New York City, August 14, 2012

★★ Torpid yet uneasy. A moody orange-gray morning shed its odd tint, but the day stayed gray, with damp air. At late midday, in a walled terrace plaza, ripples trembled on the glassy surface of the edgeless decorative pool. The sky was the same travertine as the Metropolitan Opera House. Over the wall, from a fringe of trees by the older apartments, came the drone of cicadas, their pulsing calls gathering into unison, like a ratchet tightening, then falling into shapelessness again.