in order not to get too moralistic and after the complaint of a dear old friend of mine, who now is a protestant priest in the province (hail to thee, uli) – today to something completely different: a reflection on the perhaps most reflecting object men and women see every day alike: the razor.
as i have pointed out in an article on men and vanity (stern, fashion dept, somewhen in 2001), human hair and the getting rid of it has a history since the neandertals suddenly found themselves surrounded by homo sapiens elegans (a scientific specification, trust me), a tribe far-spread and – far less hairy.
in some men, and luckily, to a far less extent in women, this ancestry is seen to a troubling furry degree, and it is with some wonder that i experienced the obsession of american culture with epilation, waxing and all thinkable procedures of deleting body hair. „to have a facial“ seems to be a mainstay of the lunch-talks in uptown manhattan restaurants to a degree that europeans might find hard to understand. there are far more entertaining topics, one would believe, but boy! was i wrong.
sexual attraction seems to find its peek only if the quite natural appearance of hair, in especial of a beard, is removed in time. the greeks (bless them) prided themselves as a civilisation basically in stark contrast against the barbarians, scythes, persians and the like, because of their ability to shave. it is a sign of leisure and refinement to have the spare time (again) to take care of one´s appearance, and one finds in greek literature generals and admirable admirals before and during battle (literally in the face of the enemy) who bath and shave, as if nothing else would matter – and indeed what else could?
that perikles and sophocles were of course bearded and important men was a sign of wisdom and perhaps outrunning time, which seems to occupy an ageing heroes thoughts once he is married and feels he has not much of it left. charles chaplin writes in his delightful and earnest autobiography about the year 1899: „it was an age of beards. the king had it, the prime minister, policemen and politicians, barbers and actors, my father and his cronies. it was an age of splendour and luxury, of decadence and spending.“ (i only read this yesterday but don´t have the book in my hands, the wording might differ a bit, but the essence is there, trust me).
if this is true, the parallel between luxury and the respect in a man can be drawn in a comparison of beards. „we want to have the emperor back, but only with a beard“ is an austrian folk song, and it is a yearning for olden times all right.
but the dictatorship of youth commands otherwise. stefan zweig comments in his „the world of yesterday“ that in the austro-hungarian empire, „there was seldom to be seen a man in the bathhouse with a fine and comely body. the obsession with old age was paramount. men of standing had to be old, have a beard and be obese, to say the least.“ a youth in a high position was unthinkable. the beardless were not to be trusted – whence the strong emphasis on the institution of the barber shop as a fixture of society.
alex´s barber shop in mariposa, turn of the century
i was not surprised to hear that the adorable greta garbo started her career as a „soap-girl“, a pleasant, charming lad whose job it was to foam the faces of her swedish barber´s clients, getting „quite a handsome extra tip“ because she was charming and fun to be with. in prousts „a la recherche du temps perdu“ it is the barber who pays the first visit to swann, after having served some other illustrous men of society in the wee hours before dawn – an early form of press agencies, perhaps, where news and sacandals, rumours and gossip were distributed evenly and freely, under the sign of discrete mumbling into the shaved´s foamy ear.
the man of today shaves alone.
he encounters himself in the mirror, his inescapable existence face-to-face, his grown beard a prove that time does not stand still while he sleeps. and it is an astonishing fact that the shaving industry (two big ones remain, gillette and its rival wilkinson) seems to be negligient of the natural fact that the extermination of a beard is as old as mankind – and nevertheless seems to need innovation all the time.
i can remember a time when my grandfather, an imposing hungarian noble who lost two wives and much of his fortune in the war, scraped himself with an instrument that reminded me of a sword. a worthy undertaking, requiring a skill most men of today are unable to manage: it is like wielding a rapier in a time most people would not be considered of being classy enough to qualify for a duel. it is a dying art, like some stitching techniques of haute couture, like the weaving of gobelins, like some forgotten murano glass and fine chinese porcelain of an early period.
