{"id":12694,"date":"2020-02-07T12:55:27","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T20:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000007078"},"modified":"2020-02-07T13:38:23","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:38:23","slug":"podcast-why-karen-carpenter-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/podcast-why-karen-carpenter-matters","title":{"rendered":"PODCAST: Why Karen Carpenter matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/756839005&amp;color=%23ff0000&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>On Episode #32 of \u201cCan You Hear Me, Long Beach?\u201d Karen Tongson talks about her book, &#8220;Why Karen Carpenter Matters.&#8221; Tongson, a professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity and Gender and Sexuality Studies at USC, is the child of Filipino musician parents who named her after the pop icon.<\/p>\n<p>Her book interweaves the story of the singer\u2019s rise to fame with Tongon&#8217;s own trans-Pacific journey between Manila\u2014where imitations of American pop styles flourished\u2014and Karen Carpenter\u2019s home ground of Southern California.<\/p>\n<p>In arranging and producing this episode, which also features a segment with dating columnist June Diaz who swears she&#8217;s swearing off love, it was surprising to us that, to a younger demographic here in Long Beach, Karen Carpenter&#8217;s name many times elicits this: &#8220;Oh, is she the name on the building?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The building is the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center at Cal State Long Beach. And yes, that&#8217;s her name on the building, along with her brother Richard. But the reason her name is on the building is what&#8217;s important: Karen and Richard formed the Carpenters, a soft-rock, easy listening duo out of Downey that are simply one of the most successful acts in American popular music history.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10000013382 size-large\" style=\"font-weight: bold; font-size: 1rem;\" src=\"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/49325784_10106728112914615_4872718930789007360_n-1110x1110.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Karen Tongson. Photo courtesy Karen Tongson\/Facebook.During their 14-year career, the Carpenters recorded ten albums, have sold 90 million records, have multiple top-10 and number one hits as well as won multiple Grammys. Their success was driven by Richard&#8217;s production genius and Karen&#8217;s sweet, crystalline, yet always plaintive vocals; Paul McCartney called Karen &#8220;the best female voice in the world: melodic, tuneful and distinctive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s who Karen Carpenter was\u2014the singer passed away on Feb. 4, 1983 from issues related to an eating disorder. Her death shining a light on that subject in much the same way Magic Johnson&#8217;s HIV announcement brought attention to that.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, you don&#8217;t need to tell any of this to Tongson.<\/p>\n<p>She spoke about how the Carpenters&#8217; chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of &#8220;normal love&#8221; now have profound significance for her\u2014as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter\u2019s legacy. Her hybrid memoir\/biography examining the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters\u2019 sound, while finding the beauty in the singer&#8217;s flawed, all too brief life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Karen, along with brother Richard, formed the Carpenters, a duo out of Downey that are one of the most successful acts in American popular music history<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":70845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","pmpro_default_level":0,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","footnotes":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[16],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2890],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12694"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=12694"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}