New York City, December 10, 2012

★★ Behind the window shade, another window shade: thick white fog right outside the glass, lasting far into the morning. The near edge of the apartment slab next door was visible and rectangular, but the rest of the building receded into shapelessness. Beyond that was nothing — or, on careful examination, some faint traces of pale car-shapes, moving on an entirely invisible avenue. Outside, on ground level, there was pervading damp; the tops of ordinary high-rises were lost. After that extended theatrical opening, the rest of the day performed a different sort of vanishing act: Not so warm as to be pleasant (and therefore eerie and unnerving) but wholly, forgettably, unseasonably neutral.