This time last year, I was surprised to find myself grieving over the loss of a movie star. During some of the most catastrophic atmospheric rivers to hit California in recorded history, one of my teenage idols was lost in the mountains in Southern California. Julian Sands went missing in January 2023, and I found myself obsessively following the news for updates.
Antonio Gramsci illuminates the idea of how we’re influenced by an infinite number of people, places, events, and artifacts, urging us to track the “infinity of traces” that make us who we are. In the days, weeks, and then months that followed when Julian Sands was first reported missing, I began to trace the infinity of traces sparked when I accidentally came across the film A Room with a View as an adolescent. That happenstance evening has made me the writer I am today.
Please check out this short and very personal essay so near and dear to my heart (and soul) about cinematic crushes recently featured in Write or Die Magazine. Click link here.
Rashaan Alexis Meneses 