Dog Days No More.

August was once the sleepiest month--now there's no respite from the news

Maybe because we idealize bright summer more than any other season, its darkness takes us by surprise, like finding a spider in your sandal. Savoring summer is a habit tattooed from childhood, along with sunburn scars and callused heels and memories of original sins, a first beer smuggled behind the grandstand, cigarettes sneaked in the woods, curfews broken because it's too hot to sleep. The flip side of summer freedom is anarchy, the structures of school and work melted into casual Fridays and long weekends spent playing on grass now baked to beige by drought, if it has not been drowned...

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