Wednesday Martin's Blog, page 6

Wednesday Martin on Manhattan's Manic Style

In the city that never sleeps, fashion, too, has insomnia. “Being fashionable in New York can be a blood sport, especially now that designers are feeling the pressure to make their clothes immediately available after runway shows,” observes Bob Morris, frequent contributor to the New York Times’ Styles section and Town & Country magazine. “Who gets her hands on the signature Proenza Schouler skirt or Marc Jacobs dress before it gets into the stores all those months later?” Like so many things in Manhattan — spots in elite kindergartens, getting into Stacey’s 8:30 a.m. Soul Cycle class, the Hamptons summer beach pass quest — it’s a race.

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Famed Anthropologist On What Really Doomed Brangelina

What on Earth, we want to know — even those of us who don’t admit we want to know — really went wrong?

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10 Essential Truths Of The Hamptons Part 2

10 Essential Truths of the Hamptons Part 1

Extreme Preening: Why Rich Men Are the New Rich Women

When it comes to gender, we live in strange times.

Policing who uses which bathroom has turned into a fixation for some, with unsexing the potty inciting remarkable rage in an era that also brought us Supreme Court-sanctioned gay marriage and an Emmy for Transparent.

Hillary Clinton, making no bones about playing “the woman card,” has somehow become, over the last months, The Man—phallic and Establishment.

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Paperbacks are served!

Primates of Park Avenue just got even more delish with new juicy new end material and a lighter feel for your beach tote!

AMAZON  | BARNES & NOBLE  | INDIEBOUND

Understanding Female Flexuality

Gay Until Labor Day: Stretching Female Sexuality in the Hamptons

'Isn’t it just that when you’re a woman who has it all, having a female lover is an experience you might allow yourself to have?'—a woman who summers in Sagaponack

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Studying the Rich

In her manifesto " Up the Anthropologist ," Laura Nader called for social scientists to study not only the poor and disenfranchised, as sociologists and anthropologists long have, but also the powerful and wealthy.  She referred to this as "studying up" and noted that in concert with studying down and studying sideways, it helped generate a full portrait of a culture. It also helps us understand how elites reproduce their privilege and what Antonio Gramsci called cultural hegemony.

Journalists and social scientists have often found it difficult to study cultural elites. Imagine what would happen if an anthropologist proposed to study the tribal ways of Goldman Sachs, for example. One of Laura Nader's students tried to do something similar and was rebuffed, sparking Nader's insights. Elites often do not welcome scrutiny. Privacy, secretiveness, and a code of silence are often an integral part of their power.  Entering their world can be prohibitively expensive and time intensive.


Studying an elite group's beliefs and practices regarding money and sex can be especially tricky.


I am looking forward to reading Guardian journalist Jorin Luywndijk's  Swimming with Sharks: My Journey into the World of Bankers 


Guess what he did?

Wednesday Martin on Why a Woman on the $10 Bill Needs to Happen Now

As we gear up to elect or not elect a woman to be our next President and Commander in Chief, our deepest cultural anxieties bubble to the surface. 

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'Primates of Park Avenue' Author on Why New York's Trust Fund Families Are Cutting Costs

Those trust funds of New York's finest families are fraying, as author Wednesday Martin describes Manhattan’s ever-shifting hierarchy of status.

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