A wet snow falls but blows over and fades from the ground within a couple of hours. It’s sort of like being invaded by Guatemala. Winter disease hangs over the whole city like some kind of minor Puritan retribution. God stands in the kitchen, not in the streets. I see an old beggar lurching from side to side down the street without bending his knees, as if a patter of earthquakes were shaking him forward. A human alarm clock, seeming to exist only to mark the passing of time, but slowly shorting out from being submerged in fluid for too long. Seeing the bums in doorways and alcoves makes the street appear like the barbarian sack of Rome in reverse, as if the gray walls of the city had advanced into the forest and were pillaging the ruins of the tribal camp. Which after all is basically the history of the United States. The best thieves don’t subtract anything, they add themselves. Watching the bums, I think that they may yet, like the Romans, wind up converting the conquerors to their own language and way of life. The world advances daily towards the nomadism of the homeless.