You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.
Hey, it's Marielle.
Brett McKay has an impressive mustache.
It looks like the head of a broom, black, maybe a little salt and pepper,
and to my eye, an indispensable companion to his eyebrows.
He first grew it out for Movember in 2009.
That's the annual campaign in November,
where folks sport mustaches to raise awareness and money for men's health.
I didn't think I was going to keep it, but at the end of Movember,
I was like, you know what, I actually look pretty good in this.
And my wife was like, I would, I'm really surprised by this,
but I also think you look good in it too.
Brett is the writer of a blog and the host of a podcast called The Art of Manliness.
So of course I had to ask, what does manliness mean to him?
He said he studied classical literature in college,
things like the Iliad and the writings of Cicero.
And that word manliness meant something different then than it often does today.
I think today we have this sort of cartoonish idea of what manliness is.
It's this big burly guy who likes to eat meat and lift weights.
But for ancient Greeks and ancient Romans,