strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
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Jan 27 04: frost heave
Yet another another another day of subfreezing temperatures in New York. Big snow expected for tonight, which in some ways is a good sign because snow weather is warmer than the sort of weather we had a couple of days ago (7°F / -14°C). Interesting, though, to see what all this has done to the sidewalks.
The granite plazas of Midtown are a mess. Not because of the glossy lumps of grimy ice that spatter the little parks like cold sauce on a dirty plate, but because of the unquiet ground beneath them. The smooth expanses of flagstones have been rumpled. They’re full of lumps and troughs and strange ridges just high enough to trip over. They’ve grown spiky with construction pylons and nylon lines marked DANGER. The benches and tables are all subtly askew. Under our feet the soil freezes and thaws and freezes and thaws, creating veins and seams of ice that swell today and then recede tomorrow and on Wednesday will be running in some other direction entirely.
The stone masons and concrete pourers, snug for now in their beds, are dreaming of the spring and the warm and busy days to come.