The Rumors Of My Death

Have been greatly exaggerated. I have just been very busy. But now I have a few minutes to steal away and write a thing or two about a thing or two. Things have calmed down a little at work. There is now an "under construction" website up at www.artterritory.com. The final product should be done around the new year.

Speaking of which, it is a new year in the Hebrew calendar, 5769, not only a very sexy year, but also a somber, introspective time of reflection. And what better place to go for a little quiet reflection than the neighborhood barber shop. After having been in LA for two months, I was starting to look a little shaggy. Since I am about 3000 miles away from Mary at Moshi Moshi, who usually cuts my hair, I had to find a new barber. Sure enough, there is one right around the corner called, appropriately enough, Sweeney Todd's Barber Shop [pictured above], run by Todd Lahman, who gave me a damn fine haircut this morning.

It reminded me of the barber shop next to my dad's camera store when I was a kid, but with a little racier magazine rack. Todd's has vintage copies of magazines like Playboy alongside this month's Esquire. The shop has been around since 1927 under three different owners and probably hasn't changed too much in that time. There's nothing fancy about Todd's, but that is what I like about it. They use the old style Barbicide jugs, straight razors for shaves with hot lather and they will even do a hot towel and mustache wax, which I thought you could only get in Tijuana these days. Apparently, their website isn't finished, either. Maybe I should see if they need some help with that.

Anyway, great haircut at Sweeney Todd's, and right next door to the Wacko Soap Plant and La Luz de Jesus Gallery where they got some nice goings on. I got a Kidrobot Simpsons toy at Wacko, blind box, and lucky me, it was Snake, one of the chase figures. It is turning out to be a good new year already.