{"id":191259,"date":"2025-10-17T08:27:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=191259"},"modified":"2025-10-17T09:08:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T14:08:54","slug":"odds-ends-october-17-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/odds-ends\/odds-ends-october-17-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Odds &#038; Ends: October 17, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"108\" data-end=\"488\"><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 data-start=\"108\" data-end=\"488\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4qbfMse\"><em><strong>The Age of Innocence.<\/strong><\/em><\/a> I recently asked ChatGPT for a random movie recommendation from the Criterion Collection (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/becoming-a-cinephile-fifteen-minutes\">I wrote a Dying Breed article this week<\/a> about what that is and how I&#8217;ve been using it in my approach to watching films). It spit out <em>The Age of Innocence<\/em>. I was initially intrigued by the fact that it was a rated PG movie from Martin Scorsese who&#8217;s more famous for his R-rated fare. Based on the Edith Wharton novel of the same name, <em>The Age of Innocence <\/em>is set in 1870s New York high society. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Newland Archer, a man torn between duty and desire in a world ruled by unspoken codes. It&#8217;s a typical romance story, but what I really like about the movie is Scorsese&#8217;s eye for historical detail. He highlights the unspoken and forgotten meaning of social gestures, like the significance of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/people\/relationships\/when-and-how-to-give-flowers\/\">giving a woman certain types of flowers<\/a>&nbsp;or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/etiquette\/the-gentlemans-guide-to-the-calling-card\/\">the way you fold a calling card<\/a>. The cinematography is really rich; even though it sometimes only focuses on the little details of a Gilded Age household, it truly captures and holds your attention.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"108\" data-end=\"488\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/132b5634-38a7-41f1-beeb-6a0059605e7b\"><strong>Ask What Your Gym Can Do for Your Country.<\/strong><\/a> Elisabeth Braw at the <em>Financial Times<\/em> writes about an interesting trend among Gen Z: they&#8217;re not only hitting the gym in droves (more than a third exercise regularly), they&#8217;re volunteering for civil defense groups. At least in Europe. Germany&#8217;s voluntary military service applications are up 15 percent, and Finland&#8217;s Reservists&#8217; Association has added 4,000 new members this year. Braw argues that governments should capitalize on this trend by expanding civil defense organizations to be more like Sweden&#8217;s. During the Cold War, Sweden had nationwide groups of radio operators, truck drivers, and dog trainers, all supporting the armed forces indirectly; today, 380,000 Swedes are active in these organizations. The article makes a compelling case that we should be channeling today&#8217;s abundant gym energy into something bigger than individual gains and welcome the idea of coupling personal fitness with civic service.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"108\" data-end=\"488\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4nMU1Nz\"><strong><em>The Count of Monte Cristo<\/em> by Alexandre Dumas.<\/strong><\/a> Back in September, my son, Gus, and I decided to tackle this massive tome together. All 1,200+ pages of it. He beat me to the finish line by a week. But man, what a ride. This book is pure fun from start to finish. As Gus put it, the Count of Monte Cristo has &#8220;aura.&#8221; The guy can do anything. He&#8217;s impossibly wealthy, speaks every language, knows every secret, anticipates every move. He&#8217;s basically a 19th-century Batman. But beneath all the swashbuckling adventure, there&#8217;s wisdom on the value of patience and the corrosive nature of vengeance. The intertwining storylines can be tough to follow, but that complexity is part of the fun. You&#8217;re constantly discovering how everything connects. Wait and hope!<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"166\" data-end=\"413\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/47756ls\"><strong>Cleveland Kitchen Classic Kimchi.<\/strong><\/a> Every morning, I eat a scoop of kimchi with my eggs. My go-to for a while now has been from Cleveland Kitchen. You can find it in most grocery stores. I started eating it for gut health. As I discussed with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/health-fitness\/health\/podcast-1076-the-microbiome-master-key-how-100-trillion-bacteria-influence-your-weight-mood-and-all-around-health\/\">Dr. Brett Finlay on the podcast<\/a>, fermented food (like kimchi) can help your gut microbiome. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s changed my body&#8217;s bugs, but I like how it tastes. It\u2019s got that vinegary burn that makes my eggs taste less boring. I reckon my dad would say kimchi <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/style\/hair\/it-will-put-hair-chest\/\">puts hair on your chest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"166\" data-end=\"413\">On our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/\"><strong>Dying Breed Newsletter<\/strong><\/a>, we published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/7-stellar-biographies-i-highly-recommend\">7 Stellar Biographies I Highly Recommend Reading<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/becoming-a-cinephile-fifteen-minutes\">Becoming a Cinephile, Fifteen Minutes at a Time<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/sunday-firesides-true-free-speech\">Sunday Firesides: True Free Speech<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"166\" data-end=\"413\"><strong>Quote of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p data-start=\"166\" data-end=\"413\"><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Trouble is the next best thing to enjoyment; there is no fate in the world so horrible as to have no share in either its joy or its sorrows.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"166\" data-end=\"413\">\u2014Henry Wadsworth Longfellow<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Age of Innocence. I recently asked ChatGPT for a random movie recommendation from the Criterion Collection (I wrote a Dying Breed article this week about what that is and how I&#8217;ve been using it in my approach to watching films). It spit out The Age of Innocence. I was initially intrigued by the fact [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[218,42310],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-191259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-odds-ends"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-1-538x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-1-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-1-320x197.jpg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Odds-and-Ends-no-logo-header-1-640x394.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191259","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=191259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191259"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=191259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}