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]