Delta Airlines’ domestic JFK terminal is a bird atrium. The place is filled with little gray-brown birds fluttering around and nesting on the large mother-ship hanging lamps and mooching french fries and lettuce shreds from Burger King customers. The word must be out in the Brooklyn-Queens bird community that the eating is good here, and that it’s a lot easier than scrounging around for insects and worms and whatnot.

Update: For the second time in the last two hours a howling, soul-agitating, sonic-disturbance alarm has gone off inside the terminal. It sounds like the giant insects in Them! (’55) but with an electronic distortion effect. The monkey in charge of turning off the alarm didn’t get around to it for a good ten minutes last time. This new one has been going for six or seven minutes so far. Listening to sounds like this takes minutes if not hours off your life span and may even lead to hair-thinning.