Haircutting Is Art Few Acquire
Clipping Text
a barber shop,” said E. R. Calhoun.
“Getting into a chair, I was surprised at a question of the attendant, ‘Do you wish your hair modeled as is, or as it should be?’ ‘What is the matter with it as is,’ I asked. ‘All wrong for your shape head and profile,’ he replied. ‘Then go ahead and cut it as you will,’ I told him, settling myself in the chair.
An hour later, having had a shave also, the barber asked me to view myself in the mirror, offering me a hand-mirror for rear view. I could hardly believe I was viewing myself, and thoughts of John Barrymore forced themselves into my mind.
I wanted to talk to the barber. I found he was a French-Canadian, speaking English and French equally fluently (in fact in Montreal one must speak English and French to get a job where meeting the public is concerned). He told me that haircutting is an art and that many barbers failed in it because they had no knowledge or appreciation of rhythm and proportion—that few heads are exactly alike and that only study can produce artistry. I am well convinced this is true from sad experience locally.”
Commentary
This charming travel vignette reveals ER’s lifelong habit of taking summer rail excursions into Canada and the northern border states to escape the oppressive summer heat of north Alabama. Montreal during the interwar period was a cosmopolitan island in North America, a city of bilingual merchants, grand European architecture, and classical trade apprenticeships that had largely vanished from American boomtowns.
ER’s playful mention of John Barrymore grounds the humor right in the popular imagination of the 1930s. Barrymore was known as “The Great Profile,” famed on Broadway and in Hollywood for his striking, chiseled features. For a hardworking, middle-aged Southern proofreader to suddenly see Barrymore’s dashing silhouette staring back from a Montreal barber’s mirror was comedy of the highest order.
Beneath the humor, however, sits Calhoun’s genuine appreciation for honest craftsmanship. Whether setting movable lead type, framing a pine building, or shaping a head of hair, ER respected tradesmen who understood rhythm, proportion, and underlying structure. His passing observation about Montreal’s bilingual workplace rules also demonstrates his sharp eye for local culture, while his parting shot at local Birmingham barbers reflects the dry, kitchen-table wit that endeared his column to readers across the state.
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