BPA, B.S.

It's been a while since Ive managed to make fun of GOOP, Gwynnie Paltz' lifestyle schmagazine. Sadly, Gwyn has developed a touch of sensitivity as regards being perceived to be a spoiled, patronizing tit; either that, or she's simply hired a publicist to help squelch the damage. The resulting GOOPy letters are filled with bonhomie towards the plebs and innocent content involving detox regimens that even plebs can afford, or sweet little cookie recipes that can make a mom on unemployment pretend she is Gwynnie for a day.

It's disappointing, from a satirical perspective, to see the vanilla flavor of Gwyn's newsletters. But in a recent eco-fabulous-themed newsletter filed under the subtly themed GET section of GOOP, Gwynnz dissed the BPA bottle, proffering some sort of water bottle called a "KOR hydration vessel" that is made without those terrible toxins. And of course is slender, minimalistically mod and design-y, and costs a pretty penny.

All of which reminded me that I have yet to rant against the BPA b.s. that has filled the mommy airwaves over the years. (So many rants! So little time!) Sure, none of us like to have our wee tots drinking from the noxiously perfumed plastic water bottles that come with their Hello Kitty lunchboxes direct from Guangdong, China. I too have bought into the pricey SIGG bottle scene. But equally, new info shows it won't kill our little muffins to drink out of something aside from a (very pricey) SIGG water bottle, or schmantzy baby bottle, for those of you with infants. As a mother who has newly invested in a $22 SIGG water bottle for Crabkid's summer camp, only to have the dang thing go missing in a week, it is heartening for me to learn that this whole BPA brouhaha is just a storm in a teacup.

Or at least, from one perspective.

Read this and also, this, a far chunkier essay. Both links came to me courtesy of George Mason University's STATS, a marvelous entity devoted to dispelling spurious scientific claims. Of course anyone speaking out against the BPA freakout gets an onslaught of attack, so the author of the second article has also written up a quite interesting Q&A.

And on the subject of junk science and the culture of parental fearmongering, I was most impressed by this breathtaking piece by Shannon Des Rochas Rosa at BlogHer, on autism cults. This comes from someone who experienced it from the inside. It's great to see more moms speaking out against cult websites like Generation Rescue, who profess to doing good but do so much harm. Vaccinate your children, you bunch of crazy culties.

Rant over. The monkey bars call (or rather, a certain someone is calling for Mom to take her to them).

This is the part where I ask you what you think of non-vaccinating or BPAs....but it's actually unnecessary b/c of course if you have a strong opinion, you will share it with me in the comments, as well you should, my lovelies!

GOOP OFF! Gwynnie's ticked off with me!

It is a sad thing when the world commands so much of one's attention that one can't make good on one's promises: I had promised you I'd dissect every single GOOP newsletter that Gwynnie-pops Paltrow ever sent me, but I'm several newsletters behind.

But at least I used the pronoun "one" in the above paragraph, which gives one a certain a propos British tone, when one is speaking of a certain transplanted member of the Commonwealth. A certain member who sends out monthly GOOPy newsletters in order to share with the world her "incredible" and "very lucky, very unique life."

Anyhoo, in the latest installment of GOOP. I really feel Gwynz hit the nail on the head. Finally, she is actually talking to me, not above me or down to me, but to me.

Me, personally. Because this week's newsletter focuses on people who enjoy taking others down. It involves a very big, very German word, that Gwyneth wants one to rid oneself of: schadenfreude. This week, Gwyneth asks a bunch of her sages how we can stop being such bitchrocks, crabmommies and generally mean-o people who delight in the dressing down of others:

I’m curious about the spiritual concept of “evil tongue” (speaking evil of others) and its pervasiveness in our culture. Why do people become energized when they say or read something negative about someone else? What does it say about where that person is? What are the consequences of perpetuating negativity or feeling schadenfreude?

