New York City, October 17, 2013

★★ Gloom prevailed in the morning. People were apparently too downhearted and sluggish to have bent over to pick up their dogs’ shit, leaving it to be trampled by commuters. The temperature, though, was faultless, the temperature of dreams, in which clothing is strictly symbolic and capable of being overlooked. Dreamlike too was the persistence of the gloom, a rainy morning without any rain. At last some sun came, and for a while the downtown skyline stood propped up and schematic in gray haze. But the clouds returned and predominated. On the way to the subway, a burst of amplified guitar and a swath of golden light presented themselves in a more or less simultaneous flourish.