Fragments from a kaleidoscope week

In N.Y.C., American worlds collided in a maelstrom that seemed less and less to cohere

- RICHARD WARNICA

Isabelle Brourman, a painter in New York City who has been in court for every day of Donald Trump's hush-money trial, shows off some of the work she's created of the former U.S. president.

About 90 minutes before Donald Trump appeared in the Bronx on Thursday night, at a rally in a large public park one subway stop north of Yankee Stadium, two muscular security guards in green golf shirts escorted a young Black man through a gawking crowd outside the gates. Almost no one in the long line to get into the event seemed to recognize the man, who wore a green, wide-collared button-up over a white undershirt. But when his entourage reached a pocket of local teenagers near the entrance, recognition rippled through the crowd. "Yo, Sheff!" one yelled. "Is that him?" another said.

In New York City this week, American worlds - criminal and political, artistic and financial, Israeli and Palestinian, hip-hop and however it is you would define the world of Trump-collided over and again in a maelstrom that, as the week went on, seemed less and less to cohere. The colours didn't blend. The images stayed twinned. There was no way to turn the knob to bring any true focus to bear.

On Monday, Chuck Zito, a former leader of the New York Hells An gels, the most famous outlaw group in the world, appeared in court to support the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States. Isabelle Brourman, an artist who has been the sketching the trial every day for New York Magazine, captured his shoe-polish black pompadour and improbable nose.