FOUR Years and Still No Pulitzer

The Pulitzer Committee has again been asleep at the switch—the one to favorite this blog—so we must mark the fourth anniversary of this blog with another ditty. (Keep that in mind, Pulitzer folks: the quickest way to stop these songs is to send me the award.)

I had thought of taking Michael Jackson’s Thriller to support our new chillers on the top of the building. But, important though air conditioning is to the Book Fair, it really wasn’t bookish enough. Furthermore, I never thought of an answer for the lady who asked, “Why do they call them chillers and not air conditioners?”

So instead I have put together a little Book Fair Rhapsody.

Is this the Book Fair? Is this insanity?

Caught in a stampede: no escape from humanity;

Open the doors, jump back from what pours inside:

I’m not the target; I’m just the manager;

You see, they’re easy come, easy go, pile ‘em high, pile ‘em low:

Any way the books sell, doesn’t really matter to me…to me.

Lady, here’s Rebecca Wells: it’s the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,

Get so many, must be good. Lady,

Yes, it’s second-hand. They packed it up and gave the book away.

Lady—oooooh—yes, she wrote her name inside:

Look for another copy; we have dozens:

Roll along, roll along: yes, I know it matters.

Mister, that’s volume three:

The number’s on the spine. Oh, you saw it all the time.

No sir, I can’t do it. You have to buy,

Have to purchase all the volumes in the set.

Mister—oooooh (any way the book sells) you can’t buy just one;

Sometimes wish you didn’t buy books at all.

I see a little girl with books to restock:

Captain Blood? Captain Blood! That’s for Paperback Lit. No?

Argument and friction: she wants it in fiction. Whoa!

Ptolemaeus. Ptolemaeus, Ptolemaeus, Ptolemaeus:

Ptolaemeus, where’s it go?

Where does it go?

I’m just a blogger; nobody hears me

(He’s just a blogger of low capacity

Spare his poor brain from this mad parody.)

Easy come, easy go: sell the books just so.

(By Walter, no! We will not sell them so) Sell them so.

(By Walter! We will not sell them so) Sell them so.

(By Walter! We will not sell them so) Sell them so.

(Will not sell them so) Sell them so! (Never.

Never sell them so.) Sell them so (Never) sell them so-oh-oh

No no no no no no no!

Oh at Newberry at Newberry, at Newberry sell them so

Beelzebub has some shelving set aside for me—for me—for me!

So you think you can squirrel until Half-Price Day,

So you think you’ll erase prices and get away:

Oh, buster! Can’t do this to us, buster!

Just gonna check out, just gonna check right out of here!

Ooh yeah, ooh yeah! Nothing really matters, anyone can see:

Nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me:

Any way the books sell.