8- THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COVERSTORY
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2002
Barbers downtown mainstay
Zach Straus/Kansan
Bruce Williamson and Jay Amyx cater to their customers' needs at Downtown Barbershop, 824 Massachusetts Street. The barbershop is one of many located downtown.
By Justin Henning jhenning@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
The walls are plastered with aging posters of former college and high school sports teams. Bottles, Wheaties boxes and framed jerseys have all found niches throughout this barbershop.
As the front door is pushed open by a shaggy patron, wisps of fallen hair spin on the floor while stories are woven from the mouths of customers waiting for a chair.
"I tell ya, the fish was this big!" said an older man with extended arms.
The barbershops on Massachusetts Street are constants on a continually changing main street. John Amyx, owner of Downtown Barbershop, 824 Massachusetts St., said he enjoyed the conversations.
"It's a meeting place," he said. "Anything and everything has probably ever been said in a barbershop, but it might not be repeated."
For the last 27 years, Amyx has been a full-time barber. He has seen hairstyles come and go, then later resurface.
"Junior high kids with their long hair think they have these new hairstyles," he said. "But really we've just cycled through all the possibilities."
This prompted an old man to heckle him about being old and out of touch with
"today's whipper-snappers." In his late 40s, Amyx just laughed.
Down the street, Larry Franklin Jr., and Larry Franklin Sr., sat in Larry's Barber
SEE BARBERS ON PAGE 9
Zach Straus/Kansan
It was business as usual on a rainy afternoon at Amyx Barbershop, 842 1/2 Massachusetts St. Wednesday showers did not keep customers away.
Oct 5
Premiere of the chamber work "Angels in the Mirror" by Gabriela Frank, for violin (Geoffrey Yeh), cello (Tomas Korcinski), flute (Keith Wright), clarinet (Andrius Zilura), and percussion (Julius Zilinskas) and other music with Gabriela Frank at the piano.
Spencer Museum of Art Central Court, 7:30 p.m.
Gabriela Lena Frank is composer-in-residence at the Spencer Museum of Art in a program to create music inspired by the Latin American art in the Spencer galleries. Her compositions combine Latin American sounds and rhythms with classical music elements.
A component of Museums, Composers and Communities, a partnership of the Museum Loan Network and the American Composers Forum.
Nov 18
Nov 18
New Music Recital
Premiere of a choral piece by
Gabriela Frank, with the
KU choir
Swarthout Recital Hall, Murphy
Hall, 7:30 p.m.
Watch for the KU Symphony
Orchestra & Gabriela Frank
premiering a piano concerto
in spring 2003!
SPENCER
MUSEUM
OF ART 785.864.4710
www.ku.edu/~sma
The University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas 66045