My father, a frequent and harsh critic of my native dumbness as a kid, would take to calling me “bird brain,” or sometimes in a grand rhetorical flourish, “chicken brain, turkey brain, feather brain.” Nowadays I’d be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD or some other dark mental health acronym and plied with prescription drugs. With the onset of old age, however, things have gotten worse, as in “Why did I come to this room?” “In ancient Rome,” Garg informs us, “an official called an auspex or augur looked for divine approval by observing birds: how they flew, called, or fed. Because, naturally, whether the birds pecked with gusto could decide whether an army marched, an election proceeded, or everyone went home kibitzing.”