Every Friday
masters weekend is calling
It is a beautiful weekend ladies and gentlemen, Masters weekend. The trees in NYC are blooming and the Masters signals one of the true yearly markers that Spring has truly, finally, arrived. This is undoubtedly the most exciting weekend in golf (for us and many others). We’re ready to strap into couch (or local watering hole), grab an Azalea cocktail, and tune in for the coming days.
We highly recommend joining us.
I think for the past 17 years I just could not wait for the tournament to start, and this year I wouldn't care if the tournament never started (laughter). That's sort of the difference.
— Rory McIlroy
What other people may find in poetry or art museums, I find in the flight of a good drive.
— Arnold Palmer
Top of Mind
Wyoming’s Tech-Savvy Monastery, (Arena Mag)
“I’ve heard from my own friends an oft-quoted factoid that the knowledge of how to construct Gothic ribbed vaults has been lost. This is characteristic of the self-defeating disdain perpetuated by the so-called architecture schools that Tom Wolfe lambasted half a century ago in From Bauhaus to Our House — and our civilizational reluctance to build things that step outside the domain of pure utility. The existence proof to the contrary of that factoid is in Wyoming, it’s hundreds of feet high, and it’s made of American limestone.”
We did not expect our midweek reading to contain such a hard hitting piece about monks in Wyoming, but we’re so glad it did. A stark contrast to the constant onslaught of the “you’re falling behind” narrative all over the internet, this Wyoming branch of Carmelite monks is steeped in tradition, but use robotic arms from New York to carve their monastery stones. The whole article is an elegantly put juxtaposition of the old ways embracing the new.
Life is like a lake (you need to row), The Shaker by Jedidiah Jenkins
Youth is like the river, and adulthood the lake. Your parents, your upbringing, the circumstances of your childhood are a river you find your boat in. You’re ripping downstream and bumping into boulders and falling off waterfalls, half drowning as you learn how to steer and stay afloat. But all the while, there is movement.
Then, somewhere between 18 and 25, the river dumps you into a giant lake. The water slows and suddenly you’re there, unleashed and floating. If you want to move, it’s up to you to row.
ICYMI: Happy Hour Edition
Most of all, we all need to get over the idea that America is on the precipice of a race war or a religious war. Online activists might dream of that, but they’re small in number — and a lot of them aren’t even Americans, but foreign trolls for whom American politics is a fun outlet for their hatred and boredom. Most actual Americans just want to get along with our neighbors and live our lives together.
In more recent decades, technology companies have experimented aggressively with organization structure. Spotify popularized cross-functional squads with short sprint cycles. Zappos attempted Holacracy, eliminating management titles entirely. Valve operated with a flat structure and no formal hierarchy. Each of these experiments revealed something about the limitations of traditional hierarchy, but none solved the underlying problem.
So the third reason we don’t have housing, and the one we’re focusing on now, is cost. This can take forms like labor costs being a bit higher here than in Texas or Florida, but what we’re really talking about are government-imposed costs and mandates. Things like unfunded inclusionary zoning mandates, which mean it’s illegal to build multifamily housing in many jurisdictions unless the developer also agrees to provide subsidies for low-income renters or lower-income homeowners.
Best of Substack this Week
This Week in Relay’s Shopping Cart
Wythe SS26 Second Delivery (Zach)
I love Wythe and they just released their Spring/Summer delivery 2. I’ve struggled with their past warm weather deliveries being in NYC, as western wear just doesn’t seem to hit the same here, but you could see me in a pearl snap in Williamsburg come May..
Jones Players Series Golf Bag, (Ian)
The golf game is very back. Queue many summer twilight rounds.
It’s Not That Deep, Randy
Thanks for reading—or for mega scrolling all the way down here.
The internet is an overwhelming mess of headlines, ads, and mid takes from the worst people you know. Big Tech owns our attention spans. Everything is content. Nothing makes sense.
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