The Art of Manliness.

American football is so big — so braided into our weekends, our language, and our culture — that it can be hard to see it clearly as a whole. In his new book, Football, Chuck Klosterman helps us see the game from unexpected angles, and argues that football isn’t just a sport, it’s a kind of national operating system. Chuck explains how it became the dominant televised spectacle in America, despite having elements that should count against it. We then explore football as a simulation — of war, of reality, and even of itself — and how its simulation through video games has actually fed back into the sport itself. We also talk about who Chuck thinks is the GOAT (hint: it’s …

Shaving is one of those daily rituals that most men take care of as part of their morning routine. It makes sense. Shaving in the morning allows you to start the day looking as fresh as possible and ensures you look clean-shaven longer throughout your waking hours. But I’ve personally been a night-shaver for several years now and love it. Below I share a few reasons you might consider adopting this practice as well. The Case for Shaving at Night You Can Take Your Time With Your Shave. If you’re like most guys, you’re rushing to get ready in the morning. But you don’t want to rush a shave. That can lead to cuts and uneven stubble removal. When you shave at night, there…

Round House Duck Canvas Bib Overalls. For heavy chores around the house or helping my friend slaughter chickens at his farm, I put on my Round House overalls. This Oklahoma company has been making jeans and overalls right here in the state for over a century. Their duck canvas bibs are tough, comfortable, and functional. What sets Round House apart is that despite being made in the USA, they’re really dang affordable. The duck canvas bibs are currently on sale for $60. If you need workwear that can handle actual work without breaking the bank, Round House delivers. Freaks and Geeks. I missed this cult classic when it originally aired for a single season in 1999, but we r…

Making fire from ice sits right at the edge of survival skill and science experiment. It’s one of those techniques that feels like a clever survival hack — and technically it is — but in practice it’s notoriously difficult. Pulling it off requires a near-perfect combination of conditions: bright and direct sunlight, calm air, dry tinder, and most critically, a good-sized chunk of exceptionally clear ice. That last requirement is what makes this method especially difficult in the wild. Naturally occurring ice is often cloudy, cracked, or full of air pockets, all of which scatter light instead of focusing it. That said, it’s still possible. A small chance is better than n…

I’m in my late thirties and have been laid off twice in my working years. This is not an unusual experience, especially in the post-COVID era, which some have termed a time of “forever layoffs.” Nearly half of all working adults have been laid off at some point in their career and most working employees are worried about layoffs on a regular basis. The first time it happened to me was in 2012 when the small marketing agency that I’d been with for only a year went belly up. I was young, didn’t have many responsibilities in life just yet, and the job hunt went quite well; I secured a new gig within a handful of weeks. The second time I was laid off was in 2024, as part of …

We usually think of money as something very practical, concrete, and secular; we earn it, save it, spend it, and crunch the numbers behind it. But money is never just about money: it reflects our values, our priorities — and even our spiritual life. My guest today, Tom Levinson, knows this well. He’s a financial advisor who studied religion at Harvard Divinity School and thought about becoming a rabbi. Now, he helps people navigate not just their portfolios, but the deeper questions that come with them. In today’s conversation, Tom shares the greater meaning around money, what the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions say about it, and how financial practices like bu…

Do you feel like your physical training has gotten stagnant and boring? Like you’ve woken up in a Planet Fitness Groundhog Day? Same gym. Same exercises. Same rep ranges. Year after year after year. I’m a big fan of consistency and repetition. I think there’s a virtue in being okay with and even taking joy in doing the same thing over and over again. But when it comes to my physical training, I’ve learned over the past decade that adding some seasonality to my fitness programs yields big benefits, both physiologically and psychologically. We’ve written before about the value of seasonality in daily life in helping you get over the “horror of the same old thing.” And …

In the years after World War I, longtime Army colleagues and friends George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower contemplated what would happen if another global conflict broke out. As Patton envisioned it: “In the next war, I’ll be the Stonewall Jackson, and you can be the Robert E. Lee. Ike, you do the big planning, and you let me go in and shoot up the enemy.” And that’s pretty much how things worked out in World War II. Eisenhower led from Allied headquarters as Europe’s Supreme Commander, while Patton served on the ground as commander of the Third and Seventh armies. Ike, who lacked battlefield experience, was nonetheless brilliant as a theater commander. Having sp…

United 93. I don’t know how this one slipped past me when it came out in 2006, but we only just recently watched it. I initially wondered how you could make a whole movie out of what happened to United 93 — the only one of the four hijacked flights on 9/11 that didn’t reach its intended target, instead crashing into a field in Pennsylvania as it headed toward Washington, D.C. But the film is almost as much about what was unfolding in air traffic control centers and military command rooms on that infamous morning as it is about the flight itself. Since we now know how events turned out, it’s easy to forget how initially confusing and unprecedented the unfolding disaster wa…

There’s something about sunlight that really recharges you. If you don’t get enough of it, you feel very much like a potted plant that’s been kept too far from a window — you start to feel as though you’re physically and mentally drooping and wilting. It’s not just in your head. Sunlight packs a potent cocktail of health benefits: it lowers blood pressure, fights inflammation, supports optimal testosterone levels, improves insulin sensitivity, strengthens immunity, and improves mood and sleep. These benefits don’t just come courtesy of the vitamin D production that sunlight triggers; some of them occur independently of it and are the products of sunlight itself. Unfortu…

For decades, fitness culture has tended to break people into two categories: you’re either a strength guy or an endurance guy. You lift heavy or run far — but not both. But my guest today says you don’t have to choose; you can excel at both modalities and be ready for anything. Alex Viada is a coach, a physiologist, and the author of The Hybrid Athlete. He’s a powerlifter who’s also completed Ironman triathlons, and he’s deadlifted 700 pounds and run an ultramarathon in the same week. Even if your goals are much more modest — you’d like to, say, set some weightlifting PRs in the gym and be able to run a decent 5k — Alex’s training philosophy can help you combine lifting…