{"id":189493,"date":"2025-04-04T08:44:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T13:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=189493"},"modified":"2025-04-05T10:42:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T15:42:28","slug":"odds-ends-april-4-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/odds-ends\/odds-ends-april-4-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Odds &#038; Ends: April 4, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-174635\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-header-v3.1.jpg\" alt=\"A vintage metal box labeled &quot;Odds &amp; Ends&quot; with a blurred background, photographed on April 14, 2023.\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-header-v3.1.jpg 650w, https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-header-v3.1-372x230.jpg 372w, https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-header-v3.1-320x197.jpg 320w, https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-header-v3.1-640x394.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=A3svABDnmio\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v%3DA3svABDnmio&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1743765848139000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1zZYrDxua81EJmaybAJt7-\">&#8220;Starting Over&#8221; by Chris Stapleton.<\/a> <\/strong>Chris Stapleton seems to be quite popular, but I wasn&#8217;t familiar with his music until I stumbled upon this absolute gem of a song. It perfectly captures the feeling of needing a fresh start \u2014 whether geographically, relationally, professionally, or emotionally \u2014 and the bittersweet feelings that come with having to build something all over again. Stapleton&#8217;s raspy, soulful voice combined with the simple acoustic arrangement hits just right.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbass.com\/\"><strong>Clarence Bass&#8217; Website.<\/strong><\/a> Clarence Bass was a bodybuilder and writer for <em>Muscle &amp; Fitness<\/em> for 16 years. Even though he&#8217;s 87 years old, he&#8217;s still shredded and still writing about the science of getting lean and strong. I discovered his website, where he continues to publish articles, and it&#8217;s amazing. I love Bass&#8217; site for two reasons: first, his articles offer evidence-based, experience-tested training advice without the hype. Second, the website&#8217;s gloriously outdated design \u2014 unchanged since the late 90s \u2014 provides a refreshing counterpoint to today&#8217;s slick fitness content mills. It&#8217;s a digital time capsule that perfectly complements this veteran bodybuilder&#8217;s straightforward approach to lifelong fitness.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/42vlc7m\"><strong><em>Antifragile<\/em> by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.<\/strong><\/a> My <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/advice\/podcast-1063-beyond-resilience-how-to-become-shatterproof\/\">recent podcast with Tasha Eurich about her book <em>Shatterproof<\/em><\/a> reminded me of the themes that Nassim Taleb hits on in his book <em>Antifragile <\/em>and inspired me to thumb through it again. The former trader and intellectual provocateur who gave us the concept of &#8220;Black Swan&#8221; events doesn&#8217;t just advocate for resilience \u2014 he proposes systems that actually benefit from chaos and disorder. While all Taleb&#8217;s books offer valuable insights, <em>Antifragile<\/em> is the one I revisit most frequently. It&#8217;s partly the counterintuitive wisdom, but I&#8217;m equally drawn to Taleb&#8217;s pugnacious style and the running debate between street smart Fat Tony and academically brilliant but clueless Dr. John. Even his digressions are illuminating, making complex ideas not just digestible but genuinely entertaining.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/42fEX1o\"><strong>Lacoste Polo Shirt.<\/strong><\/a> I&#8217;ve been on something of a menswear nostalgia trip lately. My dad, like many men in the prime of their life in the 1980s, was partial to the iconic Lacoste polos with the little crocodile emblem. After years of wearing polos that never quite fit right \u2014 either too boxy or too slim \u2014 I decided to pick up a couple of Lacostes. Game changer. The proportions are perfect: not too tight in the shoulders, just the right amount of taper, and sleeves that hit at exactly the right spot on the bicep (I will say it&#8217;s a shirt that looks best when you&#8217;re in shape). I\u2019ve been wearing them tucked into jeans, paired with a simple leather belt and cowboy boots \u2014 a classic look that channels 1980s Tom McKay and, according to Kate, is the outfit I look most handsome in.<\/p>\n<p>On our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/\"><strong>Dying Breed newsletter<\/strong><\/a>, we published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/sunday-firesides-treat-life-like\">Sunday Firesides: Treat Life Like an Experimen<\/a>t and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/dying-breed-field-trip-a-university\">Dying Breed Field Trip: A University Library.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Quote of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I should hate to spend the only life I was going to have here in being annoyed with the time I happened to live in.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014Robert Frost<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Starting Over&#8221; by Chris Stapleton. Chris Stapleton seems to be quite popular, but I wasn&#8217;t familiar with his music until I stumbled upon this absolute gem of a song. It perfectly captures the feeling of needing a fresh start \u2014 whether geographically, relationally, professionally, or emotionally \u2014 and the bittersweet feelings that come with having [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42310],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-189493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-odds-ends"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-538x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-320x197.jpg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-640x394.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189493"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=189493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}