New York City, August 5, 2013

★★★★★ How was this August? This was a crisp, newly laundered bed sheet where the calendar promised a stretched-out, sweaty sock. Cool air flowed through the doors and wandered through the lobby and on into the halls. Deep blue sky glowed between the honey locust leaves. The shade was blue too, and the sunny parts sterling, and neither was the less preferable. The air jangled around. Light rode the curve of the cornices as Mott bent below Grand, like an elevated train. The streets were unfrenzied, even there. Day’s end came on as an understatement, tasteful metallic tones above a blurry angled zone of peach — only to erupt into hot bright patterns and patterns of patterns, sweeping back and forth down the sky like the Mercator-projected Atlantic, a spray of pink dots across the Canadian prairie. And then it contracted, still phantasmagoric, into a compact little window, lingering while all the rest of the sky and the river went serene indigo.