New York City, August 7, 2016

★★★ Overwhelming brightness came straight down. The air was hot but the sun on the skin was scalding. It momentarily seemed like a good plan to go past Columbus Circle to the art supply store, but the phone browser confirmed the memory-hunch that the art supply store had gone out of business. The muscles that winced against the light snapped back into relaxation in the deep darkness under a scaffold. Up ahead the buildings and the cranes in among the buildings, making more buildings, were free of any blurring haze. Some chocolate had melted on the pavement into a thin reddish puddle. As dinnertime neared, the cross streets were well shaded, the heat there reduced to a background warmth, but where the sun found space on the avenue, it was as hot as ever. At Lincoln Center, more people stood in the shadow of the opera house than dared to venture beyond it, into the blazing open, to approach the fountain.