Jezebel
crimson tides
Posts Tagged “
miscarriage
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Avant Garde Assholes
Excellent essayist and Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum weighs in on the Aliza Shvarts controversy and decides that our favorite art agitator isn't actually all that original, especially when compared to a batty Brit named Mary Toft. "Many artists, including photographer Cindy Sherman and multimedia artist Judy Chicago, have incorporated menstrual blood into their work. As for those maybe-miscarriages and their role in performance art, hoax or some combination thereof, Shvarts has nothing on 18th century Englishwoman Mary Toft. In 1726, Toft became a sensation when she managed to convince the public and much of the medical community that she was repeatedly giving birth to rabbits." [LAT]
crimson tides
period pieces?
One Thing Is Certain: Right Now, Yale University & Aliza Shvarts '08 Are 100% Annoying
I seem to be the only one of the Jezebels online and — lucky for me! — now we're hearing that Aliza Shvarts is disputing Yale University's claim that her performance piece was a work of fiction. Reports the Yale Daily News:
Shvarts stood by her project, calling the University's statement "ultimately inaccurate."...But Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly used a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant. "No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen," Shvarts said, "because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties."Oh, Christ. Anyway, interested (and still-awake) readers can learn more here. I, for one, have had about enough of this youngster and am going to exercise my right to control my body and go to bed.
University Calls Art Project A Fiction; Shvarts '08 Disputes Yale's Claim [Yale Daily News]
updates
Yale: Abortion Art Piece Was "Creative Fiction"
So it turns out that Aliza Shvarts, the Yale student who said she impregnated herself only to abort her embryos using "herbal" methods several times over for an art project, totally pulled one over on everyone. (Well, everyone except Moe.) She didn't really get pregnant a bunch of times, and she didn't really give herself abortions. According to a statement issued by Yale spokesperson Helaine S. Klasky, the entire stunt — Shvarts' press release, visual presentation, and narrative materials — was all part of Shvarts' real art project: Proving people are gullible weenies. More »
avant-garde assholes
Yale Senior Undergoes Multiple Self-Induced Miscarriages In The Name Of Art
Update: It was fake.
Yale University senior Aliza Shvarts, left, swears she's not trying to "scandalize anyone." Her art is definitely not designed purely for "shock value,". Even so, it's hard to know what to call Shvarts' senior thesis, "a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself 'as often as possible' while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages." Yup, in an attempt to start a dialogue about art and its relationship to the body, Shvarts is displaying plastic sheeting reportedly smeared with the uterine blood and tissue from her various miscarriages and projecting video of herself miscarrying into a bathtub. "I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity," Shvarts tells the Yale Daily News. "I think that I'm creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be." The thing is, Shvarts' art isn't so much commenting on politics or ideologies but her own need for attention.
Truth To Flower
Novelist (Little Stalker, Going Down) Jennifer Belle, 40, on suffering a miscarriage, followed by two successful pregnancies: "I was inconsolable over not having children. I wanted to be a mother very badly. It's going to sound dark, but I think there should be something between now and cancer." And! ""There's nothing more exciting in life than seeing that baby for the first time. But then it's like, 'Congratulations, now you're going to be exhausted and depressed and have career-financial suicide.'" [NY Times]
Novelist (Little Stalker, Going Down) Jennifer Belle, 40, on suffering a miscarriage, followed by two successful pregnancies: "I was inconsolable over not having children. I wanted to be a mother very badly. It's going to sound dark, but I think there should be something between now and cancer." And! ""There's nothing more exciting in life than seeing that baby for the first time. But then it's like, 'Congratulations, now you're going to be exhausted and depressed and have career-financial suicide.'" [NY Times]
jitters
Coffee: Causes Miscarriage, Helps Ovaries, And Makes You Fat
Okay, remember the reports earlier this week that coffee and caffeine can terminate a pregnancy and protect ovaries from cancer? Well, news reports today suggest that all that java is making women fat. A report issued by British consumer watchdog group Which? says that "a Starbucks large white chocolate mocha with whipped cream and made with whole milk was found to contain 628 calories - nearly a third of the recommended daily amount for women." (Emphasis ours.)More »
jitters
Coffee Causes Miscarriage (Except When It Doesn't)
Potentially bad news for knocked-up Starbucks babes: A study published today suggests that women who consume more than 200 milligrams of caffeine a day double their risk of miscarriage in the first three months of pregnancy. (To put "200 milligrams" in perspective, a "tall" regular coffee from the 'Bux has 260 mg alone.) Researchers writing in the American Journal Of Obstetrics and Gynecology surmise that caffeine can have a negative effect on a developing embryo by restricting blood flow to the placenta or by interfering with the normal function of developing cells. (It can be difficult for a fetus or embryo to metabolize the stimulant.) But! Researchers in the journal Epidemiology aren't entirely convinced. More »
Really sad news, guys: Us magazine is reporting that Lily Allen suffered a miscarriage. Her rep says: "She and her partner Ed Simons will be making no further comment and we ask that their privacy be respected during this difficult time." [Us Magazine]
