{"id":194,"date":"2007-12-05T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-05T07:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbicmsblog.reedbusiness.com\/elogic_660000266\/2007\/12\/05\/is-that-enlightenment-in-your-pocket-or-are-you-just-happy-to-see-me\/"},"modified":"2007-12-05T07:20:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-05T07:20:00","slug":"is-that-enlightenment-in-your-pocket-or-are-you-just-happy-to-see-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=194","title":{"rendered":"Is That Enlightenment in Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week we received a letter at the store from Publishers Weekly<\/em>, inviting us to nominate our choices for the 2007 Cuffies<\/a> — the annual "Off the Cuff" awards for children’s booksellers’ favorite (and least favorite) titles, marketing campaigns and bookselling moments of the previous year. Usually when I skim the list of Cuffies categories I pause on "Most Garbled Title Request" and wish I’d kept better notes on our customers’ blunders. This year, though, a garbled request arrived right on schedule, just days before the Cuffies letter. Thanks to a customer who browsed the store last Thursday, I am SO prepared this year! Allow me to set the scene…<\/p>\n

I’m straightening books in the picture book section when I see a woman looking at the shelves with a puzzled "I’m hunting for something…" expression on her face. When I ask if I can help her find anything she says (AND I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP), "That would be great, actually. I’m looking for a book called Zen Pants<\/em>?"<\/p>\n

There is a brief pause as I try hard not to dissolve into laughter while I scan the "M" authors of our picturebooks. My face shows (I think) only a hint of bemusement (kind<\/em> bemusement) as I hand her a copy of Zen Shorts<\/a><\/em> by Jon J. Muth<\/a> and ask if maybe it’s the book she’s looking for? Noticing the title she chuckles just slightly, explaining that she’d never seen the book before, that a friend recommended it, etc.<\/p>\n

As she offers me an understandable explanation I am DYING for the chance to have a good laugh over this and wishing she’d dissolve into giggles so that I can too, but…? No such luck. Not even when I tell her that the forthcoming companion to Zen Shorts<\/em> is called Zen Ties<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

But no matter. Eventually the customer returns to her browsing and I walk purposefully downstairs to our managers’ office where no customers will overhear me as I pour the Zen Pants story out to our assistant manager, the lovely Kym Havens, and the two of us practically cry with laughter over what was a reasonable but ridiculously funny mistake. I can see that if you’d never laid eyes on Zen Shorts<\/em> before and didn’t know the "shorts" referred to short stories or fables, it would be easy to mistake it for a reference to an article of clothing.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, I think this request is a doozy. Zen Pants! The only thing better would be Zen Lederhosen. (Hmm… Will have to see if they have any of those in the Virtual Lederhosenmuseum<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Last Friday morning I woke up thinking about the idea of zen pants, imagining the kind of trousers that would allow one to reach enlightenment. Later I hopped out of the shower with a rhyme percolating in my mind. It’s quite pathetic, but I’m sharing it anyway. Perhaps its shortcomings will inspire a few of you to come up with your own (better) takes on the same theme. Please share them with me if you do!<\/p>\n

Zen Pants (or A Sartorial Satori)<\/p>\n

When I put on my zen pants
I feel a-okay.
When I put on my zen pants
the whole world falls away!
What’s left is me ‘neath a bodhi tree
with a man who smiles all day.
We sit, we rub our bellies, 
and "Ommmm…" is what we say.
You should put on YOUR zen pants
and visit us today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week we received a letter at the store from Publishers Weekly, inviting us to nominate our choices for the 2007 Cuffies — the annual “Off the Cuff” awards for children’s booksellers’ favorite (and least favorite) titles, marketing campaigns and bookselling moments of the previous year. Usually when I skim the list of Cuffies categories I pause on “Most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}