And I totally know she is talking about Crabmommy. Because Gwyn recently spoke the evil tongue in the media, jabbing back at those of those of us who have been speaking the evil tongue about GOOP:

F--k the haters! I saw this blog of people writing horrible things about me and for a second your ego is so wounded. How could people hate me, my intentions or what I’m trying to do? I’m a good person and I’m trying to put good things into the world.

Gawd, do you think it could really be me she's talking to? I am so totally hoping so! But there are a few of us who have GOOPed off on the lass, so I can't be sure she was talking to the Crabmom. No matter, either way this hit of pure schadenfreude I just received—in knowing that Gwyn has been made to feel like a toss (albeit only for a wounded second) about this pretentious, condescending new empire of hers—is wonderfully energizing. Almost like a trip to the gym! Thanks, Gwyn!

But hey, in all seriousness, when the laughter has died down we haters need to look deep within ourselves and see the negative energy we shoot at others for the pernicious awfulness that it is. Yes, I know there are people out there who think it's time I stopped dissing on the Gwyn. Including Gwyn herself. And lawd knows her Zen and Kabbalist sages wouldn't approve of my childish scoffing!!

The problem is I happen to think raining on smug people's parades is something of a social service. And it feels so good!

That was the devil speaking in evil tongues on my shoulder just there! Sorry! I really am trying to take the sages' advice to heart. Let me try again. Hmmm...let me see...can I hear the good voice deep within my inner aspect... the nourishing voice? The inner, nicer Crabmommy? Yes, I can....here she is:

"Hi, guys! I'm Crabmom's inner nourishing angel. I don't get out much, so excuse me if I sound a little shy and unsure of myself. Um, Crabmommy? Leave Gwyneth alone! Ignore her newsletter if you don't want it, and stop trashing something simply designed to be helpful, something designed to put good things into the world, something that comes from Gwyn's innermost aspect! OK?"

Me: "You mean the aspect that motivates her to share her 'very unique life' [sic.]?"

Angel: "What does 'sic' mean?"

Me: "It means there's no such thing as 'very unique.' We are all unique, each person on the planet as important and unique as the next. That's Zen 101, Gwynnie!"

Angel: "Hey! If you can't say anything nice, why don't you just say nothing at all! F--k you, hater!"

SPLAT!

Yes, that was the sound of me killing my inner angel. Once and for all.

I think it's fair to say I'm going a bit loopy and goopy over here. Enough nonsense! Here's the thing: I can't and won't stop reading my GOOP! For I don't keep reading that GOOP I will not be able to reap, albeit secondhand, the rewards that come from reading the words of someone privileged enough to tap the very greatest sages on earth in order to go very deeply and organically into her very nourishing inner aspect even if outwardly she sounds like a patronizing prig. Quite simply, if I don't got GOOP, I can't pick out my next sailor-striped tee, much less my next kitchen sink:

I have this incredible, blessed, sometimes difficult, very lucky, very unique life, and I've gotten to travel all over the place and to work and live in different cities. … I go on tour with my husband and go to cities I would never necessarily go to. So I started accruing all of this information. I am the person my friends call when they want to know: "I am redoing this bathroom, and I want a sink that looks midcentury, but a contemporary version of a midcentury. Where should I go?"

—Gwyneth Paltrow

Goop OFF! African Wisdom from Gwynnie

I know I promised regular GOOP analyses but I'm behind by several GOOPy bulletins. Alas, it's hard to keep up with Gwyneth! She's got such a work ethic with those newsletters of hers.

Since talking about her favorite rock-star hotels to not recommend to you and her fave NYC restaurants that you won't get into, she's been super-busy in the kitchen cooking things you can't afford, like oysters in champagne sauce and things drowning in something called agave syrup (I haven't a clue what that is but I suspect it's heaps pricier than good old refined sugar, which makes Gwyn "cringe").

But in all fairness Gwyn's latest newsletters have been a bit more useful. Maybe one of her chums told her she needs to get plebbier and less condescending if she wants to become a lifestyle guru. So she's working harder to reach the lower echelons and to help us uplift ourselves. And uplifted I definitely feel after tucking into some Gwynnie prose!

