how would you get to know me if you never spoke to me?

finding me in the world of film or at least letting it speak for me

i think a lot about how i present myself to the world. like.. honestly more than maybe i should. ive told this story a few times to friends offline but im not sure ive ever shared it online.. the year was 2006, i was in the air force i had like $8 to my name.. i cared literally zero about how i dressed at the gym or to workout. i grew up wrestling. we wore sweatpants with long sleeve shirts taped at the wrist to hide the garbage bag under our shirt to help us sweat to make weight. this was early 2000’s to we didn’t have under armor compression or nike dri-fit ok…? anyways.. this particular day i was at the gym in baggy grey sweats, wide legged, draggin over my shoes so the back of the heel was kinda dirty.. blue white and black nike shocks and if im correct, like a soft navy blue cut off tee from i think american eagle. anyways, as i walked in to the gym i saw one of the officers we worked for and i said hello.. he stopped me and said “what are you doing?” to which i replied.. “what do you mean sir?” he had said so while kind of tugging at my shirt.. mind you.. the shirt was cut by me.. so it was done poorly.. “look at how you’re dressed maynard?” (side note: in the military we called each other by our last names) i said, “i’m just working out.. these are my gym clothes” he then proceeded to ask me a question that to this day lives rent free in my head.. he said “what if the president walked in right now and you got the chance, maybe your one chance ever to have a photograph with the president.. would you look back on that photo and be proud of the way you looked?”

no i know you might think that is harsh but it mattered so much to me in that moment. i was young.. all of barely 20.. he would go on to become a mentor to me in so many aspects of my life.. i will forever love him for that moment. a year later i would get orders to south korea and it was there that my love of all things “style” and fashion would really take off..

ok moving on.. and tbh, this piece has nothing to do with clothing or style.. i just felt like that little anecdote helped me paint this picture of what i mean by “never met me” - i often think about how i am perceived.. (carl, no one is thinking about you!.. i know i know) what do people think about me when i walk in to a room full of strangers? if someone comes across my instagram, what does that say about me without me saying anything to them. if someone is maybe say looking to hire me, are they looking at me or my work? or both? given my nature of work, i often tend to operate from a place of “the internet is a living resume” - the day someone is looking to hire you, may be the one day you post a video online that paints you in a bad light? ok, so no party videos. or maybe the day someone is looking to hire you, happens to be the day you post a photo of your travels and poof.. they’re looking for someone to document a travel series.. you see what i mean? the internet to me feels less “permanent” or yet more so “living” - splitting hairs maybe.. but to me its different.

thus like i said.. i think about this often, how would you get to know me if you never spoke to me? so much of who we are when we are not around or even when we are silent speaks for us.. so much of how we are perceived can happen without ever even saying a word to someone.. this idea being fully transparent here is not really an original thought.. in many ways there are things in my life that have helped spark this idea..

i wanna give two examples here so bare with me…

1. on john mayer’s as/as live compilation, the track “home life” has this section where he sort of ad libs half way through the song.. he’s conveying this idea that he is having a conversation with someone who he is a long distance relationship with or someone who he is connected with but in many ways is still distant with, in the song he says.. “you been stayin in the house in the room, lookin around at all my stuff its speaking for me it’s saying “we don’t know where he is.” ”

   

   and the second is

2. in chapter one of a podcast from the new york times, entitled “the caliphate” - hosted by Rukmini Callimachi, she talks about her and her teams routine of going in to house/buildings that have been cleared as a result of a war and in her case, buildings once held by ISIS.. she makes this claim about as a journalist, if you want the best story, “you have to be there, you have to be on the ground if you want to try to understand the story.” she then goes on to say something that has stuck with me for years.. “imagine if you walked in to my home right now..if you walked in right now, you would probably find my bank of america statement. if you found that, you find all of my daily transactions… you know what diet i have, you would know that i have a pension for buying a certain kind of rice milk.. you would know the stores that i go to shop at..so you might conclude from that, that i’m probably middle class.. if you walked over to my book shelf, you would find books in romanian, in english and in french. and you could deduce from that, that i most likely speak three languages or that members of my family are bilingual or trilingual… if you went upstairs and you went in to my bedroom and you found my diary, you would find my most private thoughts..”

now… im sure you’re probably confused as to how im going to connect the dots from a john mayer song to a podcast about terrorism.. and you’re right.. its a little far fetched but you have to know that for me, those two quotes really live with me. they make me think about things. that make me think about how i am perceived. what the things about me say for me, the things i have in my home, how does that speak for me? and all of that had me thinking in what ways do i think things could speak for me if they were not shown but known… then.. that got me thinking.. what do i want to speak for me? what do i want to be known? admittedly i don’t let many people in to my home. im not against it, but just something about getting older that has changed for me.. to me the home is such a respite from the outside world.. but we’ll have that conversation some other time.. but i’ll just add this.. for me i just think a home is harder to be in when someone who was once there, is never there again. it’s hard to let someone in and share the most personal side of me when the idea is there that they may not be there forever..

