I know you’ve all been asking yourselves, “What on earth is Gwyneth Paltrow doing this summer?” For we always want to know what the rich are doing because, as Hemingway said, they’re different from you and me.
Well, Gwynnie has put up a post documenting her summertime activities, which of course involve products she’s bought, many of them sold on her goop website.
And so we have Gwyneth, her hubby, and her children’s (Apple and Moses) “summer at home”:
Gwynnie tells us that she’s been “living in this very soft G university sweatshirt“, adding that it’s “having a moment right now.” Well, maybe a moment for her bank account for the sucker costs $195. For a sweatshirt! And it’s not cashmere or anything, just 60% cotton and 40% polyester. And seriously, Goop University? Woo 101? The motto appears to translate as “Goop: We are Pharos”, whatever that means.
Son Moses got a boob jigsaw puzzle (not from goop, but from jiggy). For only $40 the lad can indulge in fantasies while perfecting his motor skills as well as becoming acquainted with all manner, shapes, and ethnicities of the female breast. What a progressive and liberated mom she is! I hope Moses said, “Thanks for the mammaries!” (But what did Apple get?)
Gwynnie gives a summer reading list, which we’ll mercifully leave aside, but what did she give herself? Well, for one thing, a number of different “cleanses”, as she’s into detoxing big-time, even though it’s totally bogus. On top of that, she purchased herself a fine Gemstone Heat Therapy Mat, retailing at goop for the bargain price of $1,095. This is said to approximate a spa experience. Those gems and pulsed electromagnettic fields, as well as those good negative ions, will tone you right up! The deets:
Approximate an at-home spa experience with this heating mat. It combines five natural therapies: hot stones, far-infrared light, red light, pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF), and negative ions. And it’s designed to temporarily promote local circulation, ease muscle tension, and maintain overall relaxation and well-being. Lie back as the amethyst, tourmaline, and jade gemstones warm up against your skin. Feel yourself unwind in the infrared heat. And let it out: ahhhhhhh.
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LED Display Controller: Time and Temperature settings, 3-6-12-hour auto shutoff timer
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Number of layers: up to 21 functional layers
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Materials: High-quality, nontoxic
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Voltage: USA power 110-120V (available in 220-240V upon request), 220W
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13 lbs of natural amethyst gemstones; 33 tourmaline ceramic gemstones, 30 natural jade gemstones
All of this was reported on Page Six, which adds some juicy details:
“I’ve made a commitment to start writing every day for five minutes because I’ve always been scared of journaling and don’t often write things down. It’s a daily micro mental challenge,” the 47-year-old wrote.
The “Politician” star recently told Town & Country that she is well aware that her Goop empire is constantly criticized but she couldn’t care less.
“The people who are triggered by me — ‘I don’t like her because she is pretty and she has money’ — it’s because they haven’t given themselves permission to be exactly who they are,” she said.
No comment on the “micro mental challenge” or the huge achievement of writing for five minutes a day, but I love her explanation of why people don’t like her. No, I don’t dislike her because she’s pretty and rich; I dislike her because she’s vacuous, self-absorbed, and, above all, pushes onto her credulous followers woo like jade vagina eggs and gemstone relaxation mats.
And somewhere there are well-to-do imbeciles who will buy this bullshit. And also the products.
Well, “Pharos” was the name of the lighthouse at Alexandria (Egypt) from the Island (Pharos) that it stood on. I suppose the shirt could mean “we are the lighthouse.” It seems obscure ,though. I agree that she doesn’t understand why people criticize her.
Looking at this again, the post signed “GP” and the boob puzzle…Is the name Goop her initials and boobs?
She is mixing greek and latin.
I thought pharos was lighthouse/beacon in general and didn’t only apply to the lighthouse at Alexandria.
There’s something about her that I can’t quite read, a kind of wryness mixed in with the ridiculousness. Like she’s aware that at least some of what she says is silly.
But really I’ve always been bewildered by people who care what celebrities think. People who watch chat shows, and listen to celebrities talk. I don’t understand why one hour-long episode of Michael Parkinson tugging his forelock in front of Tom Cruise or Pete Sampras isn’t enough to inoculate anyone against chat shows. I think celebs should have to have a pre-interview interview. If they’re capable of saying something interesting then they get to go on and have an actual interview on the main chat show, otherwise they get turned away.
This will sound a bit pompous but I’m interested in interesting people; some of them are famous, some aren’t. The idea of listening to someone just because they’re famous is bizarre. Sure, being really famous is a different form of existence from most of us, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to convey any of that to an audience.
” . . . bewildered by people who care what celebrities think.”
I contemplate what differentiates celebrities from “influencers.” A matter of degree?
I think it was Scott Fitzgerald who said to Hemingway, “You know, the rich are different from you and me.” And Hemingway replied, “Yes. They’ve got more money.” At least that’s the way the story goes.
