New York City, September 16, 2012

★★★★★ The sun, having abdicated its midsummer height of wrath and power, was a kinetic, companionable presence. It bounded off buildings, ducked behind clouds, marched up Broadway with the holiday grocery shoppers. It broke to bits and scattered itself around the afternoon sidewalk. The five-year-old, consulting conditions and the forecast and his own inclination, had decided that it was the kind of day on which a person ought to go out wearing shorts, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and a puffy vest. By all appearances, he was right, or at least not wrong. Unlike whoever had set the thermostat on the 1 train, still sending a frigid blast out against a departed foe.