THE BIG ORANGE

Now you know why the New York Knicks' color
is orange.

 I knew I was saving my KN95 masks for a good reason! And, as with covid, the reason has come from another country. Only this time, it's allegedly an ally. Is Canada still holding a grudge against our most recent invasion of its land? That was in 1812, so I think it's time they let passe c'est les passe, n'est-ce pas?

I never thought I'd put "Milton
DeLugg" and "prescient" in the
same sentence.

If any non-New Yorkers are reading this, let me set your mind at ease: those photos and videos on your newsfeed have not been Photoshopped, airbrushed or otherwise tinted. While there was a faint haze in the air on Tuesday morning, by 5:00 in the afternoon I suddenly realized, Hey, this apartment smells like smoke! Down went the windows, where they have remained since.

On Wednesday morning, the haze was thicker -- you could look at the sun with very little squinting -- and the smell still hanging around like a relative still in your guest room long after you dropped hints about the next train back where they came from. 

This would have been scary enough.

But it was only after lunch the sky resembled something out of a 1950s sci-fi movie. The sun was gone, as was the grey haze; the sky was now a deep, smokey, orange, casting a darkness across the city that would have had Puritans preparing for the Apocalypse. The photo from my wife's iPhone, taken through our living room window, doesn't do it justice, but it's better than the one I got from my Android. (That's the problem with "helpful" cameras that automatically "correct" the image's "faults".)

When the color on the map goes beyond
that of the worst listed condition, time's up.

Perhaps we would have gotten a better shot if we had gone outside, but that wasn't an option. Around the time the above photo was taken, New York officially had the worst air quality in the world. And when you've seen photos of Beijing at rush hour, brother, that's saying something -- like, Don't make me go outside!

To put it scientifically: the EPA's Air Quality index begins at 0, meaning Good. It goes to 300 for Hazardous before topping out at 500. Late yesterday afternoon, New York hit 484. These little town blues are choking away...

I took this a couple of hours before the orange
invasion, when things were merely gray.
Somewhere in the background is the
Queensborough Bridge; it was just as
invisible in person.

The usual Upper East Side life switched off as a result. Traffic on our block trickled to almost nothing. The pedestrians usually walking to the nearby park were nowhere to be seen. Birds went silent. The world was coming to an end, and what did we have to show for it? Speaking personally, Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions, sneakers for Pickleball which I still haven't played, and an uncorked bottle of Chateau Haut-Methee Bordeaux, 2015. I knew I should have opened it already!

As for the rest of the city, the Yankees called off their night game, Shakespeare in the Park cancelled its first two performances of the season, and even some Broadway shows were cancelled. Most shockingly, the WGA called off picketing for the rest of the week! 

Two out of three...

As I look out my window now (9:45 a.m. EDT) the sky is hazy, but similar to what you might
you might see on a warm summer day. But having already gone outside this morning for a muffin, I smelled the smoke even through the mask. Meteorologists predict things will get bad again this afternoon, and won't start to clear out until storms pass through this weekend. A shift in the wind will blow the smoke back to Canada where it belongs. They might consider it a third invasion, but, hey, they started it.

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