Magnificent Bastard

Monday, March 18, 2024



lands end

Ask the MB: How to Live on $4 a Day

Ask the MB: How to Live on $4 a Day
Q: What can you advise for those seeking magnificence without a great deal of financial means? I'm talking below the poverty line here: I'm a graduate student, and after rent, transportation, and tax, I have less than $120 to spend a month for food, drink, laundry, and so forth. So in what ways can a guy get the most bang for bastard buck?
—Evan


A: Have you ever thought about learning to play the guitar or building a time machine? The only way we know to live on $4 a day and still attain a degree of magnificence involve imminent rockstardom (and the helpful female benefactors that come with that) or inhabiting the 18th century.

Our best advice for you circa 2011 if you don't think you have it in you to be the next Axl Rose? Spend $15 a week on food. (That should get you a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, a jar of peanut butter, a giant sack of rice, and maybe some butter.)

Devote $10 a week toward your entertainment fund, by which we mean a monthly 1.75L bottle of Bulleit. Also, get a library card. We sound like a public service announcement here, but reading is one of those rare pleasures that can be enjoyed as much by a pauper as a king.

Devote $5 a week toward your wardrobe and pay close attention to the "Classifieds" sales that Landsendcanvas.com has fairly regularly. (A new sale just started this weekend.) If you're lucky, you can pick up a polo shirt for as little as a $1.50.

It won't be as nice as a $150 polo shirt, but you will have at least one advantage on your side: The flattering silhouette of a man surviving on 2 bucks worth of food every day.

If you find that extreme hunger is making you dizzier than the bourbon is, adjust your budget accordingly — i.e., forgo the wardrobe budget for a month or two and spend more money on food. Don't ever compromise on the bourbon — that's your recreation, your health plan, and your heating bill all combined into one convenient package.

Ask the MB: Bradley Cooper's Cotton Blazer

Ask the MB: Bradley Cooper's Cotton Blazer
Q: Greetings! Love the site. I'm hoping you can tell me where a young professional MB might find a relaxed cotton blazer like the one Bradley Cooper has on here? Thanks.
--Drew


A: Blazers like this will be fairly plentiful in a couple of months as retailers/designers roll out S/S 2011 but for now it's slim pickings. First, browse through the sale rack at YOOX (our favorite blazer-hunting grounds) and you might get lucky. If you need this now and have shorter-than-average arms, the Lands End Canvas Chino Blazer is worth a try. It was a return for us but it's $89.50 (was just $69.50 when Canvas launched, BTW), has functioning buttonholes, a modern fit, and it's very close to what Bradley Cooper is wearing, including the alligator-length arms.

NB: Pairing with gingham strongly endorsed.

Ed. Note: Since pointing out that the blazer is 3-button vs. 2-button as Canvas originally advertised, we love how they've modified the copy to make it a 2.5-button blazer: "Also of note: this jacket has a three-button front, but the lapel is designed so only two buttons show."

Ask the MB: Lands' End Canvas

Canvas chino blazer via Lands' End, $69.50
Canvas chino blazer via Lands' End. $69.50.
Q: Lands' End has started a line called Canvas, and it looks like they're trying to corner the more bastardly market. What do you think - are they TTH?
--Jordan


A: Thanks for the tip, Jordan. We took a look, and while inexpensive, any reasonable person would agree Canvas all looks a little too Lands' End-y. Except for the chino blazer, which is sticking out like a stylish, artfully disheveled sore thumb. 2 buttons, shirt shoulder, patch pockets, functional buttonholes, machine washable, and $69.50. If it's anywhere near what it looks like on paper, we'll get one in khaki and navy.

UPDATE: The blazer shown has 3 buttons, not 2 as described on the Lands' End web site. The sleeves are also the equivalent of a S. If you are a R or L, they will be too short. This was a return.

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  • 3 oz rye whiskey
  • 1 oz sweet vermouth, preferably Dolin
  • 3 dashes Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel-Aged bitters

Stir over ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a pearl onion.


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