About Me

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e. l . wood is a native of birmingham, alabama. he grew up on the urban streets of dallas, texas before attending college at houston baptist university where he earned a b. a. in english and psychology. after a year of teaching high school english in the public schools of houston, e. l. wood attended sam houston state university where he earned a master’s degree in english. after bouncing around the deep south for several years, he finished his ph. d. in american literature before 1900 at the university of southern mississippi. e. l. wood has been teaching in some capacity since 1992 and has taught for a local community college since 1995. in his spare time, e.l. wood enjoys reading, movies, and the outdoors. he is personally acquainted with several search and rescue teams around the southeast. he is married to the lovely and gracious a. c. they have a daughter (special k), and one dog. They reside in h'burg, deep south. in addition to being the sole proprietor of the gandy dancer billiard parlor, e. l. wood dabbles in folk art and the occasional cultivation of a handlebar mustache.

Friday, January 11, 2008

whoooooahhhhhh!!!!


i’ve been fascinated with the straight razor shave since childhood. i grew up watching westerns with my dad, and always thought it was cool when the cowboys shaved in the river with a straight razor. i got my first straight razor shave when i was eighteen in houston. the barber was a woman. it was an existential moment for me. for about thirty minutes there i caught a glimpse, i think, of whitman’s sublime. but that’s another story. shortly thereafter, i began to collect straight razors and barbering paraphernalia. my favorites of the collection are my granddad’s straight razor and a wooden burma shave sign. when i began teaching at pearl river community college, i discovered they had a barbering program. one of the requirements for graduation is proficiency with the straight razor. when klelly ran the program, he had a woman named misty whose specialty was the straight razor shave. and faculty could receive barbering services for free, so about once a week in ’98 and ’99, misty would knock the sandpaper off for me. but misty graduated and most of the students since have made me a bit nervous. however, for christmas this year, my sister and brother-in-law got me one of the coolest gifts i’ve ever received. it was a straight razor shave from a high-end boutique shop called the art of shaving, new york. if you are a man, i highly recommend that you put a straight razor shave on your list of 100 things to do before your die.

4 comments:

Steve Bezner said...

The "sublime" comment made me smile. And I am ready to have another shave for sho!

Cole said...

Does that mean you went to NYC to get a shave?

hi said...

Sweet! It's cool if you went to New York for the shave. I lived up there for a while.

However, I'm not so sure I would get a shave from the students at PRCC... My friend wanted to try out the hair cuts at PRCC. So he went and got a trim and came back gaped like I have never seen. lol. It was the funniest thing. I fel bad at the same time though. But if they messed the hair up that bad, I am scared of the razor. Although I'm sure it was only the one girl who had cutting problems, I hope.

I am going to have to get a straight razor shave one day. Me and some friends have talked about it, but never went. It's on the list of things to do.

e. l. wood said...

the shop is out of new york, but the physical location of the place i went to was in dallas, tx.