Across the restaurant, diners looked on with undisguised jealousy: the aromatic spray of steam and herbs that filled the room as the leaves were pulled off the bird brought conversation in the Shun Lee dining room to a stop.
There are trees bowing to wind, birds offering conversation,nature's sounds soothing the unquiet.
"People see me in a suit and instead of thinking, 'He's crazy,' they ask me, 'Hey, is that your bird?' " Then the conversation starts, opening the door to make another "pigeon convert," by convincing them that the birds are not disease-spreading vermin, but rather "the forgotten pet," domesticated thousands of years before cats and dogs.
Samsung's Knox platform offered one encrypted, password-protected solution to the problem, whereby a walled-off section of the smartphone could be controlled and protected by the employer, leaving the rest of the employee's phone free for Angry Birds and indiscreet conversations.
Talk about the bird dominated the conversation, and Feathers was furious.
It's true parakeets' intelligence rivals that of some primates, but don't expect your bird to be having conversations with the whole family and using a toilet tray as soon as you get it.
In this way, "The Yellow Birds" joins the conversation with books like Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony," Brian Turner's "Phantom Noise" and Tim O'Brien's classic, "The Things They Carried" — and wakes the readers of "the spoiled cities of America" to a reality most would rather not face.
The man most likely to be chosen to lead Mali out of its troubles lives in a sprawling, walled compound stalked by exotic crested birds, peppers his conversation with Latin phrases, and fluently cites French cultural heroes like Pierre Loti and Darius Milhaud.
The birds and bees conversation has now expanded into many hives and nests because of technology and pornography.
Most parents I know dread the birds-and-bees conversation, avoiding it until their children ask, point-blank, "Where do babies come from?" Not so in my household.
