{"id":192931,"date":"2026-02-13T10:01:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=192476"},"modified":"2026-02-13T10:01:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:01:30","slug":"odds-ends-february-13-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/odds-ends\/odds-ends-february-13-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Odds &#038; Ends: February 13, 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:\/\/prf.hn\/click\/camref:1100liyHY\/destination:https%3A%2F%2Fhuckberry.com%2Fstore%2Fflint-and-tinder%2Fcategory%2Fp%2F95991-reverse-sateen-fatigue-shirt\"><strong>Flint and Tinder Reverse Sateen Fatigue Shirt.<\/strong><\/a> Years ago, I picked up a vintage military-inspired field jacket from Flint and Tinder that&#8217;s become one of my go-to pieces. They discontinued it, but this reverse sateen fatigue shirt (really more of a shacket) is pretty close to that field jacket. The reverse sateen weave is the same fabric used in classic M-51 military uniforms. Flint and Tinder added just enough stretch to make it comfortable for all-day wear without losing that rugged, broken-in military heritage. Perfect for the coming spring when you need that lighter layer for in-between temps.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/track\/5mh0hGbpIDQ5zXnhWiIiGo?si=7487011a08884736\"><strong>&#8220;Arthur&#8217;s Theme&#8221; by The New Edition.<\/strong><\/a> I&#8217;ve got a weird soft spot for muzak. You know what I&#8217;m talking about: smooth, instrumental versions of pop hits that filled department stores in the &#8217;80s or were played in elevators. It provides some background stimulation without being distracting. The New Edition has a muzak take on Christopher Cross&#8217; &#8220;Arthur&#8217;s Theme&#8221; that slaps and is nostalgia-soaked. Takes me right back to Saturday afternoons at Montgomery Ward in the 1980s. It&#8217;s great to listen to while you&#8217;re doing puzzles. <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/5ZhVRyVpQNMo6xbmjz6SXK?si=mQjeY3iYTJi28GVRzgSnDA\">Check out my complete muzak puzzle playlist.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Mn44M2\"><strong><em>Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World<\/em> by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross.<\/strong><\/a> I like reading Tyler Cowen. He&#8217;s always got some interesting, contrarian takes. <em>Talent <\/em>didn&#8217;t disappoint in that department. The premise of the book is that most of us are terrible at spotting talent, whether we&#8217;re hiring employees, choosing business partners, or just trying to figure out who&#8217;s worth listening to. Cowen and Gross argue that traditional interviews and r\u00e9sum\u00e9s miss what actually matters. Instead, they offer practical frameworks for identifying high performers. Look for people who are &#8220;energizers&#8221; rather than &#8220;de-energizers.&#8221; Ask candidates what they&#8217;ve been learning lately or what they&#8217;re obsessed with. One bit that stuck with me: people who&#8217;ve overcome real adversity often have a kind of resilience and resourcefulness you can&#8217;t teach. It&#8217;s a quick read, but packed with lots of interesting insights.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"><a href=\"https:\/\/classic.esquire.com\/article\/19660401106\/print\"><strong>&#8220;Frank Sinatra Has a Cold&#8221; by Gay Talese.<\/strong> <\/a>This 1966 <em>Esquire<\/em> profile is one of those pieces that gets referenced constantly in discussions about magazine writing, so I finally got around to reading it. Journalist Gay Talese wanted to do a profile of Sinatra, but the singer was sick and refused to be interviewed. So Talese built his piece by spending months hanging around Sinatra&#8217;s entourage, talking to everyone in his orbit, and observing the crooner at work and play. You&#8217;re with Sinatra in recording studios, watching him brood in restaurants, and feeling the tension when his mood darkens. Talese uses something as mundane as Sinatra having a cold as a way to reveal the guy&#8217;s character \u2014 his volatility, generosity, paranoia, and charisma. This is one of the canonical examples of &#8220;New Journalism,&#8221; which uses the tools of fiction to write nonfiction. If you&#8217;re interested in what great writing can look like, it&#8217;s essential reading.<\/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-the-sweet-taste\">Sunday Firesides: The Sweet Taste of (Healthy) Revenge<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dyingbreed.net\/p\/db-dialogues-adam-adatto-sandel-on\">DB Dialogues: On Happiness in Action.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Quote of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A man who has never enjoyed beautiful things in the company of a woman whom he loved has not experienced to the full the magic power of which such things are capable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014Bertrand Russell<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flint and Tinder Reverse Sateen Fatigue Shirt. Years ago, I picked up a vintage military-inspired field jacket from Flint and Tinder that&#8217;s become one of my go-to pieces. They discontinued it, but this reverse sateen fatigue shirt (really more of a shacket) is pretty close to that field jacket. The reverse sateen weave is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42310],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-192931","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-1-538x280.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\/192931","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=192931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192931\/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=192931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192931"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=192931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}