Odds & Ends: April 11, 2025

Shovelglove. Twenty years ago, back in the very early days of the blogosphere, I stumbled upon a fitness protocol that I still think about today: Shovelglove. The concept is brilliantly simple: wrap an old sweater around a sledgehammer and then perform 14 minutes of movements inspired by traditional manual labor — shoveling, butter churning, chopping wood, etc. — every weekday morning. The creator, Reinhard Engels, cleverly designed the 14-minute timeframe to be just under what he calls “schedulistically significant time” — one minute less than the smallest standard scheduling block — to make workouts seamlessly fit into daily routines without excuse. What I love about Shovelglove, beyond its effectiveness, is the website itself, which looks exactly like it did in 2005 when I first discovered it: no bells and whistles, no slick social media hype — just a straightforward $25 hardware-store solution to fitness.

“Decent Man” by James McMurtry. I recently discovered a song that serendipitously intersects with two of my favorite American authors. Singer-songwriter James McMurtry is the son of Larry McMurtry, the author who wrote my all-time favorite novel, Lonesome Dove. In his song “Decent Man,” James draws inspiration from a powerful short story — “Pray Without Ceasing” — which was penned by another literary hero of mine, Wendell Berry. James distills a small-town tragedy into four minutes of sparse, devastating musical storytelling that carries the same emotional weight as his father’s prose. His weathered voice perfectly complements the material, rendering the moral complexities of human violence both timeless and achingly relevant. The entire album, The Horses and the Hounds, which features “Decent Man,” is great and worth a listen too.

A River Runs Through It. This week, the McKay family watched Robert Redford’s 1992 film, A River Runs Through It, which follows two brothers’ divergent paths and their shared love of fly fishing in early 20th-century Montana. Despite its unhurried pace, not only the adults, but our kids enjoyed the film as well. While there may not be a ton of dramatic tension, it’s worth watching for the cinematography alone: the landscapes are truly breathtaking. Much of the movie is just dang soothing. I’m ready to move to Montana now. (Apparently many people felt similarly; the state received a boost in tourism for more than a decade after the film came out.)

Counter Frozen Burritos. I subscribe to a newsletter put out by a fella named Tom, who shares high-protein, low-cal meal-prep recipes. He started a company called Counter that offers ready-to-eat frozen food versions of some of his recipes. At 30 grams of protein and only 330 calories per burrito, these babies are great if you need to get your protein while watching calories. And unlike typical frozen meals, these actually taste good — not just “good for frozen food” but genuinely satisfying. You can find them at Target.

Over on our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: You Gotta Do What’s Best for You? and A Monk-Inspired Daily Routine.

Quote of the Week

All problems become smaller if you don’t dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble.

—William Halsey

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.