What I'm Reading, September 2022
Saxx underwear, the Open Library, Meghan Daum, Frans de Wall, Grayson Perry, Brian Broome, Kim Stanley Robinson, Norah Vincent, Loic Le Meur, Carl Erik Fisher, Anya Kaats, Louis CK, and... Tokyo Vice
Here’s a few highlights of what I’m reading lately. You can also see my entire suggested reading list here, as well as a list of podcasts that I love.
Resources and Products
I only just recently came across Open Library (a project of the Internet Archive, which also runs the Wayback Machine) and wow, what a great resource! You can borrow books online, for free!
I used to love a good caffeine buzz, but these days I find that it takes me out more than anything else, and so I rarely drink coffee any longer. I’ve been enjoying MUD/WTR quite a lot as an alternative morning drink. It’s a combination of mushrooms, cacao, a little black tea, turmeric and other spices, with about 1/7 of the caffeine of coffee. Check it out https://mudwtr.com
I’m sure that by now you’re wondering what kind underwear I’m wearing… A friend turned me on to Saxx Underwear a few years ago and now I wear nothing else. Aside from the comfort, I love the material—lightweight and great for travel, I can wash them in the sink or a river and they dry super quick.
I’m doing my best to archive all of these resources and stuff recommendations on this page here.
Reading
Meghan Daum, Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids. I found this book while researching writing about men who aren’t fathers. While most of the essays are by women, there are a few by men, including a great piece by one of my favorite writers, Tim Kreider. He’s always honest—and very funny—and The End of the Line is no exception. Overall I found the essays in this collection helpful in digesting my own experience of not being a father, which I wrote about in The Man Pays.
Some quotes from Tim’s piece:
“I accept that people with children are having a deeper, more complex experience of being alive than I am, and this is fine with me.”
“Raising children is one of many life experiences I’m happy to die without having had, like giving birth, going to war, spending a night in jail, or seeing Forrest Gump. If I could get through life without experiencing death, I would gladly do that, too.”
“It is a complex animal indeed, arguably one too highly evolved for its own good, that consciously declines to fulfill one of its few basic biological imperatives. The only act more perverse and unnatural than purposely not reproducing is suicide.”
“All the best arguments that parents and the childless muster about which of their lives is the more rational, satisfying, and/or morally superior are about as interesting to me as the ongoing debate about Which Are Better: Cats or Dogs. ”
Frans de Waal, Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist. I’m very interested in the current explosion of gender norms, in large part because I’m interested in the evolution of what it means to be a “man,” or “masculine,” and how that is different—if at all—from being a person, or, a person with a penis. I especially appreciate the scientific perspectives in books like de Wall’s, along with Carole Hooven’s T: The Story of Testosterone, Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen, Chris Ryan’s Sex at Dawn, and David M. Buss’ The Evolution of Desire.
Brian Broome, Punch Me Up to the Gods. As an aspirating memoirist, I love a good memoir, and Broome’s story and his writing are both outstanding.
Grayson Perry, The Descent of Man. I’m coming a little late to the game here, as this was first published in 2016, and I first came across Grayson’s work on Youtube and his BBC series. He brings a very unique perspective on manhood and masculinity as a heterosexual man who is also a lifelong cross-dresser and offers some beautiful definitions of masculinity including that it is “mainly a construct of conditioned feelings around people with penises,” including “tenderness,” as well as “tolerance, flexibility, and emotional literacy,” and that masculinity “a plurality,” and most of all that it is “whatever you want it to be.”
Patricia W. Lunneborg, The Chosen Lives of Childfree Men
John Kim, Single On Purpose: Redefine Everything. Find Yourself First.
I’m planning on writing more about my own experience taking time off from relationships and sex, and I read John Kim’s book because I thought it was about taking time to be “single on purpose” before or in between relationships. It turns out that it’s more about ‘finding yourself first,’ before expecting your relationship(s) to work. John’s a great writer, and this is a quick fun read well suited to folks who are just starting their journey of self-discovery. His ‘Angry Therapist’ insta is great, give him a follow.
Martha Beck, The Way of Integrity
Podcasts
Flourishing After Addiction with Carl Erik Fisher, Transforming Addiction and Suffering with Philosophy, with Prof. Peg O'Connor, June 16, 2022
How philosophy helped Peg get sober — same here.
Evolving Man, #69 - From The Core - A Guide To Masculine Leadership - with John Wineland, July 21, 2022
Ben Goresky interviews John Wineland on his new book, From the Core.
Huberman Lab, #86, What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health, Aug 22, 2022
Huberman breaks it down once and for all, showing conclusively that there are no health benefits—only drawbacks and damage—from drinking alcohol.
Whore Rapport, #28 Monogamy, Jan 22, 2022
Whore Rapport, #18 Masculinity, Aug 26, 2022
“Lots of men are terrified of acting in a masculine way, because our culture, as an over correction to patriarchy, has labeled any form of masculine energy as embodied by a man as toxic.”
“masculinity,” is simply the energies that a particular person who happens to be a man is embodying.
Tangentially Speaking with Christopher Ryan, Cameron Shayne (Budokon Movement / Charlie Sheen's Bodyguard), Sept 2, 2021
Chris and Cameron rap about becoming friends and common interests
MANTORSHIFT - The Art of Being a Man, #31 with Fernando Desouches on The New Macho, July 14, 2021
Outstanding interview with a guy who runs an ad/creative agency focusing on the new masculine.
…we are going “from a place where attraction has been seen as a conquering game to a more relaxed way of seeing attraction as a connection game.”
…we need to ‘...expand the definition of success to incorporate self-awareness, your values, the relationships that you have...’
“My maturity and integration as an adult man will be recognizing myself…”
“It’s necessary to relax the hyper-masculine, not the masculine.”
“Men are in a transition that goes from performing who you are not to being comfortable who you are.”
‘Diversity of values is just as important than diversity of sex, gender, ability, race...’
Film and TV
In the realm of film and TV, I very highly recommend Louis CK's new film Fourth of July,
...the Suburra: Blood on Rome series on Netflix (their first series produced in Italy and in Italian as the first language).
...Feels Good Man, an great documentary about the incredible sort of Pepe the Frog.
...Grayson Perry's stuff on Youtube, for example
...Marriage Story with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson
...and the Tokyo Vice series on HBO.
You can find all the past editions of What I’m Reading right here.