I Dream of Bebe Barron

Well I mean I dream about having her life. Her and her husband are credited with being the first electronic music artists in the world. Pretty fucking cool.

Ok so imagine this is totally your life, you're 22 years old. It's 1947, two years after the end of the single biggest influential event of the decade, World War II.

There are larger and larger rumblings of  the oncoming Civil Rights movement being felt throughout the country.  Television just became available to the public with 13 channels. The first computer had just been invented. During the last decade, women had experienced greater freedoms because of the war. Rosie the Riveter had become an icon of the working woman, the All American Girls Professional Baseball League ("there's no crying in baseball!") was in full swing, and women, now accustomed to a new and changing society, were creating the political and social foundations for gaining greater equalities in the workplace.


Bebe and Louis are from Minneapolis but get married and move to New York City in 1947. As wedding gift they get a tape recorder and begin recording people at their house parties.

Aren't these people like the cutest couple ever? Recording shit at their house parties? Aren't house parties the greatest?

Soon Louis starts tinkering with circuit boards, he's always loved soldering and electronics. He makes circuit boards that emit sound which Bebe records on the tape recorder.

They just fuck around. Making up "plays" where the sounds are actors.  They don't even think of it as a musical composition, though Bebe does have a musical background. They are just having fun.

Soon Bebe starts spending time listening to noises and picking out what sounds good.  She starts making new noises, using multiple tape recorders. She invents the tape loop.

She fucking invents the tape loop.

Bebe and her husband go on to record the first electronic album "Forbidden Planet" and open the first electronic music recording studio, recording the likes of Tennessee Williams and Henry Miller.


Bebe gives John Cage a boner because she's so badass and he begins encouraging her artistically, while he himself begins the authoring of a new art form.  The Barron's get involved in creating the first sound effects in film and begin a royal rein in Hollywood as the Queen and King of film sound.

Bebe's work ignited a great debate on whether her creations were of artistic or scientific value.  And she continued to work in the field of electronic recording throughout her life.

 I dream of Bebe indeed!
So when you're dancing to that Hot Chip track tonight, you can dance in honor of Bebe.

More info about Bebe and Louis Barron can be found on NPR

RIP

Bebe Barron

June 16, 1925 to April 20, 2008

Like a virgin, touched for the very first time

A new device being marketed in Egypt claims to stimulate the bleeding a virgin bride should experience on her wedding night. Cause nothing says love and hotness like a little vag blood, am I right?

According to NPR, "The online ad from Gigimo promises women "no more worry," because they can restore their virginity for just $29.95. The ad says the "artificial virginity hymen" fits in the vagina and, upon penetration, oozes a bloodlike liquid."

Ahh yeah, oozing a bloodlike liquid, that's getting me hot just thinking about it. Luckily, the device has sparked an outrage in Egypt. Unfortunately, it's because such a device would supposedly let women tramp it up and then still appear virgins to their poor unsuspecting husbands. Husbands like this young Egyptian man:

"Ahmed Rifaat, 19, says no matter how much he loved a girl, he would drop her instantly if he found out that she wasn't a virgin.

When asked if it should be the same for the male, he says, "No, it's not a big deal if the guy's not a virgin. I'm not speaking about Islam — I'm just saying it's normal. But she has to be a virgin, because she's a girl. She's a girl! That's just the way it is."

She's a girl!!! A girl! That's why!!! Don't you get it?! SHE'S A GIRL! If I keep repeating that will it make sense? Probably not, huh, because it's a ridiculous double standard that still prevails in many parts of the world. On the female side of the spectrum we have responses like this:

"Sitting next to Ahmed is his cousin Aya, who laughs at Ahmed's logic but seems resigned to the prevailing view that forgiveness for premarital sex is a one-way street.

"For me, men and women are the same," she says. "The only reason he said it's normal is because he's a guy. But I would never marry a guy who wasn't a virgin. Well, maybe if we were really in love and it was just once and he was honest about it, maybe I could forgive it."

Hmm. I wouldn't go that route myself. As many accomplished ladies who have lain virgin boys know, it's usually not pretty. However, it's sad that while some women in these places believe that men and women should be equal they are still resigned to the double standards that prevail.

Yet, the story ends on an uplifting note. Some women, like Amy Mowafi, are opposed to the device because it simply provides a loop hole out of the hypocrisy of the hymen debate.

"The problem with a device like this," she says, "is it makes it too easy for the woman to play by the rules of society instead of standing up and saying, 'No, you need to understand that I am a good person. And it should not all come down to this issue of a hymen.' "

Hymens ain't nothing but a he thang.

What?! Safe abortion leads to decline in abortions?

Get your head out of your ass. Yes, according to NPR, liberal abortion laws lead to a decline in abortions.

Is it because with relaxed abortion restrictions contraception is more often available? Or perhaps because when you let women control their reproductive health they opt for abortions less often because really, no one wants to have an abortion. I feel like the anti-choice side likes to make it seem like people that defend abortion are all rushing to the nearest clinic to get them one a those handy dandy abortions. The reality is that everyone wants less abortions. It's just been proven that:

"legal abortion does not cause abortion," Sue Cohen, director of government affairs at Guttmacher tells us. "And illegal abortion does not make abortion go away."

Legal abortion means women are given correct information and access to contraception so that they are able to decide when and how to get pregnant, or not. So yay for less abortions and yay for reproductive rights!