I had a crappy barber in Seattle called Smitty's. It is an establishment I chose purely because it looked to me like, and in fact is, the iconic Barbershop. If barbershops have a prototype, it is Smitty's on 15th. It probably hasn't changed since the 50s other than the barbers occasionally dying. They never butchered my hair too badly and I faithfully went to them once every four months. Despite my semi-frequent visits I never was on a first name relationship with the cutters, mainly because I was trying to pretend I was the strong (skinny) silent type who never gave his name, and never articulated how he wanted his hairs cut.
"Shorter."
When we moved to NY I had to start that relationship all over again. First I went to Astor Place Hair which is literally* a sweatshop for Barbers. Cheap, $15, but the bescissored are penned in little barber corrals, waiting for assignments from the overseer at the entry desk. It is a huge open room with dim florescent light that paints the occupants with a greenish wash. There are microscopic hair particles floating in the air that I can only assume follow mini-weather patterns and occasionally form storm clouds when combined with misted water from the spray bottles. I tried Astor's for a few cuts, but found myself being bullied into crew-cuts from the "barbers". One guy tried to convince me that it was the best haircut I've ever had. It was not. I was forced to leave Astor's when my entire lunch hour was spent listening to my haircutter talk about how hot it was in there, maybe as an explanation of her particular fragrance, and how much hotter it had been during the black-out of '03. It was clearly the high point in her career as her client couldn't have seen the result of her butchery. They didn't ask questions though and didn't want to be bothered by the complicated instructions that I'm incapable of giving.
I have a theory that you should go to the barber in foreign countries you visit, as a way of immersing yourself in the culture there. You should also probably carry a picture of yourself with the ideal haircut in order to show them, otherwise you will be forced to do what I did in a certain Czech barbershop and simply point pointedly at the clippers when barked at. I'm already a nervous client, but when asked to give the description of my preferred haircut in the Czech language, I'm a mess. The Czech barber completely shaved my head. Somewhere in Prague, someone is wearing a dishwater blonde sweater. Ironically, my current favorite stylist is in the tiny town of Swarzedz, Poland, where M's parents live. His name is Mariusz, and Magda tells him in Polish how I would (she would) like my hair. Sometime I should ask her exactly what she says.
When I finally found 'Barbershop "Freestyle"' it felt like old home week under the shears of an Eastern European. My favorite lady (Zosha) reminds me of Magda's mother a little, very nice, very straightforward. She doesn't ask me how I want my haircut, she just makes it look okay. Unfortunately this last time Zosha was on vacation, or deported, and in her place was the lipstick sneering blonde in acid-washed jeans.
"Little Shorter"
Well like I said in part one, she took about 12 pounds of hair off my head, but by the end of it it didn't look like she'd done anything at all. Just how I like it actually, which is maybe how I should ask to have it done "Make it look like it hasn't been cut" Which might lead to an expensive five minutes of nose-hair trimming.
Should I go into the conversation I overheard in the midsts of the Russians about Rolex's? A client had a Rolex on (did I mention the hair-cuts are $13?) which inspired all sorts of questions from the male Barbers.
"Get a Timex" said the man with the watch.
The Russians were unconvinced.
"What is the Timex? It is expensive?"
"No, and that's the great thing, when it breaks you just get a new one."
"But I want the Rolex, I have many cheap watches at home."
"It's your money, but I will never buy another one."
"The Rolex is the best."
If there isn't a stereotype about Russians and Rolex's, there should be.
*Literally in this case means it matched the definition of "Sweatshop" in the dictionary precisely: A shop employing workers at low wages, for long hours, and under poor conditions. Those of you who take literally too literally might complain that in this usage, a sweatshop would literally mean a place where they sell sweat. Which would be disgusting, but not so out of the realm of possibility as milk is actually the secretion of an evolved sweat gland**. So literally, a sweatshop might be a milk-bar. But I've never seen one of those.
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammary_gland
Posted by ian at February 3, 2007 12:35 AM