When do we eat?

 I bought and reserved a seat in
 our local cinema for this after-
 noon, to see the new movie on
 couture. Will anyone count with
 me the faux pas in this declar-
 ation, ignoring entirely the op-
 portunity costs in avoiding the
 Spielberg flick on The Post, a
 movie on a rural mother's battle
 for justice with the local cops,
 and the re-telling of Aciman's
 novel on young men in Tuscany -
 all being screened in the same
 building? Or shall we just let
 it go with the oxymoron in at-
 tending a film on couture in
 broad daylight? The affront of
 uncouthness is hard to conceal.

It developed, that reconsideration got

the better of this plan. I'd like to 

attribute it to being distracted by a

beautiful day - and the weather would

allow that characterization. But, my

decision to postpone this experience,

at best, and probably until the re-

lease of a dvd, was enabled by learn-

ing that the people with whom one was

to discuss this thing, have not even

seen it. So much for mice such as I,

even if it really should turn out to

be, the last Day-Lewis movie, a rumor

no one can verify for several years.

The seductiveness of fashion - and

I have not always been impervious -

achieves its acutest advantage if

its form is otherwise irresistible.

A Day-Lewis movie comes plausibly

close enough, not to be ruled out,

even at the inflated prices of to-

day's cinema salons, gratuities not

included. The genius of fashion, on

the other hand, lies in its shrewd

substitution of itself for its use.

A table setting by Jean Puiforcat, 

for example, has so little to do

with dining, and so much to do with

remembrances of the Normandie, that

one doesn't know whether to meet in

a deck chair or a life jacket. This,

being what one needs to know of cou-

ture, secures its berth permanently

among the higher opportunity costs,

with rough justice, an embarrassment

of the Pentagon, and fumbled kisses.

It has been lost on no one, need

I say, that the career of Daniel

Day-Lewis has absorbed itself so

thoroughly already with justice,

fumbled kisses, and devastating

American war, that his leap into

the milieu of couture seems not

only fitting as the last of this

nonsense that he'll have to en-

dure, but a fine farewell frock.

Of course, one wants to see him

assault this final peak, and un-

doubtedly only raise it higher.

This is an expectancy to savor.