New York City, November 20, 2013

★★ Light wasn’t getting down into the streets at all at 9 in the morning. A shelter of clear plastic sheeting had been set up outside the movie theater on Broadway where the premieres are. The thin clouds allowed sun through, but seemed to strip if of color. Only the churchyard maples were still vivid in the otherwise faded day. Sidewalk tables were out, empty in the deep cold, glasses overturned on napkins. They were still empty hours later, as a man on a cell phone stood beside the tongue of flame of an outside heater. The cold was misery-making — even indoors, when the elevator, in transit to the basement, let in the lobby air.