Some thoughts on the barber shop.
Selecting your barber: there are few more important decisions.
Every man - notwithstanding his potential deficit in androgen levels - must experience a proper straight-razor shave from a seasoned barber.
This is a new statement to my system of beliefs. One that I acquired early this month after finding a barber that matched my lofty expectations (we’ll get there) without charging an arm & a leg, which I had come to believe to be mutually exclusive. It took about eight months living in New York City, but after searching at length from the Upper West Side to Chinatown, I finally left the barber shop with a new friend that I’ll look forward to checking in on in about a month’s time.
And to speak to the shave - I stepped out on the concrete without my usual stubble, appearing at minimum a half-decade younger, for better or worse. I suppose I could say it was rejuvenating, as if I was granted a few more years of this life to live. And that is firmly for the better.
Selecting your barber: there are few more important decisions.
And so, in addition to the straight-razor shave as a service option, here are my expectations - a short list of things my barber got right and why I’ll keep going back. Readers in the profession do note.
The welcome offering. This is most typically an offer of water or espresso as the customer approaches the chair, but I like the idea of something far more left-field. My barber offered a leviathan piece of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Unexpected: yes. Hysterical: most definitely. But dammit, it was both thoughtful and memorable. Even homey. If an experience of any sort ends in a story, it’s been worthwhile.
Conviction in the cut. A barber must project a confidence in vision that allows the customer to entirely relax. As a man, I want to give only directional instructions, and from there, allow my barber to take the reigns and do the rest. There have been no Pinterest boards prepared with looks to emulate - and there should never be. The barber’s chair is a seat empty of technology. My barber knew what I was looking for and convinced me that I was covered. “I’ve been doing this for 33 years from Uzbekistan to the Lower East Side”, he said. I didn’t audit his work for a moment.
A sense for discontinuous dialogue. This is a dance that is to be led by the barber, though the customer, too, has responsibility here. A barber must know when to stay on topic and when to change it. A barber must know when a conversational pause is in order - be it two minutes in duration or twelve. At the right time, my barber seamlessly shifted from discussion to quiet - and offered a suggestion to drop a Sinatra CD in the boombox. Yes - a boombox - the charming, neo-vintage contraption that was sort of the record player of my day. The door to the avenue was open on an unseasonably warm January day in New York City and I listened to the Chairman of the Board meld with sounds of street horns and sirens. It was euphoric.
Discontinuous dialogue sounds simple. It is not. This is art in it’s own right - and the capacity to pull it off effortlessly puts a barber at the top of the craft.
My barber, of course, went beyond. He told me of his family. He shared the story of his profession. He asked me about myself and listened. And this is something we should all strive for every day of our lives in interactions with others. The marriage of physical place and spirit. Genuine presence. It is most important.