New York City, July 2, 2013

★ Beauty was the herald of misery. After a morning and midday of rumpled gray, the afternoon clouds broke open, revealing dazzling white highlights and blue above — and allowing unfettered sun to mash down on the wet unmoving air like a giant hand flattening a wad of hot putty. The sidewalk led through a miasma of dog-piss fumes, vegetal rot, steaming mulch, and the hovering molecules from a lone smoker’s cigarette. The train air conditioning, sharp and overdone enough to cause flinching the day before, was now nothing but a relief. The late-day air downtown was like a badly vented laundry room with all the dryers going at once. Later, in the dark, a thin rain fell, too feeble even to make a person wet.