12 Thoughts

1. Last week, I was interviewed by Will Schube for his Substack The Hobbyist. The topic of conversation is one of my favorites: turning your hobbies into your work and the importance of finding leisure activities to remain sane. I’m curious what you think about all of this. You can read our full conversation here.

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2. The Rivay Italian Tour Knit Sport Coat. Rivay has just launched a great modern jacket that is flexible and comfortable. It also does the things we want a sport coat to do—elevating our look and all of that good stuff. In my humble opinion, Rivay is the most underrated clothing brand out there. The small husband-and-wife team of Katie and Jon have an excellent point of view and deliver quality in every piece. (The brand is also Coggins-approved.) The collection is cohesive, well-made, and fairly priced. Rivay is also small, and not everyone is wearing it, so it’s satisfying when someone asks who made a particular item and they don’t even know the brand. Some of the things I wear most often are from Rivay, and I marvel at how they continue to release great items each season. (There might even be a little something we are working on together in the near future.)

3. Everyone is reading Lonesome Dove.

4. The Indignity of Modern Life. My family moved recently and there have been a lot of new things in my world. It has all been a reminder of how inconvenient progress can be. The most obvious abomination of our connected universe is, of course, a smart refrigerator; thankfully, we don’t have one. What we do have is a garage door opener that doesn’t have a remote and instead has to be opened by an app. I’m sure we could go and get a remote to open it or program it with our car, but the fact that it defaults to the app so they can save money (a la Apple and it not including a charger with your new $1200 iPhone) and so they can advertise the other products to you is completely absurd. I can attest that there is nothing more annoying than trying to open the garage via an app.