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Richard quotes Herb Alpert who describes Karen's vocal presence as "She sounds as if she's right in your lap". It's that presence that I fell in love with in high school and am still in love with today. Of course, I didn't know her personally.
In dreams, fiction books, etc. I believe Karen is protrayed the way the authors want to see her. I know in my dream she was perfect.
There's also the larger than life persona that we give to certain public people who pass away.
Is there anyone who has cut through the fog and put together a picture of Karen's personality, etc. Who was she? What was she really like?

That's a tough one..... don't even know if Richard could really answer that one......I mean, there's always a part of yourself that you keep just for yourself. That sounds confusing...... I'm not great with words....... I guess, when I was much younger, I felt about her like you did.... that she was perfect...... now that I'm older, I realize she was just a regular person who struggled thru life with an eating disorder. She had happiness and sadness and accomplished much in her short time on earth and left a lasting legacy for us to appreciate and enjoy.

I agree we will probably never know the true Karen Carpenter the closest one would be Richard and I am not sure how well he truely knew the real Karen Carpenter. Karen is often described as personable funny gifted and gererous a true friend to her friends but clearly there was alot more going on with Karen than anyone will ever know she was certainly complex her illness that eventually killed her is testiment to that. We can only go by the testimony of those who knew Karen; the Karen she projected to those she knew. That is the closest we will get to knowing the true Karen Carpenter I have spent many decades learninng about Karen watching all the bios and interviews from people who knew Karen but I still feel I don't truely know Karen and never will even if I had the opportunity to get to know Karen when she was alive on a personal level I would not likely ever get the entire story. Just my thoughts.
Edited by enigma, 26 April 2010 - 01:00 PM.

I strongly doubt that...

No, it was his dream, I bet he's sure about that.

(Just messin' with you Beto)

So yes, of course she wasn't perfect. Who is? (Rhetorical question, don't answer)

Betos---Karen was perfect. My dream was so shallow, 3 songs and a see ya, that she could have been no other way. And of course, I was perfect, too

Maybe I would not have liked the real Karen, who knows. This reminds me of a Star Trek Next Generation episode where Geordi opens a holodeck program that includes the female engineer who designed the Enterprise. He fell in love with the holodeck creation as they were saving the ship from disaster. In a later episode, Geordi meets the real engineer with designs on winning her heart. She then tells him she is..married.

As Spock said, You may find that having is not as pleasing a thing as wanting. So many times in life I find it to be true. In this case, I nor the other guys who have had dreams about Karen will never know. When I sing with her, I imagine looking at her or I look at her image on Youtube videos. She never looks at me and says "You sing likie crap." It's a little piece of heaven for me.

The only real insight we have to Karen's personality is from her stage performances and thru the newsletters from the fan club. Sure there are parts of we will never know....it's not possible with famous people. I'm sure they all have a part they don't want anyone to know.We do know she was funny......talented....loved needlework....horses.....cooking(for others).....liked all kinds of music, even DISCO......liked movies and tv......she was an enigma when it came to her own talents,though.

Cheryl

She never says that to me, either, thank goodness. Even though mostly I do.



A friend of mine who is the lead singer in a local band says that when people listen, they can experience an emotional connection to her that she can't possibly know about. Her song, or the way she sings it, might remind them of their first love or their second car or their Aunt Mary, and they get the feeling that they know her and she knows them, because how else could she sing a song with such personal meaning? She will be at a venue one time and then again say, 6 months later, and the people in that city will react like she was just there, and since she talked to them that time too, now they're friends, and they can say "Oh, I KNOW her"

But they don't, really. They just know her stage/public persona - what she lets them see, or what they imagine they see. Like we do with Karen. Or anyone else we're fans of.

Then again, isn't everyone else kind of perfect if you dont really know them? I mean, the other people at your job, or even here on this forum...no one else has laundry piles, or cars that sometimes don't start, or kids who struggle in math, or bad hair days. right? All of us see of each other only what we let show.

Good stuff Summer.

You've made a lot of good points. Is it the same as "Gotta be good-lookin' cause he's so hard to see!"?

"Come together, riiiiiiiiiiight now,................... over me!"

The public Karen was seen as outgoing and fun to be around and I'm sure that she was, but the private Karen wasn't known to many (maybe not anyone apart from herself).

As far as I know she never kept a journal or a diary and her meetings with Steven Levenkron would have been confidential (was anything ever released about her sessions with him?), so I don't think much is known about her private thoughts.

I would like to ask Olivia Newton John what Karen was like,
just being two friends who had the same career, fame and fortune,
and could talk with each other like girls do...

Welcome Jill!

You should jump over to member introductions and introduce yourself! We'd love to hear it!

That would be very interesting, especially as it seems that they were such good friends....