FIRST THINGS: On the Square:

"Given that New York was buried under two feet of snow this weekend, I’m not so sure Oklahoma wouldn’t be better. There is a strange sensation the city gives after a snow-storm—a kind of epiphanic feeling, a sense of being taken for a moment out of time. People walk in the middle of the streets. A few pull out their skis and slalom along First Avenue. The taxis all disappear, and for a moment the whitewashed city looks clean and small-townish."