when my father, himself in possession of a beard that turns now from black to silver and is worthy of a rubens painting or a philosophers bust, in the early seventies came up with a double razor, only just introduced by gillette (an engineer in the car business keeps track of innovations), he more than halfed the amount of time in the bathroom, a sad fact, since it was the only time to admire him respectfully in the morning, have some words in private on the world, of becoming a man and somesuch trivialities – and get perhaps a raise in pocket money without anyone else to know.
let us remember that a razor is a razor is a razor: a blade of steel, sharpened every day or kept sharp by throwing the old one away. the french industrialist who invented the one-way razor became rich with his idea of using things only once: the concept of „big“ holds for biros and lighters alike – to hell with the environment, i say.
it is surprising to see that the battle on the market mainly seems to focus on the duplication or multiplication of these razors. first came the tree blade, called fittingly and in accordance with the image of studly high velocity „mach III“ by gillette, or the „mach III turbo“, a device, i am informed, that has in the words of the venerable and rather senseless shopping-between-tits-for-young-aspiring-male-losers-who-can-spend-far-too-much-euros-for-scantily-clad-young-women publication FHM: „three blades of anti-friction“, miraculously able to „stretch the skin for a smoother shave“, 10 euro, thank you very much.
why on earth should i buy this instrument, if i can have for 2 euros less the competitor´s answer to all hairy questions, the „Quattro Marine“ with a battery (??????), a „for-blade-technology“ (kill bill beware!), being able to „adapt to the faces outline“ (thank god!) and an „ergonomic handle studded with rubber structured in waves for a save grip“?
and it is with even greater amusement that i witness in my lady friends intimate bathrooms even more intimate tools to remove most intimate hair in rather nondescript colours and designs: the one i found only some hours ago was broad-handled, of somewhat violet-hued plastic, reassuring and tender, just what a woman needs. did i say a razor is a razor is a razor? are women that different? the industry certainly seems to think so.
when i reported on the case of princess dianas butler in the old bailey in london some years ago, i came to court with a newly bought razor from taylor´s, savile row, barbers to the duke of edinburgh and the like: a very elegant handle of pointed steel protruded from one side. and while scotland yard forbade the use and even posession of a mobile phone in the courtroom, lest it might be a hellish device to blow up part of the witness stand, my little steel blade went unnoticed through the x-ray-machine. i did not intend to use it, but when i told my eminent journalist friend dominick dunne about it, we both agreed that i could have wreaked havoc with it, had i only a grain of murderous inclinations, which, in spite of my ancestry of prussian and hungarian militarists, i am happy to report have not yet come through (only at night and in confrontation with aggressive punks, robbers or conservatives, i hasten to add. i must be rather provoked, or drunk, or both. usually my sister intervenes in time, a strait jacket is always at hand).
i am pleased to report that the rate of suicides in germany has dropped to a minuscule rate, people and especially men being less prone to end their life in figures that border only at a nearly negligible number of less than ten percent on 100000 people, in comparison to only ten years ago.
it is my strong impression that this graceful development is in accordance with the evolution of shaving technique. who, in his sound mind, would destroy a 10 euro device in order to get his bleeding fingers on three or four blades (not to speak of a removable battery) for the meek purpose of slitting one´s throat? who indeed?
was it not seneca who was ordered to commit suicide by order of his emperor nero in a steaming bath tub, surrounded by scantily-clad slaves, writing down his last words, a poem, i believe?
the death of seneca, by jean-louis david
history sorrily is silent on which razor the author used. one shudders of the thought: „run off, slave, and buy me a MACH III with the speed of MACH III (i am sure, future will know how fast this is, i believe it shall be three times the speed of sound). slave, make haste, i beg you!“ and of myron runs, or apollodorus, or some other household entity, to pay the equivalent of 10 euros (one gold sesterce perhaps in those times), to end his masters existence in a graceful way – it makes my hair stand on end to know that seneca had no david beckham advert showing the footballer happily shaving after getting down some stairs, brilliant-studs in his ears and brilliantine in his hair. seneca could do without. he did away with himself in style, bearded blessed man. but one last, most shocking thought, remains:
during the writing of this, have i grown some beard? some hair on the legs? my teeth? or, by the way – have you?
