"the result of a culture rigidly atomized by individual autonomy has meant that even winter’s icy chill has not prompted a spirit of collective gathering amongst citizens. instead, the contemporary urban winter is marked as a repeatedly failed attempt at obliterating a fear of death. the chapters that follow depict an unbridled, poetico-sociological rendering of four common winter forms or objects; the themes of failure and death have become underpaintings upon which all else has taken shape. ... in terms of a structure of analysis 1 have employed a loose ethnographic model upon which to build an interpretive understanding of the urban winter."--introduction