A Cut Above the Rest

People often ask me the same questions, when reading my blog: Where do you get your ideas from? Why did you stop adding pictures of sexy ladies? Why are you such a lazy git about it?  What have you got against Tubbercurry, county Sligo? All of these haves answers, but they are such pedestrian paths of inquiry that they are hardly worth treading. I rarely get asked interesting questions, such as how I know so much about history. I could cite all the history books I have read, or display the intimidating power of my academic mind, but that would not explain it adequately. The fascinating reality is that history is everywhere, if you know where to look. 

For example, the other day when I went into my barber's to get my hair cut, I sat at the nexus of historical lines that fan backwards through time and place. Everything, from the red and white barber pole to the blue sanitation liquid pointed back to a vast and rich culture, which courses like veins through world history. It's a fact that rarely emerges in the public consciousness (perhaps for fears of being misunderstood as racist), but all barbers can trace (at least part of) their genetic lineage back to the Berbers of northern Africa. Those without this lineage would be better described as hair dressers, much in the way that you either drink Champagne or Prosecco, despite them tasting similar. If you are unsure if you are in a barber's or a hairdresser's, ask the person cutting your hair where the sanitation liquid comes from. A real barber will, without a second hestitation, tell you that it was extracted from the aquifers deep underground in north Africa, discovered by Berber tribes centuries ago. 

The Berber Diaspora was a slow one, at least in the beginning. At first, few of their customs quickly adopted. They had some success when a nomadic sect of their culture was assimilated into the tribes of northern Europe to become the Barbarians, around the time of Christ. Their exact level of influence is a matter of debate, though anthropologists and historians often point to some shared physical features, language structure, customs (both cultures had these things), and ways of tapering the back and sides. This proud race survive today in northern Africa, though they have suffered invasion and colonialism over the centuries. Perhaps best described as a cunning revenge, the Berbers have in many ways influenced their invaders more than their invaders affected them. When the Arabs, and then the Ottomans, ruled over the Berbers, they adopted many of their customs. If you wish to be convinced of how the Berbers won that particular Kulturkampf, consider how we have many Turkish Barber's but no Berber's Tirkish. 

The Berbers withstood all their conquerers. Their flag, white with red (and, sometimes, blue) lines descending diagonally across, was misunderstood by their oppressors as some kind of decorative panel, not unlike the Moorish tiles. Their mistake is forgivable, given the Berber flag is only truly understood when wrapped onto a Berber pole, the lines twirling in infinity, the ever-enduring spirit of the Berber people. Their folk songs tell stories of an unbroken line that runs through the centuries. Sung in a cappella by a group of four, their jaunty harmonies are a delight to the ear — a cheery smile in the face of adversity.

The Belgian football team.

The greatest threat to the Berbers' way of life by far was the Roman Empire. They despised the Berber culture, particularly their "vulgar display of head". Like the Romulans of the Star Trek universe, the eponymous Romans were only permitted one haircut, a practical bowl we now call the Caesar cut. The Berbers, by contrast, had as great a variety of haircuts as the current Belgian national football team. They descended from ancient, legendary tribes, who united to become the Berbers: the Long Wavy Locks, Crew Cuts, Skin Heads, Side Parts, Undercuts, Fades, Mid Parts, Quiffs, Mullets, Dreadlocks, Corn Rows, Afros, receding Widow's Peaks, Crowns, the villainous Slicked-back tribe, Mohawks, Faux-hawks, and the notorious Comb Overs, to name just a few. For centuries, the Romans were aghast at such incalcitrant disorder, and historians now believe that this distaste was the primary reason for their total destruction of Carthage after the Third Punic War. It wasn't until the early fourth century CE that the head of the Roman man was finally liberated, when Emperor Decorus Metro Sextilius converted to Barberism and allowed his beautiful locks to flow. The people of the Empire followed suit almost immediately and the Berber ways rapidly dispersed across the known world (not unlike the water droplets from the spray bottle in a barbershop).

 Roman Emperor, philosopher, and general, Decorus Metro Sextilius.

What to do with this knowledge though? A book, perhaps? I have burned more than a couple of bridges with publication houses, and the idea of self-publication fills me with a unique, wrenching dread. I then thought about a little museum, and I must admit that for some time, this idea charmed me so. A handful of tasteful rooms, decorated with mirrors, the smell of hair gel, and strands of hair on the floor. For an additional fee, we would place specks of hair down your collar. There would be a display of the world's smallest trimmers, ye old timey razor blades, and the many faces of the Barber's across the globe. If affordable, there would be a darkroom, with a video on the shifting conquests of north Africa, which both imbued and transmitted the Berber culture. People could then tentatively enter the room, take the weight off their feet, and leave before the clip is over — as is the custom in every museum. We would have to include the classic scene from the 1956 film Izem Amazigh, where the titular character, wise, brave and stoic king of the Berbers is held at knifepoint by his would-be executioner. "Be careful not to take too much off the top," the king says wryly. 

In the end (where else?), I abandoned the prospective project; the final nail in the coffin came when I visited the Phallic Museum in Reykjavik in January. It had the lay out I had in mind, but €15 to see three rooms full of willies made me reconsider my idea, and eventually I rejected it as folly. I conceded that I would be creating virtually nothing that couldn't be found in a barber shop anyway, willies and all. And so, the trivia remains potential energy in my head, and I doubt anything very productive will come of it. At least I can take consolation in the fact that I'll have something to talk about when I'm getting my hair cut.

Me at the Phallic Museum. I'm trying to make the shape of a
urethra with my right eye, much like my idol, Paris Hilton.