Go Ask Aliza: Shvarts-Embryo-Art Describes Her First
Good news! Aliza Shvarts—the Yalie who staged a hostile takeover of the 24-hour news cycle last spring with nothing but a turkey baster, a jar of vaseline, and her fertile loins—is back, in the most ironic role possible: Educating little girls on reproductive health.
That's right, Yale's most notorious artist is a featured contributor in My Little Red Book, an anthology of first period stories edited by fellow Eli Rachel Kauder Nalebuff. Blurbed by Gloria Steinem, My Little Red Book is a strangely high-profile affair featuring the likes of Erica Jong and Gossip Girl originator Cecily von Ziegesar. Luckily, even the heftiest of literary minds is rendered totally preposterous in the face of adolescent menstruation and associated awkwardness, so this will be a fun post, after all. For a frighteningly weird peek into reproductive lives of Shvarts-Period-Art, Jong, and von Ziegesar (featuring phrases like "blood and poop and pee" and "clean white crotch of another girl") read on!
Erica Jong's contribution—"Fear of Fourteen"—is sort of a cop-out because it's about her daughter's first period instead of her own, which means Jong is officially the Most Embarrassing Mom in the World:
The most interesting part of Jong's contribution, however, is this:
Certain phrases are really hard to use in the context of a pubescent schoolgirl's coming of age. "Press ripe cherries into the clean white crotch" is one of them. "She put on the panties and freaked" might be another.
Naturally, nearly every bewildered story refers to Judy Blume bildungswoman Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, which is basically the OG of Menstrual Art in America. Cecily von Ziegesar pays lip service to Blume before launching into the story of her menarche, which focuses mainly on von Ziegesar family dysfunction:
Proving, yet again, that Cecily von Ziegesar is Serena van der Woodsen.
And now, that moment you've all been waiting for, the Portrait of the Period Artist As a Young Girl, Aliza Shvarts' menstrual debut!
Not with a bang, but a whimper: The same anticlimactic end her thesis fiasco had. Sigh.
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Read more: aliza shvarts, art, books, erica jong, gloria steinem, gossip girl, my little red book, rachel kauder nalebuff, Sex, Yale
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February 11th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Her mother was going to show her a bit more about adulthood with the new boyfriend?
Too much? I don’t think so when it comes to Shvarts.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
this was in the YDN a week and a half ago. if you’re going to steal stuff, at least do it with some timliness! god!
ivygate’s death spiral continues…
February 13th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I mean, I didn’t see it in the YDN, so I’m happy.
But I’m still worried about IvyGate, and worried that we still need a less white/black look to the sight (it’s hard on the eyes). How about a light grey background? It’s one line of CSS…
February 13th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Andy bight sight I meant site.
…or was it a pun?
February 17th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Boyfriend huh? Not very surprising that Shvarts comes from a broken family. I’m not saying every child from a broken family winds up like Shvarts but that it is statistically more likely. Which is why promotion of family values is sound public policy.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:31 am
yayylie, your ignorance is only surpassed by your Christian-American white upper-middle class ethic. As most of us know, our lives are a summation of each of our experiences, whatever they may be. I’m quite certain that there are numerous amounts of children that have separated parents, and yet there still exists only one Aliza Shvarts. Furthermore, I’m also quite certain that Shvarts has done more with her Yale education than you will ever do, or ever fathom to do. However, I am pleased to see that you have the ability to wrap everything up in a nice, neat little package that implies the world. I hope this has been enlightening to your ways of ignorant bliss and judgement. Good day.
P.S. – What’s Bill O’Reilly like in person?