Hack's Happy Ending
Revisiting our recent call to play the Feud with Peggy Noonan's blind-item driven Reagan reminiscence : We love it that you people are sending us nominations for the identity of Noonan's "Haircut Boy" without us even asking! You are so motivated! (Or so unemployed!) Almost everyone that chose to participate in this bonus round nominated Peter Robinson, the author of "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life" and a contributor to the National Review's group blorgy, The Corner.
The evidence, we have to say, is pretty overwhelming. From Robinson's book:
[T]he custom [was] for a barber to massage each customer's scalp before cutting his hair. When you sat in his chair, Mr. Cho would rub your scalp with the palms of his hands, then knead it with his fingertips. He'd work his way slowly up both sides of your head to your crown, then forward to your eyebrows, then backward to the base of your skull. When Mr. Cho finally finished the massage and began cutting your hair, you'd feel so relaxed that you'd have to grip both arms of the barber chair to keep from sliding onto the floor.
. . For the six or seven months from the time we discovered him to the time Mr. Cho moved to a new barbershop in the suburbs, Josh and I found ourselves getting our hair cut almost once a week. Soon we stopped thinking of Mr. Cho as our barber and began thinking of him as our therapist. Our visits to the barbershop amounted to our own modest exercises in stress management. Mr. Cho helped us cope. . . When it got to be too much, Josh or I would telephone the other.
"Haircut?"
"Thought you'd never ask."
Josh and I have agreed ever since that only one other event could compare with a visit to Mr. Cho. That was a visit to the Oval Office.
And we thought that sort of thing started with Clinton. . .
How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life [HarperCollins.com]
Noonan's Hack: Still Multiple Choice [Wonkette]
Hot Hack-on-Hack Action [Wonkette]