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From Yale Daily News
Art major Aliza Shvarts ’08 wants to make a statement.
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, 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. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock — saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.
But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”
“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”
The “fabricators,” or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.
Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.
Art major Juan Castillo ’08 said that although he was intrigued by the creativity and beauty of her senior project, not everyone was as thrilled as he was by the concept and the means by which she attained the result.
“I really loved the idea of this project, but a lot other people didn’t,” Castillo said. “I think that most people were very resistant to thinking about what the project was really about. [The senior-art-project forum] stopped being a conversation on the work itself.”
Although Shvarts said she does not remember the class being quite as hostile as Castillo described, she said she believes it is the nature of her piece to “provoke inquiry.”
“I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” Shvarts said. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”
The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.
Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.
School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, Schvarts’ senior-project advisor, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Few people outside of Yale’s undergraduate art department have heard about Shvarts’ exhibition. Members of two campus abortion-activist groups — Choose Life at Yale, a pro-life group, and the Reproductive Rights Action League of Yale, a pro-choice group — said they were not previously aware of Schvarts’ project.
Alice Buttrick ’10, an officer of RALY, said the group was in no way involved with the art exhibition and had no official opinion on the matter.
Sara Rahman ’09 said, in her opinion, Shvarts is abusing her constitutional right to do what she chooses with her body.
“[Shvarts’ exhibit] turns what is a serious decision for women into an absurdism,” Rahman said. “It discounts the gravity of the situation that is abortion.”
CLAY member Jonathan Serrato ’09 said he does not think CLAY has an official response to Schvarts’ exhibition. But personally, Serrato said he found the concept of the senior art project “surprising” and unethical.
“I feel that she’s manipulating life for the benefit of her art, and I definitely don’t support it,” Serrato said. “I think it’s morally wrong.”
Shvarts emphasized that she is not ashamed of her exhibition, and she has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers.
“It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part,” Shvarts said. “This isn’t something I’ve been hiding.”
The official reception for the Undergraduate Senior Art Show will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 25. The exhibition will be on public display from April 22 to May 1. The art exhibition is set to premiere alongside the projects of other art seniors this Tuesday, April 22 at the gallery of Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall on Chapel Street.
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From the NY POST:
The new Yankee Stadium may be cursed!
A devilish Boston fan working on a concrete crew at the $1.3 billion stadium covertly buried a Red Sox T-shirt under what will become the visiting team's locker room to jinx the Yanks, two construction workers told The Post yesterday.
"In August, a Red Sox T-shirt was poured in a slab in the visitor's clubhouse. It's the curse of the Yankees," one worker said. "Nobody knows about it. It's in the floors, it's buried."
The workers say they now fear that they unwittingly helped hex their beloved Bronx Bombers.
"I don't want to be responsible for sinking the franchise," said a second worker, who witnessed the sabotage. "I respect the stadium."
The Post has withheld their identities because they are not authorized to speak to media.
This latest hex is above and beyond any typical ritual - like wearing a lucky shirt or hat - that fans typically do to boost their luck.
"It sounds a little unprecedented to me," said Tim Wiles, director of research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown.
"I guess if the Yankees go 86 years in the new ballpark without a win we'll know if we are on to something," he said, referring to Boston's previous infamous losing streak after they sold Babe Ruth.
"If I was a Yankees fan, that is my house. I don't want a Red Sox [T-shirt] under my house," he added.
Chris Wertz, co-owner of the Red Sox bar Professor Thom's in the East Village, laughed at the ingenuity of the worker.
"I won't be surprised in the least bit to see that visiting locker room torn up and relaid right away," he said. "This what makes the game special for baseball fans. It's not a mean thing, but something they will take seriously."
Red Sox fans, he said, will see the buried garment as a good-luck charm, especially after years of seeing the retired numbers of four legendary players displayed in Fenway Park.
It has long displayed "9" for Ted Williams, "4" for Joe Cronin, "1" for Bobby Doerr and "8" for Carl Yastrzemski - which comes out to 9-4-18, the day before the World Series that resulted in the last Red Sox championship until 2004.
Baseball historians said these kinds of superstitions are not something to be scoffed at.
"Curses start off very easily. It's all the power of suggestion and they take on a life of their own," said Dan Gordon, co-author of the 2007 book "Haunted Baseball."
"Even the 'Curse of the Bambino' didn't really take off until the 1980s. Before then it was just hard luck," he said.
Mickey Bradley, co-author of "Haunted Baseball," said a worker is said to have buried an unknown good-luck charm in a water main trench of the current Yankee Stadium back in 1920.
"Prior to that, they never they won a World Series," he said.
Players can also bring curses to their teams.
"Look at the curse of A-Rod. The Yankees haven't won since [Alex Rodriguez] came to their game. There's probably more to that than a T-shirt," said Peter Nash, author of "Boston's Royal Rooters," a history of Red Sox fans.
"This just takes the rivalry to whole new level. If you look at 2004, the Yankees were up three games. If Boston lost that, seriously, the whole franchise would have been decimated," said Nash, who performed with the rap duo Third Bass before writing about baseball.
"I think there is a curse in effect already. Maybe the Red Sox T-shirt is like the icing on the cake, a nice little F-you from Boston," he said.
The year 2004, of course, was the year the Red Sox broke their own curse and won the World Series after beating the Yankees in the playoffs.
Still, stadiums have long had their own curses.
One of them is the 1945 "Billy Goat" curse at Wrigley Field, the home of the Chicago cubs.
Legend has it that William Sianis placed a curse on the team after stadium staff refused to let him enter with his pet goat. The team hasn't played in the World Series since 1945.
Superstition in stadiums can also cut the other way and help a team.
