rudy’s

On the sub­ject of things that land pre­cise­ly on the beat, I’ll men­tion Rudy’s Bar­ber­shop.  There are 7 in Seat­tle, 5 in LA and 2 in Port­land.  Thanks to Abra for turn­ing me on to these guys.

My opin­ion of hair salons has been low.  Very low.  But three things have changed all that:

• my new life-sim­pli­fy­ing hair­style is a uni­form 3mm buzz, head and face;
• Rudy’s will refresh this hair­cut* at more or less any time of day, in 15 min­utes flat, with no appoint­ment; and
• Rudy’s looks, feels and oper­ates like a chromed and uphol­stered cul­tur­al arti­fact from 1967.  They even appear to charge in 1967 dol­lars.

(*It turns out that an extreme­ly short cut needs more fre­quent refresh­ing than a long one, due to Weber’s Law of Hair.  So the con­flu­ence of fac­tors is for­tu­nate.  At once per cou­ple of weeks, I’ve had more hair­cuts in the past two months than in the pre­vi­ous four years.)

I took the shots below at the Bal­lard Rudy’s, which I think is espe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful, with its scarred wood floors and white tile.  There’s a bar con­nect­ed, for busy times I sup­pose, or après-cut.