Aaron Naparstek

» Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Frogs in Boiling Water

Brooklyn is engulfed in a dense white haze. That is, when it's not gray and raining. The white haze and gray rain conditions have been going on for weeks now. Months, actually. It's sort of hard to go outside these days, especially when that inevitably involves walking through either the diesel clouds of Court Street or the honking gauntlet of Clinton. It doesn't really feel like air out there. It's some other mixture of gases vaguely related to air. Granted, New York City summers will always get to you. That's a fact. But that's not what's getting to me this year. Relatively speaking I don't mind heat, humidity and sweaty shirts. What's making it somewhat opressive and intolerable this year is the lack of Spring.

New York City, when I first moved here (not very long ago in geological time), used to get these amazing crisp Spring days. These days came in April and May, and there were always at least a few of them. On these days the skies were blue, and the quality of light, sharp and vivid. The clouds were puffy and the air had a fragrant, green bite to it. These were the days between the rainy part of Spring and the hazy, humid, urine-scented New York City summer to come.

Did we have a single one of these days this Spring? Nope. Not that I recall. And I think that's what's making the impending NYC summer tough to stomach this go-round.

12:32 AM | Link |

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