Odds & Ends: January 12, 2024

Cool Hand Luke. I re-watched Cool Hand Luke this past week, and boy, did I enjoy it. At first glance, this film seems like just another slacker anti-establishment movie, and maybe it is, but what makes this movie great are the layers of existential interpretation that can be applied to it. Luke (Paul Newman) is sent to a prison camp for vandalizing parking meters and defiantly resists whatever authority is thrown at him. Though he gains the admiration of his peers with his non-conformist attitude and escape attempts, the prison officials brutally punish him to break his spirit. Eventually, they succeed, and Luke is abandoned by his admirers. One last escape attempt leads Luke to a final confrontation. To me, Cool Hand Luke speaks to the rebel in all of us and how to smile like Sisyphus when faced with the absurd in life.

Todd’s High-Protein Overnight Power Oats. Todd McGuire, owner of Todd’s Power Oats and AoM reader, recently sent me a sample of his high-protein overnight oats. When I’ve seen other companies advertise their oatmeal as “high protein,” they usually mean the oatmeal has 10 to 15 grams of protein. But Todd’s not messing around with his power oats. Most of them have 30 grams of protein. His Peanut Butter Monster overnight oats have a whopping 37 grams of protein. As my son Gus would say, “He means business.” The high protein comes from mixing whey protein in with the oats. I really enjoyed these and will be picking up some more. Add some milk at night, put ’em in the fridge, and boom, you’ve got a high-protein, high-fiber breakfast waiting for you in the morning.

If you don’t see a flavor that suits you, we’ve got an article about how to create your own overnight oats; just add a scoop of protein to your proprietary mix.

Hear Homer’s Iliad Read in the Original Ancient Greek. You’ve likely read the Iliad or the Odyssey before. But have you ever heard what these epic poems sound like in their original ancient Greek? University of Kansas classicist Stanley Lombardo gives us a taste of what the Iliad would have sounded like to Greek men sitting around a campfire while a bard recited its lines. It’s thumos-inspiring. Make sure to listen to Lombardo’s recitation of his English translation of the Iliad. It’s also stirring.

Having Kids. Because of the vampire problem, you can’t know what it’s like to have kids until you’ve gone and had kids. And from the outside, what you imagine it’s going to be like often turns out to be quite a lot different from what it’s actually like. In this gem of an essay from Y Combinator founder Paul Graham (who maintains a refreshingly old-school website for being a tech guru), he shares how his view of having kids before he had them — that parenting would be a burdensome, productivity-sapping, fun-smothering buzzkill — didn’t end up matching the far more wonderful reality of being a dad. I particularly like the last section of the piece.

Quote of the Week