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"Make me look like George Clooney." It takes some gall to demand that of a barber, but I figure the stylists at Portland barbershop/bar The Modern Man (5018 NE 22nd Ave., 284-6008, themodernmanpdx.com) can handle it. After all, the shop's whole shtick is steeped in the kind of classic, rugged masculinity represented by Hollywood's silverest fox. With taxidermied deer heads on the walls, oak barrels appropriated into the decor, complimentary cigars and a full-service whiskey bar upstairs, the place is a reaction against contemporary "rock 'n' roll barber shops." It's all a bit silly, frankly. I just want a quality haircut, and it doesn't matter if the person doing it is wearing skinny jeans or suspenders and a bow tie. What of the haircuts, then? Well, I didn't come out looking much like Clooney—more like a vaguely ethnic Jason Schwartzman. But then, that's what I always look like. I am satisfied.
WWeek 2015