New York City, September 30, 2013

★★★★★ The sun from the east, passing through the partly turned leaves of the sycamores, was the color of olive oil. A little white was dissolved into the blue, too indistinct to be properly called clouds. Doors hung open in the bodega and the shops and restaurants, to equalize indoors and out. “Hello, gorgeous, beautiful, I like your long socks,” a man called out to a woman who was already crossing the street. The cafe was overrun in the afternoon, at no mealtime and late for caffeine. A sidewalk bench would do. Traffic crept along, an intermittently unmoving feature of the scene; somewhere within the cars, a nauseating deep bass was throbbing, separated from any audible music. A bride and groom crossed Prince Street, she gathering the ruffled ivory mass of her skirts in her arms, while a photographer snapped away in the late glow. On Lafayette, a woman in leatherish black leggings and a black fur vest, holding shopping bags, stepped into the street again and again, as another photographer and a reflector-bearing assistant captured and recaptured the moment.