Now Is The Time

June 28, 2019 1:21 PM

Nicole Cliffe profiles Alanis: Alanis Morissette on Pregnancy at 45, Childbirth, Postpartum Depression, and #MeToo
posted by Chrysostom (9 comments total)

So I'm only about a third of the way through the article (why is it I feel like I need to post before finishing? ... probably because I won't finish reading now and I'm not sure I'll make time to come back to it, and I do want to make this comment):

I am appreciating Nicole Cliffe's writing, and her candor about her experience of meeting Alanis: "I knew that there was no chance of me being an objective journalist in our time together."

I especially liked this:

This is the point in the profile in which a heterosexual man would devote two paragraphs to describing the female celebrity’s physical appearance. I will tell you this: She was a glowing angel, ripe with new life. “Ripe” is a cliché, but Alanis could have materialized a perfectly ripe pear in her hand and gently tossed it to me. She was wearing no makeup. That’s all you need to know.

and this:

We as a society have only recently (so recently!) begun to be more open to discussing miscarriages and reproductive struggles in general, and so it still comes as a shock to hear someone offer you the softest part of their heart to hold in this way.

The myth of objective journalism tends to impose such detachment. Acknowledging the immense vulnerability of this part of the conversation is surprising, and refreshing.

Thank you for this, Chrysostom!
posted by kristi at 2:17 PM on June 28, 2019 [13 favorites]

this is excellent. thanks for posting.
posted by somanyamys at 2:33 PM on June 28, 2019

Indeed, this is not your typical celebrity profile and, imho, well worth your time. (I mean, would you expect anything less from Nicole Cliffe?) Someone on Twitter aptly referred to it as "emotional gonzo."
posted by mhum at 2:39 PM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

Also, one other thing I observed from the reactions to this piece on Twitter is that Americans really did not know about Alanis Morrisette's earlier teenage pop incarnation as Alanis. And hence, the whole Robin Sparkles/Robin Daggers bits on How I Met Your Mother Your Mother were kind of an inside joke just for Canadians.
posted by mhum at 3:07 PM on June 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

And hence, the whole Robin Sparkles /Robin Daggers bits on How I Met Your Mother Your Mother were kind of an inside joke just for Canadians.

There were a lot of inside jokes just for Canadians on that show. My favourite was when Robin goes to a bar that caters to Canadians and someone accidentally turns out the lights and everyone in the bar goes "Ooooooooohhhhh".
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:30 PM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

"the kind of person who will sit on a park bench with a stranger and clasp hands and say things like, “Were you progressing? Did they try to up your pitocin? Did they offer to pop your bag of waters?” while listening with genuine intensity and love."

Someone call the burn unit for my third degree burns.
posted by CMcG at 5:36 PM on June 28, 2019

This was wonderful to read. I've loved and followed Morrissette since JLP (I keep buying her CDs even still!), and this article gave me a perspective on her life I'd never really had before. It's probably the first profile of her I've read, and it is so wonderfully well-written, personal and involved but entirely journalistic.

Thanks so much for posting this!
posted by hippybear at 8:23 PM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Trauma, handled or unhandled, or in the process of being handled, is a thread you can trace through my entire conversation with Alanis, and we touched on how it informs her parenting when she casually mentioned her “four boundaries,” which I needed to know more about immediately.

“I talk about this with my kids a lot, the four boundaries being: You can't tell me what I'm thinking, you can't tell me what I'm feeling, you can't fucking touch my body/you can't do anything with my body, and don't touch my stuff,” Alanis told me.

“And those are the main ones,” Alanis said. “Literally if ever there's a little moment between Onyx and Ever I'll just go ‘which of the four was it?’ You can't slap her, you can't grab his things.”

I'm just gonna sit here and process that.
posted by Cozybee at 10:46 PM on June 29, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is such a fantastic interview, thank you for posting!
posted by ellieBOA at 8:35 AM on July 8, 2019