Make that “Pictures of the Week”! Whatever claims Memorial Day may have to marking the beginning of summer, to me it doesn’t really seem to get going until the first week of July. So much of what is quintessentially summer – from picnics and fireworks to sporting competitions – seems to take place this week. So here are five pics that hardly tell the full tale of this first full week of summer — I mean, no European Cup, Olympic Trials, or Wimbledon! — but nevertheless certainly hint at all that’s been going on. I hope you are having a grand summer! July 3, 2012. Fireworks light up the sky...

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for cultural flashmob events. I know they’re contrived – how else do you get the great footage? – but I still love the way they startle a random group of people and bring them together as a group, a body, joined partly, I’m sure, by curiosity but also, I think, be the sheer beauty of the event. In this case that event is a 100 member orchestra playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” It was sponsored by Banco Sabadell, Spain’s fifth largest bank, this past May to sponsor the 130th anniversary of its founding. Another favorite flashmob was the dance of “Do...