SLUDGE DADDY SUPREME

"games are special.... because we... have stories to tell..."

"Laois"

Thinking about that one Wendy Carlos video where she's boymoding and has the big fake glued on sideburns and the suit, but with beautifully shaped eyebrows and that t-girl voice, and shes completely and utterly unconvincing trying to pass as a man, but also shes just so excitedly infodumping about moog synthesizers and batting her eyelashes its hard not to fall in love with her.

This was one of Wendy's last television appearances for a very long time. She came out publicly nine years later in an interview with Playboy magazine and talked about how miserable she was at this point in her life. She'd released Switched-On Bach as Walter Carlos in October of 1968, less than a year after she'd begun HRT, when the physical changes were becoming more noticeable.  Wendy had been living as a woman in her private and social life, but the public appearances and interviews she had to do in the wake of its commercial success and critical acclaim were a source of profound anxiety and dysphoria.  Wendy used to cry in her hotel room as she applied the press-on sideburns, put on a wig to hide her long hair, and used an eyeliner to fake a five-o' clock shadow before going on television shows (and before her meeting with Stanley Kubrick to compose the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange); few people bothered to hide their speculation and open disgust.

It's really hard to get ahold of these days, but if you can find a copy of Secrets of Synthesis, I highly recommend it. We go over it a little bit in this episode of the radio show from 2019, but YouTube flagged it before it even went live, so it's just on dublab.

she’s still with us and she maintains her own website, for those who didn’t know