YouTube Update Video. While I used to regularly make videos for YouTube, I stopped ten years ago because I don’t like making videos. But I thought I’d check in on that platform to announce the new website redesign and catch subscribers up on what else AoM has been doing this past decade. Plus, I know people parasocially want to know what I look like these days. Answer: A lot grayer.

Also be sure to watch this other video we made in conjunction with the redesign that captures the ethos of McKay Inc. 

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett Graff. This week marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks. I had author Garrett Graff on the podcast to talk about When the Sea Came Alive, his oral history of D-Day, and was impressed with his storytelling method. He gathers hundreds of firsthand accounts and weaves them into a single hour-by-hour narrative, so you experience the day as it unfolded for people in the thick of it instead of as history summarized after the fact. He used the same approach in this earlier book on 9/11, drawing on the voices of air traffic controllers, firefighters, office workers in the towers, and the staffers aboard Air Force One, which, after American airspace was shut down that morning, was the only plane in the sky (hence the title of the book). Even if you think you know the story of 9/11, the book gives you a fresh, visceral, and incredibly compelling perspective on the day. Despite the page count, the oral narrative format makes it a quick read — something you can knock out over the weekend. 

Flint and Tinder Bone Button Western Shirt. Ever since high school, I’ve had a pearl snap western shirt in my wardrobe. It’s a classic piece of casual menswear, and a versatile one. You can wear it buttoned up on its own or as an overshirt thrown over a tee. It’s a piece that invariably looks good with the sleeves rolled up. For the past several years, the western shirt in my rotation has been this rendition from Flint and Tinder, which trades the traditional pearl snaps for burnt cow bone snaps. Made in the USA to boot. I have it in the medium wash. Easy and handsome. 

“The Fire of Drift-Wood” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I’ve always loved the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He’s got some real bangers, which is why we included three of his poems in our book Manvotionals: “The Builders,” “The Light of Stars,” and “The Village Blacksmith.” But I had never read “The Fire of Drift-Wood” until Kate shared it with me this week after Dying Breed reader Kyle P. shared it with her. I really enjoyed it. The poem finds two reunited friends talking by a fire, reminiscing about what once was, and what might have been had their lives not gone in different directions. As the literal and metaphorical driftwood — parts of the past that have been broken up and carried away by time — burn, old memories and yearnings spark up again. It’s a melancholy poem, but a beautiful one.

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published My 8 Highest ROI Habits and Sunday Firesides: The $30,000 Sofa.

Quote of the Week

Never put yourself in a position, no matter what the inducement — whether a big salary or other financial reward, or the promise of position or influence — where you cannot act the part of a man. Let no consideration tie your tongue or purchase your opinion. Regard your independence as your inalienable right, with which you will never part for any consideration.

—Orison Swett Marden

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.