Wednesday, August 12, 2026
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I keep my beef with the martini glass out of polite conversation. It’s not offensive to anyone—I have yet to meet a commercial glassblower at a party—but it can easily bore an acquaintance to tears. The only place that has ever solved the myriad problems I have with the martini glass is Ralph Lauren. I will not, for the rest of my life if all goes well, ever buy a different martini glass. —Luke Guillory, commerce editor
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Ralph Lauren’s Ethan line makes the once-fussy shape perfect for at-home.
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When the martini glass debuted in 1925 at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, it was considered the modern glass—a new-age man’s answer to the Champagne coupe. The postwar boom was in full swing. The worst conflict the world had ever seen was over, the ’20s were roaring, and easy money was flowing. Art deco celebrated that. It was obsessed with machines and progress but in a very commercial way. It was all about geometric perfection with symmetry, straight lines, and angularity. Look at a martini glass and you see that clearly. It’s V-shaped and masculine, like a man in a suit with sharp, straight peak lapels. It gives a cocktail, especially a fragrant gin martini, a lovely bloom. The stem lets you hold it without warming the drink with your hand. It’s sexy!
But again, it was conceived in the 1920s; famously, no one was too concerned with details at the time. The massive rim makes it easy to spill, and the thin glass makes it brittle, especially when frozen—a crucial step in an at-home martini.
Plenty of martini-glass makers have solved these problems, but none better than Ralph Lauren. Of course the maison of American elegance makes the perfect martini glass, a blend of both art deco suave and modern usability. There’s no other brand I’d expect to get this balance right. And luckily, it does so at a price that won’t make your eyes water.
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Over at The American Prospect, reporter Maureen Tkacik went spelunking down through the steaming, noxious cave that is Representative Max Miller’s life. After recently emerging from medical quarantine—okay, I made that part up—Tkacik has shared what she learned about this dog’s breakfast of an alleged human being. And, boy howdy, does she ever deliver the ... ah ... goods.
The piece begins with an extended account of a road-rage incident that occurred between Miller and a local physician named Feras Hamdan. Hamdan saw a truck pulled to the side of the road that looked like the one belonging to a friend. It turned out to belong to Miller. When the congressman turned to face Hamdan, the doctor whipped up a picture of the Palestinian flag on his cell phone. (This was at the beginning of the hostilities in Iran.) Hamdan made a video and shared it with some friends.
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The way we view complex, occasionally sinister, culture-defining institutions is largely shaped by one man: Aaron Sorkin. A Few Good Men (the military), The American President and The West Wing (the White House), and The Newsroom (TV news) are all products of Sorkin’s keyboard. Since the late eighties, he’s written eleven movies, four TV series, and four Broadway plays and directed four movies. And yet, a century from now, his legacy will be defined by his depiction of one institution in particular: Facebook.
An erudite man of sixty-five, Sorkin wears blazers and chinos and speaks like a character on The West Wing. He’s also a recovering drug addict who has a nearly unshakable belief in the promise of America. When we met for our interview in Los Angeles this summer, he was thoughtful and polite but didn’t hesitate to share his strong opinions on all manner of topics, including AI, CBS News, and the corrosive effects of social media.
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