{"id":189577,"date":"2025-04-18T09:39:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T14:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=189577"},"modified":"2025-04-18T09:39:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T14:39:33","slug":"odds-ends-april-18-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/odds-ends\/odds-ends-april-18-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Odds &#038; Ends: April 18, 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><a href=\"https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/1984314\/Neil_Postmans_Advice_on_How_to_Live_the_Rest_of_Your_Life\"><strong>Neil Postman&#8217;s Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life.<\/strong><\/a> Neil Postman is one of my favorite thinkers about media and its effect on individuals and our culture. I recently came across a lecture of his life advice that was posthumously compiled and delivered by one of his colleagues.<em data-start=\"270\" data-end=\"305\">&nbsp;<\/em>It consists of a list of his 22 maxims for surviving a culture in decline. Some you may disagree with (Californians may object to #1). But the list is cranky in the best way. It&#8217;s funny, thought-provoking, and full of enduring wisdom. Some of my favorites:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Do not watch TV news shows or read any tabloid newspapers.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Do not become a jogger. If you are one, stop immediately.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">If you are married, stay married.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Establish as many regular routines as possible.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Remember: It is more likely than not that as you get older you will get dumber.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Keep your opinions to a minimum.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Carefully limit the information input you will allow.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Weingartner\u2019s Law: 95% of everything is nonsense.<\/li>\n<li data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">Take religion more seriously than you have.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCwWwGhSVOjbhZSBh-Wa3xTw\"><strong>Julieta Venegas.<\/strong><\/a> Julieta Venegas has been dominating the McKay car listening rotation lately. The Mexican singer-songwriter&#8217;s accordion-driven pop has catchy melodies that stick with you for days. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CuTx1QwLPjM\">&#8220;Lento,&#8221;<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=y8rBC6GCUjg\">&#8220;Me Voy,&#8221;<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wtpTCWF2fjk\">&#8220;Andar Conmigo&#8221;<\/a> have become family favorites during commutes to school. Venegas has a distinctive voice that&#8217;s easy to listen to. The kids have enjoyed trying to use the Spanish they&#8217;ve learned in school to translate the lyrics.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0300088655\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0300088655\"><strong><em>The Lonely Crowd<\/em> by David Riesman.<\/strong><\/a> This 1950 sociology classic identified a crucial shift in American character \u2014 from &#8220;inner-directed&#8221; individuals guided by internal values to &#8220;other-directed&#8221; people constantly seeking peer approval. Though written over 70 years ago, its observations about conformity feel eerily prescient in our social media world. Even though I first read the book over a decade ago, I still find myself thinking about Riesman&#8217;s framework. Check out the article that we wrote highlighting the book&#8217;s main ideas: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/behavior\/becoming-an-autonomous-man-in-an-other-directed-world\/\">The Autonomous Man in an Other-Directed World.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4lyPFJp\">Jack Link&#8217;s Beef Steak.<\/a> <\/strong>I&#8217;m always on the lookout for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/health-fitness\/health\/healthy-road-trip-eating\/\">healthy, high-protein road trip snacks that I can grab at a standard convenience store<\/a>. On a recent roadtrip to New Mexico, I discovered these peppered beef &#8220;steaks&#8221; from Jack Link&#8217;s. With 23 grams of protein and only 140 calories, they&#8217;re very <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/health-fitness\/health\/how-to-track-macros\/\">macro friendly<\/a>. And the stick form makes it easier to eat while driving than a bag of loose jerky pieces.&nbsp;<\/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-information-wont\">Sunday Firesides: Information Won&#8217;t Save You<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/how-to-be-a-swell-podcast-guest\">How to Be a Swell Podcast Guest.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Quote of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What we attend to controls our behavior. What we can get others to attend to controls their behavior. . . . &#8216;Tell me what you habitually attend to and I will tell you what you are.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014H.A. Overstreet<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Postman&#8217;s Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life. Neil Postman is one of my favorite thinkers about media and its effect on individuals and our culture. I recently came across a lecture of his life advice that was posthumously compiled and delivered by one of his colleagues.&nbsp;It consists of a list [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42310],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-189577","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-1-1-538x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-1-1-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-1-1-320x197.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189577","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=189577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189577"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=189577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}