anyways.. what i landed on with this idea of what do i want to speak for me? how can i present myself to people in a way that says “this is who i am.” - and i landed on.. movies. if i had a shelf and ten movies sat atop it, what would those ten movies be that would speak for me.. not “the best” movies but ten that helped someone understand me… and the practice of that really excited me.. do i even know me in ten films? are there even ten films that i think could define me…? then i got to writing and realized it was easier than i thought.. so i thought i’d not only share but add some context. we’re talking a few sentences.. nothing long winded… so.. i guess lets get started yeh?

*not in specific order*

1. midnight in paris - the moment i saw this movie, this was the moment i knew i was going to finally go to paris. this movie sparked the first trip and continues to inspire me to go to paris to this day. this movie brought me to paris. paris brought me to “i love you, prove me wrong” - this is the movie you need to know to really know so much about why paris.

2. closer - trust issues.. they run deep in me. i want so badly to see the best in people. but i cant help but wonder.. what is going on when my back is turned. you want me to be in a relationship and just believe you are loyal…? good luck with that. i hate that this movie made me see love this way. but the trust issues run deep.. this movie reminds me they are very human

3. match point - desire and love sound a lot like desperation mixed with devotion to yourself. love makes us do crazy things. love makes us go to places we never imagined. love can feel like a sunset and love can be the worst thing in the world. love can ruin us. love can ruin a good thing.

4. like crazy - the john mayer line from “edge of desire” where he says “i want you so bad i’ll go back on the things that said” - this film gives me hope. this film makes me know that love takes work. love takes humbling yourself. love makes us weak. love. this move will forever give me hope. it is what makes me fall hard from the beginning.. it is also what will keep me there when i know i shouldn’t be. its ccognitive dissonance is the form of a movie.

5. inception - the world is bigger only if you imagine it to be.. and there is not such thing as original thought.. every rain drop has a reflection, every thing is connected

6. wedding crashers - nothing makes me laugh in life more than this film. i also just want what owen wilson and rachel mccadams have in this movie. i know its a movie but i think it can be real and i’ll probably always be looking for it.

7. tenet - “what's happened, happened. which is an expression of fate in the mechanics of the world. it's not an excuse to do nothing.” - i’ve written about this quote from the film before but this movie is what inspires me to keep going.. forward.. while understanding that having an understanding of the past can help us in the future.

8. when harry met sally - real love might be staring me in the face.. it might just take some time to realize it.. i believe in love. i do.. but i don’t want it to come easy. i believe its worth fighting for and learning more about who you are before you can realize it.

9. past lives - there will always be the one that got away.. simply put, there will always be a what if? and yet… sometimes, that what if will always take up space in my heart as the we’ll see.

10. i heart huckabees - it might not matter to anyone else but if it matters to you, it matters. if you care, thats all that matters.. sometimes you just have to accept that someone won’t care about something as much as you do.. and thats just life.. but.. its worth knowing that everything matters..

me in capital hill, washington dc on november 23rd, 2018 with an espresso from peregrine on pennsylvania ave.. which btw has always been confusing to me because the door to get in is on 7th st.. this was one of my first noah hats and to this day, this is the best jacket tracksmith has ever made.. this was their first version and to this day its the best version. still have mine. i think thats an apc hoodie on under it as well that i got from commonwealth back when it was in admo on florida ave next to pleasant pops before they shut down.. got this fit off just to go get a coffee.. lol. told you that moment in 2006 had an impact on me.

notes on the piece: the above writing was not edited by anyone, please don’t judge my mistakes. as always, this page will be a diary of streams of thought. i’m not worried about word count or phrasing. i’m worried about staying honest. i’ll understand if you don’t care for this one much but i have to believe in what i say, now more than ever. i’m not sure if the above even matters to anyone or if the analogy translates out-loud like it does in my head but i just wanted to get this written down and out there in case it helped someone else think about how the things in their life speak for them.. happy discovery..

thanks for reading.

carl. x.

ps.. a note on “edge of desire” by john mayer.. this version that john mayer shared on his battle studies blog when that album came out, is something truly truly special and in some imaginary world i hope one day he releases an actual available for download version.. but for now.. we just have this version that lives on youtube. the best part.. if you listen closely you can hear his phone alerts going off in the background.. ugh, this version is just perfect.