Just stumbled across this great video featuring Graham Hill, the founder of Life Edited, that discusses their philosophy of “clearing the arteries of life.” Fascinating and eye-opening.

Check it out, and let it motivate you to life-edit this weekend.

[via PSFK]

If you haven’t visited Letters of Note, you definitely should. It provides “fascinating letters” and correspondence from the famous and infamous.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this letter from Ernest Hemingway (who, you’ll remember, I admire) to F. Scott Fitzgerald on the publication of his final book, Tender Is The Night. I’ve pulled out my favorite parts of the letter below for your enjoyment (the misspellings are genuine to the letter):

For Christ sake write and don’t worry about what the boys will say nor whether it will be a masterpiece nor what. I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket. You feel you have to publish crap to make money to live and let live. All write but if you write enough and as well as you can there will be the same amount of masterpiece material (as we say at Yale). You can’t think well enough to sit down and write a deliberate masterpiece and if you could get rid of Seldes and those guys that nearly ruined you and turn them out as well as you can and let the spectators yell when it is good and hoot when it is not you would be all right.

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.

About this time I wouldn’t blame you if you gave me a burst. Jesus it’s marvellous to tell other people how to write, live, die etc…

But Scott, good writers always come back. Always. You are twice as good now as you were at the time you think you were so marvellous. You know I never thought so much of Gatsby at the time. You can write twice as well now as you ever could. All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is.

Go on and write…

Check out the entire letter at Letters of Note, and keep on keeping on. Go on and write.

[Letters of Note via Flavorwire]

When I first heard about Mansome, the new documentary from Morgan Spurlock – the creator of Super Size Me and The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, etc. - I admit I was skeptical. People like Judd Apatow and others featured in the movie have historically not portrayed men in the greatest light. My qualms with Hollywood’s stereotyping of men being well documented, I pinned this as another journey down the aren’t-men-so-incompetent-they’re-funny rabbit hole.

After seeing the trailer (above), I’m not so sure. Yes, funny people are involved. In fact some of my favorites, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman, produced the movie. But at first glance it seems like they might have done a good job toeing the line of satire, while making an important point about the ridiculous mores of the American male. If that’s the case, then this might actually be a movie worth seeing.

Guess we’ll see. The movie is expected in theaters this May.

[via Hypebeast]

I’m still digging myself out of the inevitable vacation rut, but in the meantime, why not enjoy this amazing video about a watchmaker from the talented photographer/director Dustin Cohen, the next in his “Made in Brooklyn” series (the last you might remember).

Be back to the grind soon with more. How was your week last week?

Love this beautifully shot and edited story of Sam Zygmuntowicz, a violin maker in Brooklyn. His description of the passion behind the musicians he works with is so compelling.

Enjoy. See you in Austin?

[via The World's Best Ever]

Need more proof that guys hitting on women in bars is creepy? Try reversing the roles. It’s been done before, with just as creepy effects.

[via Devour]

Being human is never easy. But that’s the point. Perhaps as an unintended consequence of our relentless quest for more, bigger, faster, cheaper, now, we’ve comfortably acceded to something akin to a minor-league contempt for the richness and grandeur of life unquenchably meaningfully well lived. Hence, call this post my tiny statement of rebellion. Hex me with all the bland management jargon in the world, zap me with all the perfect theories and models you like, but I’ll never, ever accept the idea that triviality, mediocrity, and futility are appropriate goals for any human being, much less our grand, splintering systems of human organization.

I’m developing a serious man-crush on Umair Haque, author of the above book and internationally renowned thinker on management and economics. This quote is from a recent article he wrote for Harvard Business Review, called “Create a Meaningful Life Through Meaningful Work.”

Oh, and then he tweets stuff like this:

I’m at the mall. Tebowing.

— umair haque (@umairh) February 4, 2012

Guys, I get it. I really do.

You’ve been taught all your life to avoid “girly” things. People have told you to be “be a man,” and possibly made fun of you for doing something that appears feminine. You’ve been given an innate fear of weakness, beauty, and other qualities that have somehow become only associated with the fairer sex.

Maybe this led you to play a sport you didn’t really care about. Or pretend to like an action movie you thought was actually poorly produced. Or hide your love of things like poetry, or the “Real Housewives of Orange County.”

You’ve gravitated towards things like man aisles in grocery stores, or sites like The Art of Manliness, because they’ve supposedly made it easy to tell what a real man does – to differentiate yourself from feminine things. New shows like Man Up and Last Man Standing appeal to you for the same reasons.

Enter the new site Gentlemint, which does the same thing online. You’ve heard about Pinterest, the wildly popular online pinboard where people can “pin” images and videos to curated boards for everyone to see your interests. But you’ve also heard that Pinterest is dominated by women, so you’ve hesitated. And now Gentlemint has given you an option that will clearly say, “I’m a man!” Everyone wins, right?

Wrong.

Here’s why I’m going to advocate that you avoid things like Gentlemint. The first reason – the most important reason – is that those assholes in high school (who, let’s face it, may have included your own father) who advocated for you to “be a man” were telling you that because of their own insecurities. The anti-femininity (and thinly-veiled homophobia) that is rampant in locker rooms and around dinner tables in America is a moral failing that not enough parents – not enough fathers – have the courage to address.

We need to be better than this. Because right now, we’re intentionally creating intellectual and cultural ghettos from which men are incapable of escaping. We’re ceding the marketplace of ideas and innovation to women out of a fear of becoming like them – no, out of a fear that other men will perceive that we’ve become like them. And in the process, we’re making the very idea of men a caricature that no one can take seriously.

This is a small window into why some are declaring the end of men. The ghettos we’re creating extend beyond television and websites – they include professional tracks and education. (“You want to be a nurse? That’s a girls job!”) Fear is leading men to a permanent place of second-class citizenship. Sure, we’re not there yet. But I for one don’t want to see my son growing up in a world of shrinking opportunities for men created by our imaginations.

This is one of the reasons why I created FWD – I want to get the marketplace of ideas back. I want to make it OK for men to think big again. And I hope you’ll join me.

If you don’t have yourself a barber, get one. I’m pretty loyal to mine. That’s one reason I love this video.

The other is that it reminds me of people I grew up with. Plus it got nominated for an Emmy. Score.

[via Devour]

Fascinating history of Santa Claus, eh? Bet you didn’t know that Santa, St. Nick, and Father Christmas were all different people at one point? At least, I didn’t.

No matter what you celebrate at this time of year, happy holidays to you and yours. I’ll be taking a little hiatus around here until the new year, giving myself a much needed digital break. (I suggest you do the same).

See you in 2012.

[via ManMadeDIY]