. I would urge you go out and listen some of it (the albums with Weird Al Yankovic sound quite intriguing) but most of it isn’t available. She found the MP3 format used by download and streaming services to have inadequate sound quality. There are a few videos of her on You Tube which show her with glued on sideburns so she didn’t look too feminine as she appeared under her deadname. Kos of Daily Kos warns us that with the big momentum Harris has there are a lot of scams hoping to cash in. He showed several pleas for money to help Democrats that came over his phone – once one has donated to a campaign one’s phone number is passed around (as I have found with email and snail mail). He investigated some of the groups and found very little gets to candidates – and “consultants” are raking in the bucks. To have your dollars actually go to candidates give those dollars to actual candidates, not PACs. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the nasty guy appearing at the National Association of Black Journalists. This is where he said this doozy:

Now she wants to be known as Black. I don’t know. Is she Indian, or is she Black? ... Because she was Indian all the way, then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went—she became a Black person.

He also accused those on stage of asking rude questions. It didn’t go over well. McCarter of Kos discussed some of the reaction. The nasty guy campaign cut the session short it was going so badly. And afterward he accused a lot of people for the problems. Sumner posted again with other things the nasty guy said that are more horrible than the lines that get all the media coverage. For the record, Sumner says all the claims the nasty guy spouted are, we’re not surprised, lies. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic describing the recent election in Venezuela that incumbent president Nicholas Maduro claimed he won. The opposition disputes that, saying the election was stolen and Edmundo Gonzáles is the true winner. The opposition assumed the election could be stolen and prepared accordingly. They stayed united no matter what Maduro threw their way. Before the election independent polls showed the opposition with a big lead. AltaVista, a parallel-vote-tabulation initiative, obtained real results from a thousand polling stations, photographed them, and sent results around the world. They had data from 70% of precincts and the data showed 66% for Gonzáles. In contrast, the attempt to overturn the results was sloppy with details even loyalists would find hard to believe. Maduro couldn’t even compose an intelligible lie. In the comments exlrrp posted some good memes. One of them is from George Takei:

When did Trump decide he was orange? I knew him as white before.

Another shows, “The ultimate DEI hires: Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka.” In response to Vance and his childless cat ladies is one showing Jesus saying, “Wait til they find out I don’t have kids.” A cartoon by Kipper Williams shows Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and a sign on his platform says, “Thank you for not calling me a content creator.”