Thread: Hello, from Brooklyn, NY

Hi --

I recently migrated to DE shaving after years of double edge cartridges and a lot of just not shaving very often in recent years. And I'm enjoying it -- I like to look scruffy, but at the moment I'm enjoying looking a bit sharper. My initial goal was to be released from the expense of buying modern shaving cartridges. But there's admittedly a nostalgic component for me -- DE shaving is how i shaved for many years, when I was younger. A return.

Rosebud.

I have to admit that i have a lot of Rosebuds -- I also collect mechanical wristwatches and records, including a fair number of 78s. And sometimes it goes beyond my personal past, into technologies of distant pasts -- when I draw landscapes, I grind my ink from inksticks, as the Chinese ink and brush artists have been doing for the last couple thousand years. Pre-industrial, but heck, it works great. Obsolete technologies, which nonetheless bring joy. Obsolete technologies that allow one to touch the past, but the past brings a gift to the present, something we don't have.

so you see where this is going. I'm very curious about shaving with a straight razor. It seems very elegant to have this one blade that lasts and lasts and, if you know what you're doing, you can give yourself a very good shave. And they often look beautiful, Un Chien Andalou notwithstanding. But unlike the DE, it's not familiar at all. I can't tell if it's worth the trouble to learn. But - how hard could it be? If this is how everyone shaved until a half-century ago, that means that...well, it can't be THAT hard, can it? So here i am, ready to experiment and learn something.

cheers,
Kurt
nyc