New York City, July 30, 2013

★★★★★ The first autumn previews, in the clean and indirect light of a cool morning. Fresh air embraced people trudging up the steps from the close tunnels of West 4th station. The Citibike rack on LaGuardia Place was all but empty. A last-quarter moon stood high in the daytime sky. The brightness over Houston Street was no longer scorching. A radio announcer’s voice, in rounded speaker-sound, came through the open windows of a van turning through the crosswalk. This was the reverse of the inflationary nonsense of the heat indices — the unseasonable dryness undercut the thermometer readings. To have been inside caring about things on the Internet seemed a grave error, as afternoon moved into evening. Spectacular pink-edged purple clouds stretched out in the west.