You Can't Take the Must Out of a Mustache

In the 2005 French movie La Moustache, a middle-aged man shaves off the mustache he’s had his entire adult life—and chaos ensues. Not the kind of screwball chaos you’d expect from a Hollywood movie, all explosions and grand, far-reaching conspiracies, but the kind of small-scale, internal absurdity that can be truly destabilizing. Because no one notices the disappearance of his ‘stache: not his wife, not their friends. Worse, they don’t believe he ever had a mustache. Evidence is elusive—where did those photos from their trip to Bali go? And soon, other aspects of his once-sure life seem not so sure. Is his father alive or dead? Who is this man, and can he trust his own memories? Is something wrong with the universe, or is he just delusional? In other words: This is my kind of movie.

Early in 2020, a middle-aged man—i.e., me—shaved off the beard he’d had since the U.S. release of La Moustache. It wasn’t much of a beard, just a slightly thicker than thin coating of hair across my face, but it was the best my genes and I could do. Now, however, the Covid pandemic had begun, and I was concerned I might need to wear a tight-fitting mask. Plus, maybe I needed a change. I shaved it all off—except, of course, for the mustache.

Few people noticed outside of my immediate household. This was, again, likely because of the pandemic—how many people was I seeing in those days—but also because the beard had never been much to begin with, and blondish to boot, so unobtrusive. I imagine, if you knew me only casually or could not stand to stare at my face for long (I get it!), I had looked merely scruffy rather than intentionally hirsute. From March 2020 onward, I guess I just looked a lot cleaner.

To maintain my newly clean-cut appearance, however, I had to engage in that most quotidian of tasks: shaving. This wasn’t entirely novel to me, of course. I’d shaved regularly from my late teens till I was almost 32. But this felt different. The universe of razor blades and shaving creams had greatly expanded over the course of nearly 14 years; my knowledge of shaving materials and techniques had not. There was much to learn! I experimented with different creams, eventually settling on the Italian brand Proraso, in part because my favorite, the Italian brand Mem, is hard to find. I did not play around as much with blades, though; the good old Mach 3 Turbo has sufficed—for now.

But one thing I did learn surprised me: I like shaving. There’s a deep tactile pleasure to be found in carefully shearing off the nascent shoots of hair. The rasp of the razor hits that ASMR spot so sweetly, and the smoothness that’s left behind is remarkable. It’s like one of those Instagram time-lapse videos where an attractive couple refinishes an aging coffee table: oddly satisfying. The world has been put right again.

In fact, I wish I could shave more often. But I am just not that hairy. In general I shave every third day, giving my face enough time to produce a thick enough covering to be removed and ensuring I never shave the same days every week. (Thank goodness 7 is a prime number!) My dad is the same, and I assume my brother is, too. I don’t know how our Litvak ancestors survived the Baltic winters. Cannibalism, maybe?

Every other day would be preferable—I could get into that groove. Every day would be amazing. My morning routine certainly has room for one more strangely pleasurable activity. And not just pleasurable but truly Sisyphean! Is there any task more existentially pointless than the daily removal of hair that will immediately grow back¹? What is the point? you might ask. Why bother? What does it get you beyond a socially acceptable appearance? Because beyond the tactile pleasure lies the more abstruse (but just as real) satisfaction of doing a small job well, of feeling as though you have mastered one small aspect—perhaps the smallest aspect—of human existence. To inhabit that subtle moment every 24 hours would be, I imagine, sublime.

Instead, I’m stuck in between. I clearly cannot grow a true beard, yet I can’t shave more often than every few days or I damage my face. If I were bound to traditional concepts of masculinity, I might find this liminal space maddening: I’m neither man enough to be bearded nor man enough for a five o’clock shadow. (They’re really the same thing, after all.) But manliness, or lack thereof, is the least of my worries². I’ve got nothing to prove. I’m not about to be misgendered: One quick glance at my balding pate and bristly blond mustache, and you can guess where I land on that spectrum³.

If we’re being honest, I probably look like an old man, mostly clean-shaven, but increasingly shaggy and wrinkly. That’s what my mother tells me, though she blames the mustache itself. And I have to say, five years into its cultivation, I am tempted to shave it off. I can imagine the sensation even now, the hairs being lopped off at their base by a fresh-from-the-pack blade, the infantile smoothness left behind, the familiar-but-alien look of my new face. I don’t like to rest on tradition, to rely on what was always been, so maybe this is where I am already headed.

Except, of course, there are those who would not notice, and I would, like the hero of La Moustache, begin to question my reality. Was it ever really even there? And even if it was, now that it’s gone, what have the decades meant, now that I’ve returned to an earlier version of myself? When the boulder lies at the bottom of Mount Tartarus, how do we know it’s ever seen the peak? We know, I suppose, because we are not the rock but Sisyphus himself, the shaver not the mustache, and we know what to do next. 🪨🪨🪨

It’s Good and I Like It: Macaroni and Cheese

It’s cold now. Because it’s winter. And so, for me, it’s mac-and-cheese season. And not the Kraft-from-a-box kind. Mac and cheese can be sublime—rich, satisfying, even delicate and nuanced. There are a million recipes, and I’m not about to write a whole new one, but here’s the gist: Cook half a pound of pasta (elbows, shells, tubes, whatever as long as it can hold sauce) for 2–3 minutes less than the package says. Make a béchamel: 3 tablespoons butter, 3 tablespoons flour, 3 cups warm milk, 1 teaspoon of salt (I think—I always get this wrong), lots of black pepper, and 1 pound of shredded cheese (gruyère definitely, plus cheddar or whatever you like). Mix the pasta and the sauce and bake in a buttered dish at 350°F until the top starts to brown⁴, at least 30 minutes. Serve with a crisp green salad, a punchy vinaigrette, and a bottle of red wine. That’s it. Oh, except for this: Hot sauce makes macaroni and cheese even better.

Notes

1. I mean besides rolling a boulder up a mountain, of course.

2. Anyone wanna let us know what the female version of this essay is? That’s what the Comments section is for!

3. My voice, however, is a different story. On customer-service phone calls, I’m regularly referred to as “ma’am.” Oh well. I’m secure enough to let it slide.

4. I’m not a bread-crumb guy. You needn’t be, either.

Read Yesterday’s Attempt