New York City, March 24, 2014

★★★ Everything lay in brilliantly sharp focus, the colors clear and saturated. The brightness was no compensation for the biting cold — now plainly and a little ridiculously out of season — but on its own terms, it was a thrilling sight. A dog went skidding on the dry pavement, unwilling, as its leash-holder detoured to throw something in a trashcan. A woman wore a scarf as a babushka, with her mobile phone tied against her face so she could talk on it. The light gleamed on the chrome of the production trailers using up all the space where the moving van was supposed to go. At dinnertime, the toddler pointed up to the Mormons’ angel where it stood in the lowering sunlight, going from flaring gold to copper to bronze. The toddler expected water should come from its trumpet.