Good morning. It's Saturday, April 11. Welcome to this week's Society & Culture newsletter. First time reading? Sign up here or click here to share with friends. |
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The Masters Tournament wraps up tomorrow, so we're digging into the PGA Tour to explain how this weekend's golf factors into the larger professional season. Then, we explore the history of the romance novel, the once-fringe form that's become a mainstream sensation. Finally, we chart the evolution of Coachella, the influential music festival that began yesterday in Indio, California.
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—Kevin Kearney, 1440 Society & Culture Section Editor |
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A beginner's guide to the PGA Tour
The PGA Tour is the premier professional golf organization in North America. Its season consists of weekly tournaments that begin in January and conclude with a three-week playoff in August. Golf's four major tournaments—the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open, and the Open Championship—are not operated by the PGA Tour, though they're considered a part of its season. (See a breakdown of the majors.)
The Professional Golfers' Association of America was formed in 1916, primarily for "golf pros" who ran pro shops and gave lessons, though touring golfers joined the organization in the 1950s. The two groups soon clashed, with tensions reaching a boiling point in 1966 over a proposed Frank Sinatra-sponsored tournament. The ordeal eventually split the PGA and the PGA Tour, a dynamic that remains today.
LIV Golf, a rival league financed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, formally launched in 2021, with former PGA Tour champion Greg Norman announced as its CEO. LIV Golf players are prohibited from playing in events operated by the PGA Tour, though they are permitted to compete in the majors, including the Masters.
... Explore everything else we learned about the PGA Tour.
Also, check out ...
> The dinner menus set by previous winners of the Masters. (Read)
> An in-depth analysis of Augusta National, the home of the Masters. (Watch)
> How a lawn gnome became the hottest item at the Masters. (Read)
> Where golf balls go after they're used. (Watch) |
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A brief introduction to romance novels
The romance novel is a literary form that focuses on romantic relationships and often ends with a happy resolution. As a type of genre fiction, romance typically uses tropes—stock narrative devices and structures—to explore those relationships, though some romance novelists intentionally subvert those tropes to push the conventions of the form. (See a guide to the genre's tropes.)
In ancient times, many long-form stories were considered "romances," a term derived from the Old French word for "the speech of the people." That changed during the Middle Ages, as views about marriage began to shift. Romantic love was explored in popular works—including the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer and the plays of Shakespeare—but many scholars consider Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel "Pamela" the first romance novel for establishing several of the genre's themes and conventions.
Today, romance and its popular subgenre, romantasy, have an eager, primarily female readership. The genre sold 44 million print copies in 2025, making it the bestselling literary genre in the United States. (See a breakdown of the data.)
... Explore everything else we learned about Romance Novels.
Also, check out ...
> A visual analysis of romance book jackets through history. (View)
> Exploring "clinch covers," a defining characteristic of '80s romance. (Listen)
> The model Fabio's romance cover career, by the numbers. (Read)
> How romantasy evolved from a fringe subgenre into a mainstream trend. (Listen) |
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The World's Biggest Stage |
Coachella, 101
Coachella, officially known as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, is an annual music festival that takes place in Indio, California. Its lineups typically bring pop, hip-hop, rock, and dance music to the Empire Polo Club, a sprawling, green, oasis-like campus in the Colorado Desert. (Learn how to watch the festival for free.)
Coachella is one of the largest music festivals in the US and the world, welcoming hundreds of thousands of attendees each day over two weekends every year. It’s also one of the most influential festivals in the history of pop music, having repeatedly featured performances that have realigned music industry norms. (See a visual history of past Coachellas.)
In the two decades since Coachella’s inception, the festival has bred dozens of competitors, turning the music festival concept into an integral part of the live music industry. This year's lineup features Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Karol G, the festival's first Latina headliner.
... Explore everything else we learned about Coachella.
Also, check out ...
> How a 2006 Daft Punk performance helped mainstream dance music. (Watch)
> Prince's 2008 headlining set featured a reinvention of Radiohead's "Creep." (Watch)
> The story behind the first Coachella's $1M failure. (Read)
> Calculating the festival's enormous carbon footprint. (Read) |
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Beyond our weekly deep dives, we love finding great takes on the culture currently shaping our lives. Here are some of the best reactions, profiles, and think pieces we encountered this week.
> How to Create an Alien
The LA Review of Books | Julien Crockett. "Project Hail Mary," based on Andy Weir's 2021 science fiction novel, is one of the year's biggest movies. Crockett sits down with Weir to unpack how he created the story's alien life form—and whether he thinks we're alone in the universe. (Read)
> What Will Entertain Us in the Year 2046?
WSJ | Demetria Gallegos. Speaking of speculative fiction, here's a fun exercise: Gallegos asked her readers to predict the future of entertainment. The results are fascinating, with more than a few responses alluding to a loss of shared culture. Others, though, are a little less bold (and a little more optimistic). (Read)
> The Stranger Secret
The Guardian | Viv Groskop. Modern technology allows for strangers to ignore conversations, but Groskop argues we should do the opposite, highlighting the many benefits of conversing with people you don't know. (Read)
> The Fantasy Baseball Ties That Bind
The Ringer | Jordan Ritter Conn. Experts believe the erosion of traditional community organizations has led to a loneliness epidemic. This deep dive explores how fantasy baseball has filled the gap for some men, providing a stand-in social network. (Read | More on Major League Baseball)
> Highway 61 Contains Multitudes
Romanticon | James Hogsed. Even before his 2016 Nobel Prize, critics often wrote about Bob Dylan with a seriousness typically reserved for literary figures. Hogsed continues the tradition, analyzing Dylan's vision of America alongside Walt Whitman's. (Read | More on Walt Whitman) |
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An estimated 7,000 golf balls are lost on every golf course every year. |
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