Arts & Life

‘Today’s Moustache’: season two

It has grown significantly over the past year. As he speaks, your eyes can’t help but drift down from his eyes. In between phrases, he periodically strokes it, pinching it between his fingers to maintain the perfect fluff-to-curl ratio.

John Ciulik is the man behind the friendliest, best-known moustache on campus. As part of a “365 project” that he started one year ago today, Ciulik documents his daily life with photos of his moustache, meant to symbolize and satirize the unexpected, yet beautiful accident that is life.

He said the ordinary track of his life has set the ideal conditions for his project to thrive. The seven-year College of the Arts employee and American studies graduate student has taken more than 5,000 photos of his moustache since last February, choosing his favorite of the multiples he takes each day.

“There’s this old saying, that if you hang around a barber shop long enough, eventually you’re going to get a haircut,” Ciulik said. “With my involvement with [COTA] and the crossover with the art students and art history majors … I just kind of got interested in how a narrative was built.”

He started growing his current mustache in August 2012, but throughout his 30s, he said he has had many different forms of facial hair, from sideburns to beards.

“There was always a sense of hipster irony, although I’ve been accused of that, I’m not a hipster,” he said. “I started it. They just followed me.”

Aside from his eating soup and having to cut his sandwiches in quarters, Ciulik said the moustache project started off as a sort of endurance game.

He said he almost shaved it off after a month, but a friend convinced him that it was worth it. Now, he gels it up in a clean handlebar style, sometimes straightening the ends for more of an “Englishman” moustache.

Ciulik can usually be found talking to students, taking pictures and handing out “@todaysmoustache” limited edition buttons.

“Throughout the year, there are highs and lows and you see this in the moustache,” Ciulik said.

On some days, the moustache in his photo is perfect, and some days it’s droopy or frizzy.

Moustaches have re-surged significantly in American culture, which is part of Ciulik’s philosophy. Stores sell moustache apparel, and young men admire the classic masculinity from the days of Teddy Roosevelt, wishing that they, too, could grow cookie dusters.

“There is an American fascination with facial hair,” Ciulik said. He thinks young men should not worry about their sparse ‘staches just yet, as his moustache didn’t grow thick until he was in his 30s.

Ciulik has done some work with local moustache advocacy groups and promoted some of Movember’s fundraising events, acting as a role model for young adults aspiring to contribute to the cause with their own bushy handlebar or Fu Manchu.

While the moustache is popular and fun, he said there is a dark side to the interpretation of the moustache project.

The direction of society is always uncertain, just as the growth of the moustache is. This uncertainty seen in everything is reflected by the moustache right under Ciulik’s nose.

“Originally I was only going to do this for one year but now I’m going to extend it,” Ciulik said. “It’s a narrative forming accidentally on its own, so now I’m going to keep it going.”

Season two begins today, and Ciulik said he is looking forward to where his moustache will take him.

“It could be deep or it could be nothing, and I will seek the unintentional accident of it,” Ciulik said.

He said that being surrounded by hopeful and optimistic young adults on campus has added more substance to his mission.

The future has, and always will be unpredictable, but we know that there are infinite directions in which to grow, he said.

“Society shares both redundant and ecstatic experiences, yet it is necessary to relish the little joys,” Ciulik said.

In his case, this is done with the smile-like curl of his moustache.

“We are here on this planet and we don’t really know why,” Ciulik said as he paused with his blue eyes wide and sparkling. “So grow a moustache!”

In celebration of the completion of season one and the premiere of the upcoming season, Ciulik shared time with friends and fans alike last night with a few glasses of wine at the 4th Street Vine.

Those interested in following his moustache adventures can check him out on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter via @todaysmoustache.

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