The Texas Rangers languished in their old stadium from 1972 to 1993, until they moved into a new ballpark the following year. Since then, the team won three division titles. More recently, the Tampa Rays may be cursed by their own new stadium, which was partially built over a cemetery.
Over the past decade, the team had the worst record in all of Major League Baseball four times and finished last place in their division nine times.
As for the buried emblem of hated Boston, the Yankees say they aren't the least bit worried.
"It sounds like a tall tale, and it would take more than a Red Sox T-shirt to put a curse on the Yankees," said team spokesman Howard Rubenstein.
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THIS IS FUNNY!
From Foxsports.com
Did a baseball trading card company inadvertently launch Major League Baseball's "Steroids Era?"
Instead of bloody gauze and used needles Roger Clemens' ex-trainer claim are proof of the pitcher's juicing, is the original evidence of baseball's sordid steroid history depicted and predicted on pieces of cardboard that were packaged with bubblegum more than 15 years ago?
"What's ironic is that the sport wanted kids to see the game and their favorite players this way," baseball card collector Ben Henry says of the 1992 Topps Kids card series that displays players heads on cartoonishly muscled bodies."Now that all the shenanigans have come to light ... well, it's hard for the public to understand why a sport would tolerate this attitude and behavior for so many years."
Barry Bonds' 1987 Topps card, depicting a slender 21-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder, is often submitted as photographic evidence of the all-time home run leader's dramatic growth over his career. But Bonds' 1992 Topps Kids card is an ironic, before-its-time treasure. It gives the impression the currently unemployed slugger has actually shrunk in recent years.
"Topps certainly prophesied the eventual swallowing of Barry Bonds' head by his shoulders," says baseball card collector William Boehm of the blog A Pack a Day. "Instead of a little cartoon bat and ball at the bottom, wouldn't a cute waving syringe and a jar of BALCO cream have been more appropriate?"
In 1992, Topps was facing something of a crisis. Children, who had long been ravenous baseball card collectors, were becoming priced out of the hobby. In an effort to reclaim this demographic, Topps teamed with artist David Coulson to produce a set of inexpensive, colorful trading cards based on the 1938 Goudey "Heads Up" set. Roughly a quarter of the 132 Topps Kids cards featured players with giant cartoon bodies. Included in the muscle-beach bunch were Bonds, Clemens, Rafael Palmiero and Ken Caminiti, all of whom 15 years later were named in baseball's Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drugs.
So was Coulson prescient ... or a pusher?
"I didn't know much about baseball," he says, looking back at his handiwork with a chuckle. That explains, perhaps, why Ozzie Smith, the lithe and light-hitting Hall of Fame shortstop, appeared as the most jacked of the bunch. Ozzie's caricature is equipped with pectorals that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger blush. "I don't know how [Topps] decided which players to include," says Coulson. Interestingly, Jose Canseco, who has since admitted using steroids (and one of the few players suspected of using prior to 1992), was pictured without a cartoon body.
The Topps Kids set was not a hit among collectors, and 1992 was both its first and last year. "Seven cards and a stick of gum for 35 cents and the set went over like a lead balloon." says David Campbell, a contributor to A Pack a Day. Henry, whose work can be found at The Baseball Card Blog, adds, "Topps overlooked one very important thing about the hobby landscape of 1992: Kids may have been priced out, but they were still collectors like everybody else. They wanted bells and whistles."
But what about today? In light of baseball's highly publicized performance-enhancing-drugs issue, these cards must have gained in popularity and value in recent years. Not so, says Steve Gierman of the White Sox Cards blog. "The reality is that this set has not aged well with collectors," he says. "Doing a quick search on eBay, I can find a complete set for under $8 before shipping. A wax box goes for $14.95 or best offer. Most single cards can be found on eBay for well under a dollar." Another collector/blogger, William Boehm of A Pack a Day adds, "At most, this set is looked at as an ironic novelty."
The resemblance between sluggers of recent vintage and the cartoon figures on the 1992 cards is, of course, entirely coincidental. While the bulked up caricatures of Topps Kids didn't stop the decline of card collecting among children, bulked up real life sluggers did help baseball recover from its post-1994 strike attendance slump. In 1998, sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, themselves possessing ballooned biceps, went toe-to-toe in pursuit of Roger Maris' single season home run record.
A grave concern about baseball's steroids era is that children will emulate their idols by going to dangerous extremes to succeed. Ironically, the 1992 Topps Kids cards, intended to entice youths, are now a cartoonish reminder that baseball lost its innocence.
"A given player isn't overtly portrayed as Superman anymore by card companies or the media," says Henry. "We're left to project this identity on them as fans. The problem for the game is that most of us -- unless
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From ESPN.COM:
Michael Vick might be tossing a football around in prison, but according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it's far from organized.
In an interview with the New York Daily News on Monday, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank said Vick is playing ball in prison to keep his body in shape, his arm limber and to pass the time.
"Apparently, there was a prison football team and he played quarterback for both sides," Blank told the Daily News.
However, federal prison officials told the Journal-Constitution that Vick did not arrive at the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary Camp in time to participate in the facility's football season.
When told of Blank's account of Vick's football activity at the prison, a spokesman for Leavenworth sounded "incredulous," according to the Journal-Constitution.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kevin Johnson told the newspaper.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons told the Journal-Constitution, however, that Vick might be throwing a football in his free time.
"It's not unheard of for inmates to toss around a football," spokesperson Tracy Billingsley told the newspaper. "But there just are no games until the fall."
She also clarified to the newspaper that the inmates play only flag football at the facility.
Vick is serving a 23-month prison term after pleading guilty last August to a federal dogfighting conspiracy. Vick, who was sentenced in December, is projected to be released in July 2009.
Blank, through a spokesperson, declined to be interviewed by the Journal-Constitution.
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