An Armenian Barber Waxed My Nostrils
I think the subject line is pretty clear about what this email is going to be about. Plus recs for Heather Havrilesky on mediocrity, Rory Scovel on midlife, and James Forman Jr on justice.
It’s hard to get a good haircut. A barber once told me the difference between a terrible haircut and a good haircut is two weeks, but that felt a lot like him making excuses for the fact that I was going to look like a stunt double from Dumb and Dumber for the next fourteen days.
I’ve written before about how, for years, I used to only get my haircut by one particular guy but then he left the country and I wandered through a wilderness of careless clippers and untrustworthy razor blades. Then I discovered a shockingly affordable barber shop in NYC called Classic Barber 2 that was run exclusively by Uzbeks and they consistently gave me the best haircuts of my life.
I had discovered the secret: Central Asian hair professionals. Somehow, the vast steppes and frigid winters were the perfect training grounds for my particular type of hair.
Unfortunately, soon after I made this discovery, we moved to Los Angeles and I was back at square one. Google Maps and Yelp are surprisingly unhelpful when you type “affordable Uzbek barbers near me.”
But then I got a hot tip to check out an Armenian barbershop in Glendale called Modern Barber. I immediately felt optimistic. I’m not positive that Armenia is technically Central Asia, but it’s certainly adjacent. The prices were low. The name was exactly as generic as I wanted. I was ready to move into the modern era. And, just as I’d hoped, the guys at Modern Barber gave me an excellent haircut. I was back in business.
I’ve been going there for several years now and always gotten great haircuts, despite it rarely being the same barber cutting my hair. The only hiccup is that many of the barbers there speak only a very small amount of English and communicate primarily in Armenian. I speak no Armenian. So my system has been to show them a photo of a previous haircut I got there which I was happy with. The barber examines the photo on my phone, nods, says something in Armenian, and then goes to work.
I can tell the guys working there have good senses of humor because they’re always laughing and cracking each other up. They often look at me and I smile and pretend to laugh too because it’s fun to be part of a good time even if I truly can’t understand a single word.
I’ve also noticed that everyone else who gets their haircut there (all Armenian speakers, in my experience), takes their shirt fully off and sits in the chair shirtless so they won’t get hair on their clothes. I opt to stay fully dressed, a demure cross-cultural visitor.
I normally get a haircut and beard trim. But I’ve noticed that they also have a deluxe special that includes all of their services for only a few dollars more and this time I decided to be adventurous and see what that entail. Which is how I ended up here:
Apparently the full treatment includes getting your ears and nostrils waxed. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you see a barber unexpectedly spreading what appears to be hot tar all over the outside of your ears and fully filling both nostrils. It’s, frankly, a brilliant way to avoid becoming one of those guys with tufts of nose and ear hair, which is one of my fears. It’s also a terrifying situation that, once I realized what was happening, I could only see one way out of. How painful was the ripping going to be? I would soon find out.
There was a lot of laughing in Armenian as my eyes got wide and I yelped when they stripped my cranium of much of its protective coating. But afterwards, I felt like a newborn baby. Which is to say, confused, hungry, and ready to cry.
I don’t think I’ll be opting for the deluxe package ever again, but I’ll certainly be back at Modern Barber. Now I just need to learn the Armenian phrase for “I’ll wax my ears myself at home.”
My projects and upcoming events:
PODCAST: How to Be a Better Human (TED/PRX) - Rachel Botsman studies trust at Oxford University. This week on the podcast, she explains how many forms of trust have broken down in the past few years, why they’re so crucial to a functioning society, and practical steps we can do to build trust back. Listen here (or wherever you get podcasts).
This week’s list
GREAT:
I think the best word to describe Heather Havrilesky’s writing is unapologetic. As a person who is decidedly apologetic about pretty much everything I put out publicly, I really appreciate Heather’s attitude and her work. These two recent pieces were particularly great. The Perfect Girl Next Door and then, from her newsletter, Reckoning With This Vicious World (it’s behind a paywall but worth paying for!).
FUNNY:
Rory Scovel is one of the greatest live performers in comedy. If you’ve never seen one of his shows, you’re missing out. He improvises huge portions of the show (sometimes the entire show) and so he’s often just as surprised as the audience by what he’s talking about. But somehow even his off-the-cuff jokes are perfectly crafted. Here’s a taste of Rory at his best, talking about the difference between going out in his 20s and now, in midlife. It’s so funny. Navigating Life
INTERESTING:
James Forman Jr. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a professor of law at Yale, and a former public defender. He knows the intricacies of incarceration in the United States and he knows the massive obstacles to overhauling the system. But this piece he wrote for the NYT is about a genuine victory, a success that gets almost no public attention. It’s a fascinating story and a roadmap for the future. “Lessons from a radical 20-year experiment and a quiet triumph of public policy.” What Happened When America Emptied Its Youth Prisons (gift link)
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With ears and nostrils as smooth as a dolphin,
Chris Duffy
This has been Bright Spots, a newsletter.
…wait, who are you?
I'm Chris Duffy, a comedian, TV writer, podcast host, and both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student. I’m currently writing a nonfiction book about humor for Doubleday.
I really think you should try taking your shirt off next time!
Worth doing things like this just for the writing fodder, eh?