"My idea of a vacation is to rest quietly in the shade of a blond."
Dick Powell
Come September, children return to school, grownups to work, and the brain to the head. Not that the brain actually leaves the head during the summer months; rather, something happens to it, or on it, like a moon caught in an eccentric orbit between the sun and, say, East Hampton or Bodega Bay. Astronomers know this event either as the "mental equinox" or "cranial eclipse." It is not serious, causes no permanent damage; the apparatus is simply altered while the body is on vacation. After...