No hair transplants, pills or toupees. These men are embracing baldness. While plenty of guys are flying to Turkey for hair transplants, rubbing minoxidil into their scalps every night, or taking finasteride, this WSJ piece profiles men going the other direction: they’ve quit fighting their receding hairlines, shaved off all their hair, and embraced being bald. It’s understandable why guys want to hold on to their hair: we associate hair with youth and vitality, and a full head of it can enhance your attractiveness. But maintaining a waning mane takes a lot of time and money, and some of the treatments have pretty bad side effects like sexual dysfunction. Also, at a certain point styling thinning hair just doesn’t work anymore and starts to make you look older or oblivious to the fact you’re pretty much already bald. Shaving your head solves all those problems. I always enjoy reading posts in r/Bald from guys who finally decide to just embrace their chrome dome and all the comments telling them how great they look. It’s a surprisingly wholesome and supportive subreddit.
“I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman. When I interviewed Manoush Zomorodi a couple of months ago about her book Body Electric, I realized I had never read the Whitman poem the book’s title was inspired by. So I sought to rectify that, and am very glad I did. It’s an awesome poem and now one of my favorites. Whitman penned a sensual paean to physicality — to the human body’s wonder, beauty, and power. He celebrates each part of the body and exults in all its capacities, from working to walking to reproducing. Whitman admonishes us not to neglect the care of the body and to develop its full strength and health. He argues that “If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,” and that in some ways, the body is the soul.
Katadyn Hiker Pro Water Filter. If you’re getting out there this summer by doing some backpacking, you’ll need to think about a water filter. The Katadyn Hiker Pro has been my go-to backcountry filter for over a decade now. Drop the intake hose in the water, pump the handle about 50 times, and you’ve got a liter of clean, good-tasting water (the activated carbon core filters out any funky flavors). It weighs 11 ounces, packs down small, and connects right to Nalgenes and hydration bladders. It’s never let me down.
“drop dead” by Olivia Rodrigo. I’m not a music snob. I don’t only listen to one genre, nor eschew any music for being too mainstream or pop-y. I’m down for a good banger from whatever source it cometh. So when Scout queued up “drop dead” — the lead single off Olivia Rodrigo’s new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love — while we were driving a few weeks ago, I wasn’t expecting much, but gave it a chance. And I’ll be danged, it’s great. It pushes all my pop music buttons: pop synth with a pop rock bridge. The lyrics are fun to boot. All about young love. I had the song on repeat for a week. The rest of Rodrigo’s album is surprisingly good as well. It’s become the McKay’s album of the summer.
On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: The Empty Niche and Why Is It So Hard to Admit You’ve Made a Mistake?
Quote of the Week
How great soever a genius may be, and how much soever he may acquire new light and heat, he will never shine in his full luster, nor shed the full influence he is capable of, unless to his own experience he adds of other men and other ages.
—Henry St. John Bolingbroke