According to Hemingway.
Yes. Fitzgerald was obsessed with money (never having enough) and the rich, but Hemingway did like to tell stories that favored himself.
Yeah. I definitely recall from A Moveable Feast (published four decades after the fact) that Hemingway claimed he once accompanied Fitzgerald into a men’s room in France, where Fitzgerald showed him his junk, so Hemingway could assure him it wasn’t undersized, as Zelda had complained.
Now, a tale like that, true or no, one is unlikely to forget. 🙂
I’ve a vague recollection that those lines came from an exchange of letters that Hemingway recalled in A Moveable Feast.
Thing is, Fitzgerald was right: never having to worry about spending money (or to concern oneself with having to earn any) really does tend to imbue people with an attitude toward life different from those of us who do. The evidence is all around us.
Long and long ago, in times before Goop, a
friend got a porcelain funnel-shaped thing at a shop that specialized in woo-ware. The pamphlet announced that the funnel contained
“B-cells”, a magic form of life that was neither animal nor plant, and which could confer vast benefits on the health, morale, virtue, wealth, and sex life of those who ingested a little of it (or them).
I ran some saline through the B-cell funnel and cultured the effluent on a variety of solid nutrient media in my lab. On a plate
of a very rich Difco medium, something came up. It was a uniquely ugly, fungus-like thing of some kind, which a mycologist colleague could not identify. Could it have been an extra-terrestrial being? I have a photo of it somewhere. If I still had some of the B-cell thing itself, I could alert Gwynnie to its rich commercial possibilities.
I hope you are getting a cut from all this free Goop advertising, or at least some free merch, as they say. Or do they call it “gratis goop”?
There I was thinking that that Goop’s summer offering would be limited to a candle smelling like Gwyneth’s sweaty butt…
The other night, I happened to re-watch Paul Thomas Anderson’s stylish debut film, Hard Eight, in which Ms. Paltrow plays a cocktail waitress at a Reno casino who does a little hooking on the side.
Overall, I’d say that made for a less meretricious livelihood than peddling Goop.
I love “Hard Eight”. I’d forgotten (or never knew) Paltrow was in it. I love Philip Baker Hall. He was so dead-pan through the whole film. I should watch it again. Reminds me a little of “The Cooler”, probably because they are both really good, artsy, low-budget films with a gambling theme.
Yeah, he was really good as “Floyd Gondolli” in PTA’s second film, Boogie Nights, too.
I watched that again a couple of weeks ago. An excellent film!
I have never seen that movie. Will have to see if it is streaming somewhere. I grew up in Cleveland, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s father, who went by the name Ghoulardi, did a show on Saturday’s that featured really bad horror movies. He left Cleveland and moved to LA where he did voice overs, thus affording his son an opportunity to become a film maker.
If you have Amazon Prime, it’s available right now. Movies disappear from there often, so, if you do have Prime, I would suggest watching it as soon as you can.
It is free on Amazon Prime if you subscribe to that.
I’m old enough to remember (barely!) when Ghoulardi did a straight scary character act as host of a horror-movie late show on Friday nights. (Before that, and before my time, he had been part of a local comedy duo with Cuyahoga Fall’s own Tim Conway.) Then, one night, he broke character and went into a laughing fit with the on-set crew. It went over so well with his audience that, after that, he just stuck to a comedy routine, making fun of how bad most of the horror movies were. A little later, he moved to his Saturday afternoon time slot, mocking all the other local Cleveland tv “celebrities,” like Dorothy Fuldheim and Captain Penny.
Ernie Anderson was a hero to a whole generation of northeast Ohio boomer hipsters — or at least to me and my friends.
Cool it with the boom-booms, you purple knif!
Got some B-cells left. Meet me on, Craig’s list. The B-cell creature I’ve grown keeps honking on and on about jade vagina eggs.
With her products, Gwyneth Paltrow is the Alex Jones of the woo-obsessed portion of the Left, and with her “Goop University,” she’s the Trump as well. Congratulations, Gwyneth, for doing things that open yourself to comparison with two of the worst human beings on Earth. What you all have in common is hucksterism, preying on the ignorant for personal gain, extreme vanity and narcissism, disregard for those in poverty, and spreading misinformation that can have extremely damaging and occasionally even deadly results!
To be clear, I’m in no way suggesting that Paltrow is anywhere close to as dangerous and horrible as Jones or Trump, but “not as bad as Alex Jones and Donald Trump” isn’t really what you’d want people to say about you (unless you’re a psychopath and thus have no conscience that keeps you from making insane amounts of money off of conning people and spreading misinformation).
Seriously?…have you ever put a jade egg in your vagina? Until you have, stare at the palm. Relinquish your crowns White Kings!
sorry…I guess I needed a sarcasm relief. I feel better…as if anyone cares.
For a second I thought this would be a Munster post :/