Gotham Diary:
The Kitchen Dock
19 October 2012
I used to have a small television in the kitchen. A screen with a built-in DVD player, it didn’t cost very much and it worked well enough for a few years. Then it developed a sound problem that auxiliary speakers didn’t solve. This was a serious drawback, because I don’t so much watch movies in the kitchen as listen to them, giving the picture an occasional glance, while I’m working. It got to where I could hear the sound only when standing perfectly still. So, in the middle of last month’s dishwasher crisis, I decided to get rid of the thing, in the interest of opening up counter space for a dish-drying rack. When the crisis subsided, I meditated on a replacement.
I will spare you my thought process. The old television’s replacement is not in the kitchen. I already owned the most expensive component, an iPad. For a third of its list price, I bought an Altec dock from Amazon. I moved the wireless booster in the living room so that the signal would reach the corner of the foyer nearest the kitchen. (My tech guy tells me that New York City’s rules about plastering walls over chicken wire makes each of the rooms into a “Faraday cage.” I haven’t looked that up yet, but I love the idea of living in one.) And I subscribed to Netflix.
Before doing a couple of things in the kitchen yesterday morning, I browsed through Netflix in search of an action/adventure movie, which is the sort of thing that I find most entertaining while battling with pots and pans, and came across Ca$h, a French film starring Jean Dujardin that I hadn’t, for some reason, been able to acquire in DVD form. I see that there is another film of the same name, released two years later and starring Sean Bean, but I doubt that it’s a remake. Eric Bésnard’s film is a sparkling, light-fingered caper that doesn’t wait for the ending to pop a few surprises. Almost everyone in the story is a con artist, and Bésnard keeps you guessing while beguiling the eye with luxury settings and beautiful women (Alice Taglioni and Valeria Golino). It is arguably Jean Dujardin’s best film, because it highlights his breathtaking insouciance while keeping a lid on the actor’s inner doofus/clown. I wonder if the film’s availability at Netflix foretells an American release, with subtitles.
Ca$h was not a good choice for the kitchen, though; my French isn’t that good. I wound up watching it after dinner, with headphones, in my reading chair.
***
It’s a dreary, wet day, and I’d love to stay home, but I have an appointment with the Mohs surgeon right after lunch, and a date to pick up Will after school, to take him for a haircut. It’s terrible of me, but I can’t remember: will this be his fourth haircut or his fifth? Whatever it is, I plant to sit down in the back this time, and not hovering around the chair. It’s no longer necessary — it probably wasn’t necessary the last time — and the barber will be happy to have me out of the way.