“We Could Be a Bit Traumatized”: Well, maybe. Yesterday’s 5.8 magnitude earthquake might was startling, but it was not “particularly injurious,” as The Washington Post writes in its A1 story. Over in Style though, Monica Hesse and Jason Horowitz milled about downtown Washington after the evacuation of 15th and L and talked to area office-workers lost in the temblor: “There was a sense of getting away with something, wandering outside in the middle of the day, past lunchtime, contemplating a cocktail, waiting for someone to tell you what to do, or not.” Or, as a California native said, “Over there, we roll over and go back to sleep when this kind of quake hits.”

Speaking of California: Here’s the Los Angeles Times—perhaps a bit mockingly—on East Coast-based networks and cable news channels dropping everything (i.e., the fall of Tripoli) for a tremor that caused “caused little apparent damage.”

Getting Back to Normal: Yesterday was particularly beautiful after a punishing summer. The Phillips Collection wants to remind you of just how nice it was to go outside at 2 p.m. with this oil painting by Maurice Prendergast.

Yesterday on Arts Desk: Earthquake closures. Earthquake rock! Today on Arts Desk: Um, more earthquake?