When not devouring Dostoyevsky and Chekhov, Gwyn is either cooking or scrutinizing her inner aspect in compelling new ways. Indeed, this past month she's taught me how to eat an artichoke, how to make a bowl of peas (that's the rustic plebby part; they go with meatballs) and she's also taught me, via one of her gurus, that one's sense of well-being is enhanced when one practices the African art of "ubuntu," a word denoting a heightened sense of our shared humanity.

As one born and raised in South Africa where ubuntu was invented, I feel pleased knowing that Gwynnie is herself tapping into her inner township mama and getting into the vibe of community consciousness. I assume I can now camp out on the lawn of her Hamptons estate this summer and I look forward to it with every inch of my inner aspect. Enkosi gakulu, sisi! (That's "thanks, sister!" in Xhosa!)

Meantime, the Crabfam has expanded our own sense of community consciousness: we're sharing our home with three new friends! Yay!

GOOP Off!

Newsflash! We interrupt yesterday's long and serious Crabmommy post on manners (but please read it! It took me bloody ages!) to bring you the latest bulletin from GOOPy Gwyn Paltrow. This week she salutes New York City, and gives us awesome tips for where to dine and stay when you have no money and no connections to Mario Batali! Here's my fave rec from the NYC newsletter:

The Bowery Hotel
The Bowery has been one of my homes-away-from-home in the last year. It is a very cool spot, with the people to match. As it is located on Bowery I wouldn't recommend it to the Park Avenue set, but my English rock star friends can’t get enough of it.

Good to know, Gwynnie-pops! Super-useful, as always. Now all the reader has to do is ask, Am I in "the Park Avenue set" or am I a rock star? Hmmmm...

Next week's GOOP: "Some of my closest friends and I will be sharing our favorite novels." I expect we'll be hearing Madonna discourse on Middlemarch. I can't wait!

Great Coat, Bernie Madoff!

After a delightful winter break of resting on a tiny deck chair in the Bahamian sunshine, my blogging finger has returned bronzed, buffed, and ready to get back to business here at Crabmommy, reporting on significant financial, cultural, emotional, maternal, and trivial events as I see them.

I should qualify that I refer to my "blogging finger" because I am still one of those people who can't type properly and who types with my right index finger dominating the keyboard. Regretfully, when I was at high school, typing was a skill taught only to those who were truly tanking academically. Amazing to think the one practical ability that would have helped me out in my chosen profession of writing is now lost to me forever. And I say "forever" because I am super-fast with my blogging finger but feel that my spastic bashing with blog finger is now such a part of me that I could never unlearn it in favor of dignified ten-finger typing.

Anyhoo. Hoping you and yours had a swell time at Christmas, and were successful at attempting to mask whatever feelings of envy, frustration, bitterness, martyrdom, and futility accompany most family gatherings.

Speaking of the hols and family, one has to wonder how Hanukkah went down for the Madoffs this year. Which leads me to my blog title: seriously, does Bernie Madoff not have the most awesome coats and jackets (in that Upper East Side patrician genre)? Even the black tie he dons for that somber "mea culpa" look is indisputably chic! Check it out:White-collar-criminal fabulous, I say! Fewking-A!

I am truly obsessed with Bernz Madoff. He's being so naughty this week! Did you hear he sent fancy mittens to friends and family, in addition to some jewelry whose value is being hotly debated? His lawyer said that sending mittens doesn't constitute a violation of Madoff's bail agreement. Indeed, the mittens are free to go to Montauk without any sort of tracking device whatsoever.

