New York City, August 26, 2013

★★ Moderate, but not at all crisp. After a dark start, clouds thinned out, changing from a dimming shade to a blinding diffuser. The sun was going to take over, and then it wasn’t, settling instead on casting a thin beige light over the afternoon. Gradually things went to gray again, and a tentative rain started. A vendor gathered up his cardboard LP sleeves from their places against the fence of the Golden Swan Garden. A one-stop subway ride, and the rain was gone again; things cleared without really clearing. An insect had gotten into the train car on the way back uptown. A big moth or something. It swooped down and slammed into the ceiling as the mid-car standing passengers ducked and flinched; you might have thought it was a bat, with the carrying on.