Coke Zero Oreo. When our household made a current journey to QuickTrip, we observed a brand new product on the cabinets: Coke Zero Oreo. Sure, that’s proper, Oreo-flavored Coke Zero. Will we reside within the best nation on the earth, or what? We couldn’t not attempt it, and it turned out to be dang good. The cookies-and-cream taste melds surprisingly effectively with Coke Zero’s base, creating one thing that tastes like a lovely dessert, minus the energy. Whereas most of those limited-edition sodas really feel like advertising and marketing gimmicks, this one’s earned a spot in my common rotation. Hope they preserve it round.
“Vibrant Lights” by the Killers. You all know I’m a Killers fan. They dropped a brand new single just a few months in the past together with their Las Vegas residency, and it’s nonetheless getting common play in my rotation. It’s a tune about homecoming and preserving the fires of ambition burning even in midlife. A minimum of, that’s my interpretation of it. This tune is a particular enviornment anthem that begins off with a nod to Springsteen, however ends with a full-on Las-Vegas-era-Elvis tribute, punched up with gospel swells and horns.
Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Tradition of York by John D. Truthful. I just lately completed this fascinating dive into America’s energy tradition that chronicles how Bob Hoffman turned York, Pennsylvania right into a weightlifting Mecca by his York Barbell Firm. Probably the most attention-grabbing side of the story, to me, was York’s rivalry with Joe Weider. Whereas Hoffman championed Olympic weightlifting because the pure pursuit of energy, Weider noticed the long run in bodybuilding’s aesthetic attraction. Their battle wasn’t simply enterprise — it was philosophical and extremely private. They defamed and sued one another for years. Hoffman dismissed bodybuilders as “muscle heads” and “fairly boys,” whereas Weider’s Muscle & Health empire helped launch Arnold Schwarzenegger into stardom. Should you’re a disciple of the iron, it is a must-read for understanding the strength-training world at this time.
“The Street Much less Traveled” from Historical past This Week. One of many attention-grabbing tidbits that’s caught with me from studying Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals and speaking to him about it on the podcast is the concept that most individuals misinterpret Robert Frost’s well-known poem “The Street Not Taken.” Whereas it’s sometimes interpreted to be a poem about selecting individuality and nonconformity — going one’s personal method — literary students like David Orr have argued that it’s actually a poem about how we make selections usually, that we resolve a sure path was the very best one to take after the very fact. On this quick and attention-grabbing episode of the Historical past This Week podcast, Orr and a Frost biographer unpack this concept additional and supply the actual context for this basic entry within the American literary canon.
Quote of the Week
Lord assist the person who has no sources for his leisure hours however to train his feelings as a substitute of his legs.
—John Ballard
Assist help impartial publishing. Make a donation to The Artwork of Manliness! Thanks for the help!