Okay, so I'm not making sense, but really, nothing about any of this makes sense, eh? For my money, I think it's wonderfully entertaining to read about. I am fascinated picturing Bernard, all handsome and silvery, sitting on a plush chair in Park Avenue eating kosher meals in frozen silence with his wife, Ruth, staring in defeat at the embers of a dying fire in the handsome Beaux Arts fireplace...or maybe they scream at each other and Ruth hurls bowls of her famous matzoh-ball soup at the wall (Ruth is a celebrated chef, FYI). Another scenario: maybe she really did know what beloved Bernie was up to all along and so for fear of being bugged they communicate in sign language or write furious notes to one another on miniature blackboards (like the one that Anthony Hopkins had when he played that ridiculous old man in Legends of the Fall) —communications regarding secret bank accounts and buried baubles...

Oh to be a fly on Madoff's wall! And to return to you able to repeat the dialogue between the Madoffs!

I will return to you soon, my friends, with if not a word-by-word recording of Madoff convos, then at least more GOOP reportage. Because I have been receiving wonderful newsletters and recipes from Gwyneth over the holidays and I have learned much that both Gwyneth and I wish to share with you. White sugar makes her "cringe," for example, and so she sweetens everything with something called agave syrup, which I imagine is very costly but I dunno...maybe you can substitute your bread, milk, meat, and coffee budget for agave syrup. It's definitely better for you than that crap you're eating now! Gwynnie also wants you to know that she calls soy sauce "shoyu" but she knows you don't know what that means, you pedestrian pleb, so she helpfully places an English translation into her shoyu-containing recipes so that they look like so:

1 tsp shoyu (soy sauce)

I love it. And I love her.

Oh, and this week at the bloglet: book recs. Please come and tell us what kiddo books you love and also, which ones you do not love. It's an equal-opportunity reccing and dissing forum over there so feel free to tell us which books drive you bonkers but you're forced to read them by your tots...

GOOP Off!

Yes, it's a letter from Gwyneth of Paltrow on her website, GOOP. I dig this bit:

Many of my friends, or friends of friends, have asked me for "my London" so that when someone is traveling here, or lives here but wants some extra info, it is compiled in one place.

Indeedy, I used Thanksgiving weekend to nourish my inner aspect and get all caught up on the Gwynnie website I've had such fun mocking here and here. Sure, talking smack about Gwynnie-pops is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but as I said before, Gwyneth personally asked me to mock her, and who am I to deny the call of a shalebritay!

Back to GOOP, one big change to the site is that we now no longer have to wait for the Goopy newsletters to come to us; at last when you go to GOOP there is actually content there. And what content it is!

My favorite is the above, which appears under the tab GO, and is the opener to a travel tip piece on London. Or specifically, on Gwyneth's London. For as she said, many people (friends and "friends of friends") who come to London or even those who live here, can now come to the website and conveniently access Gwyneth Gooping off in one place. Which I guess is why she's doing this. I mean, she's definitely not writing this for us, the plebby strangers, as she makes abundantly clear:

The first installment of this three-part newsletter will include restaurant, hotels and pubs. The hotels are on the pricey side, but my GOOP girls are doing some research into some more affordable places which we will personally try before recommending.

Fewking un.be.lie.vable. Gwyn's words are swiftly followed by images of a sumptuous palace called the Blakes hotel, "my home away from home in London before I got a flat." A flat. Perhaps most astonishing in this bit about hotel is the phrase "my GOOP girls." GOOP girls! Who are they? We know they will be responsible for sleeping in some pretty un-Gwynnie-worthy beds to prove to Gwynnie that plebby hotels do exist in Londres. What does it take to become a GOOP girl? I wonder. Do you have to be blonde? Do you have to be British? How do you get the gig? Does it even really exist? I mean, if Gwynnie seriously gave a rat's bum about providing affordable accommodation tips on her trippy website, wouldn't she have found some before she shared this nugget of a so-called newsletter with the general public?

These and other mysteries we shall continue to ponder in what will now become a regular series chez Crabmommy: the GOOP Off! Stay tuned. And thanks to my friend Justin for customizing these GOOP-inspired buttons for my website.
You'll see a lot more of those in future Crabmommy dispatches. ...And hey! Gwyneth, if you're reading this, you GOOP, girl! You really do.