New York City, June 19, 2013

★★★★★ A friendly upright puff of cloud stood in the western windows. Outside, overhead and to the north, was pure blue. A breeze eased pedestrians down Broadway, as the sun pinned their crisp shadows to the sidewalk. Men and women wore short shorts with sturdy boots for emphasis. People had pulled out the red-red lipstick or the yellow trousers. On the roofdeck out the office window, a model was backed against a taped up sheet of white paper, surrounded by reflectors, flopping her head sideways for the camera. The breeze was simultaneously warm and cool, whatever might be wanted. Something threw glyphs of light, X’s inside O’s, on the wall of a building. Doors opened to the street, making their suggestions: bottles on a mirrored bar back, custom bicycles, onesies inscribed for tourist babies. Seafood swam in unadorned aquariums; sheaves of red plastic bags hung on a wall. Up at Columbus Circle, to the left were bodies hurrying on and off a waiting 1 train. To the right was fresh air flowing down the stairs. Time saved in a tunnel would be time ruined. At dusk, the gibbous moon and Saturn shone together over Sherman Square. Neon clothes burned in the ebbing light, piece by piece. A violin duo on the corner of 74th Street started chopping out a pulsing rhythm, overlaid with a plaintive, desperate melody. At the edge of the crosswalk, it resolved itself into “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”