New York City, September 25, 2017

★★ The sky was cloudless again but it scattered the light anyway. The morning air would have been mild and pleasant if it had come at noon; instead, there was the sun flaring in from a building top and giving a passing plane a menacingly exaggerated glow. Dirty haze crept up the sky and a fishy smell hung on the air. By late afternoon an ostrich-products vendor in the Greenmarket was praising the breeze aloud as it went through. The sun still hurt the eyes where it got through the obstacles, straight or on a bank shot. Mostly, though, there was deep shade, with a lingering warmth confusingly overlaid on the fleeting daylight.