Now that warmer weather has arrived, mosquitos are beginning to show up as well.  I’ve done battle against these detestable bloodsuckers for some years now. Thanks to treating mosquito breeding grounds (i.e., standing water) around my property, I’d significantly reduced the number of mosquitoes bugging us. Then, early last summer, I came across a new weapon in my war on these infernal pests: the mosquito bucket.  Once I put a mosquito bucket on my property, the number of mosquitoes I encountered during the rest of the summer dropped to almost zero. We could enjoy being outside by th ..read more

Jim VandeHei didn’t have an auspicious start in life. His high school guidance counselor told him he wasn’t cut out for college, and he went on to confirm her assessment, getting a 1.4 GPA at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and spending more time drinking beer than planning his career. Eventually, though, Jim turned things around for himself, going on to co-found two of the biggest modern media outlets, Politico and Axios. Jim shares how he started moving up the rungs of success and building a better life for himself in his new book Just the Good Stuff: No-BS Secrets to Success (No Matter ..read more

White jeans are a nice way to mix up the sartorial staple that is denim.  Not everyone is a fan of white jeans on dudes, though. They don’t like how high maintenance they seem — that you have to keep them clean, since spills and stains will show up prominently on the white fabric. Or they think the look is too bold, too Euro, or too 80s.  It’s true that white jeans are harder to keep spotless, but you don’t avoid wearing a white dress shirt just because it’s prone to stains, do you? Just be a little more vigilant. The inten ..read more

There are different philosophies one can have when it comes to money. Jared Dillian’s is built around eliminating as much anxiety around it as possible, so you hardly think about money at all. Jared is a former trader for Lehman Brothers, the editor of The Daily Dirtnap, a market newsletter for investment professionals, and the author of No Worries: How to Live a Stress-Free Financial Life. Today on the show, Jared talks about the two biggest sources of financial stress — debt and risk — and how you can eliminate the stress they can cause. We discuss how three big financial decisions — buying ..read more

An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week. Igniting a fire requires more than a spark. Sweating through a bow drill session to create an ember or grinding away at a piece of flint to make a shower of sparks is wasted if you don’t have a good home for the flicker of fire that’s produced ..read more

What does it mean to be cool?  Philosophers have long pondered this burning question.  There are different types of coolness, with some related to affect, style, or talent. But one type is connected to how we show up in relationships. It’s the type that underlies the feeling expressed when you think to tell someone (or yourself), “Just be cool, man.” When individuals embody this way of being cool, their relationships, instead of being marked by tension and drama, are filled with a paradoxical combination of easy warmth and abundant chill. This kind of coolness requires the developme ..read more

Why Public Health Should Attend to the Spiritual Side of Life. When analyzing what factors affect health, researchers rarely factor in the influence of religion and spirituality. Tyler J. VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Harvard’s School of  Public Health, thinks this is a mistake, as this area of life can have a dramatic impact on physical and mental well-being. To wit, while much of the cultural discussion around increases in depression and anxiety, especially among young adults, has centered on smartphones, research has shown “that about 40 percent of the in ..read more

The cowboy is one of the great archetypes of American manliness.  He embodies many of the virtues Americans prize, such as grit, freedom, and independence. The cowboy followed a code of honor that, rather than being set by an aristocracy, came from the ground up and worked itself out within a posse.  While many of our ideas of cowboy life are a myth, the romantic ideal of it has had an outsized influence on American culture, including in language.  Because the cowpuncher was typically uneducated, he often used slang to communicate with his horse-riding, steer-roping peers. In 1 ..read more

Have you ever noticed the guy in a fighting stance on the Art of Manliness logo? That’s not just some random symbol; it’s an actual dude: John L. Sullivan, the greatest bare-knuckle boxer of the 19th century. While most people think bare-knuckle boxing came to an end during Sullivan’s era, in fact, it never entirely went away. In his new book, Bare Knuckle: Bobby Gunn, 73–0 Undefeated. A Dad. A Dream. A Fight Like You’ve Never Seen, Stayton Bonner charts bare-knuckle boxing’s rise, fall, and resurgence, as well as the improbable story of its modern chapter’s winningest champion. Today on the ..read more

Have you had two different experiences, one where you were dumped by text message, and one where you were broken up with in person? While similar sentiments were probably conveyed in both instances, the context of each likely changed your feelings about the experience and even how you then assessed and now remember the relationship. This example begins to get at what media philosopher Marshall McLuhan meant when he famously said “The medium is the message.” When we think about the message of a communication — the aspect of ..read more