Yodeling Goats Drive Big Box Bookstore Into Bankruptcy

Years ago, my friend Eileen Rowan and I worked together at the same Borders, and somehow we got onto the topic of the yodeling goatherd song from The Sound of Music. We noodled together a goofy poem about yodeling goats. We didn't finish it, and I stuck it into a file and forgot it.

Then recently I was putting together a little display at the Heard Museum book store for a classic kid's book titled, The Goat in the Rug. I thought of our poem and dug it up. It only needed a couple of lines to be complete. So here it is, the yodeling goat song, written by two miscreants on a slow night at Borders:

The Yodeling Goat Song

This is the song of the yodeling goats

They never eat books but they eat lots of oats

They live in a castle surrounded by moats

Those dawdling, oat-eating, yodeling goats.

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-doo

If you think they’re funny, then I think so too

Sing Yodely-ohdely-dohdely-day

They moved in last week and it looks like they’ll stay

The yodeling goats, the yodeling goats

They like to eat fish, so they have shiny coats

They read magazines and sport colorful totes

Those oft-toting, fish-eating, yodeling goats

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-dorm

Don't buy them a jacket, 'cause they're always warm

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-day

They ring all the doorbells and then run away

The yodeling goats, the yodeling goats

They don’t give a fig for the DOs and the DON’Ts

They don't cross their Ts and they don't mark their quotes

Those fig-tossing, mis-quoting yodeling goats

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely, please

Let's run in the meadows and climb all the trees!

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-dug

There's a goat in the pen and a goat in the rug

The yodeling goats, they have golden throats

And sing acapella, they know all the notes

They tap dance all summer, then drink root beer floats

Those tippy-tap, rooty-beer, golden throat goats

Sing yodley-ohdely-dohdely-dend

This yodeling goat song, will it never end?

Sing yodely-ohdely-dohdely-dain

Come back here next week and we'll sing it again!

Wayne Ranney: Geologist, Adventurer, and Mapmaster Flash

You may recall that I mentioned, sometime in the recent past, the paleogeographic maps are fabulous. Or you may not. But they are. And what's even more wonderful is that Wayne Ranney, one of the guys behind those afore-mentioned fabulous maps will be speaking at the Heard Museum on Tuesday, December 11, at 1:30 p.m. To 3:00 p.m. He'll be signing copies of his books in our book store afterward. I've posted a review of the book he co-wrote with Ron Blakey, Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau, which features maps that depict what the Colorado Plateau may have looked like millions and even billions of years ago.

 I will soon be posting a review of Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery (2nd Edition) which casts light on past and recent arguments about when the Grand Canyon began to form.

 And I look forward to diving into Sedona Through Time, which delves into the formation of one of the most beautiful places on Earth: Oak Creek Canyon.

We have all three titles available at the Heard Museum Book Store, and Mr. Ranney will be signing there after his lecture. Don't miss it!

Why Don't People Read More?

The other day, Lance Polingyouma, my coworker at the Heard Museum Book Store, was dismayed to discover a printing error in the book he was reading, a collection of essays from a gathering of Grand Canyon historians. A large chunk of text was missing, and other chunks of text had been duplicated. This book is on Lance's Top Ten list for the bookstore, and he had been pushing it like crazy. He sold the other two copies we had and was thinking about buying the third, himself. Now we'll have to send that copy back to the publisher and get a replacement. At some point, the customers who bought the other two books could come in and demand their money back, if their books are also defective. We had to shrug and say, “Oh well. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

But as I was driving to work this morning, I began to wonder if we ever will get to it. Lance is a gifted bookseller – my old employer, Borders, would have drooled over his ability to pitch a book. And because Lance is of Hopi, many Anglo visitors to the Heard Museum hang on his every word. If he recommends a book, they tend to buy it. But that doesn't mean they'll ever read it.

When you're a bookseller, it's usually because you really like books. You like to think that people are going to read what you've sold them. But what we booksellers often forget is that dreaded thing, a thing from which we also cringe: the TBR pile. All of us have a mountain of books at home that are designated To Be Read. We're really interested in those books, we really intend to read them some day – but it's going to be a while before we read many of them, and some of them will never get read.

The problem is not-enough-time-in-the-day-itis. If you're fascinated with a lot of things, and you buy books about those things, the time eventually comes when you have to admit that you could read ten hours a day and not finish all of those books. And let's face it – you're not going to read ten hours a day, for all sorts of good reasons. You've got family and friends, a day job, maybe a garden, a household to run – maybe you're even afflicted with the writing bug yourself, and boy, does that cut into your reading time. So your TBR pile grows and grows. Eventually it can look more like a chore than a pleasure. Once that happens, your reading really slows down.

When books were first invented, readers didn't have this problem. The library at Alexandria burned down, another library at Herculanium was buried in volcanic ash, and Irish priests were sitting on most of what was left. So average readers didn't have as many titles they could buy. They had a shelf of favorite books (or scrolls) they could read over and over again. This may sound odd, but there's something to envy about that. Your other chores may have piled up back in those early days, but your book stack just couldn't get that ponderous.

Sill, anyone who enjoys reading would rather have our TBR piles. And now that young people enjoy reading more than ever, those stacks can only grow larger. When I first started working in a bookstore (back in the Dark Ages), adults pushed what few books were written for young people as if they were spinach. “Here, hold your nose and swallow this – it's good for you.” When kids discovered they liked a book, it was completely by accident. And if they wanted another book like it, they didn't have that much to choose from. The YA section in that store I worked in all those years ago had only two small shelves dedicated to YA books.

Now, thanks to J.K Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, and other pioneering authors, you could fill an entire store just with YA titles. Kids are reading them, and so are adults. E-readers give people an even wider selection, at lower prices, so the virtual TBR stack is also growing.

Let's face it. We're doomed. We can only sit and stare into space, thinking, So many books, so little time. And that's the real reason why people don't read more. Lance and I can probably relax – even if those two books turned out to have printing errors, it may take those customers a couple of years to figure it out.

And if it doesn't, Lance will probably just sell them more books.

The Heard Museum Book Store

In Phoenix, At Central Avenue and Encanto, you'll find one of the last surviving bookstores, The Heard Museum Bookstore. We specialize in books by and about Native Americans, and about Arizona travel, geology, and history. We have also have children's books and cookbooks. People often ask me which books are my favorites, so here are my (current) top ten.

EM'S FAVES (In No Particular Order):

Grand Canyon: Vault Of Heaven, by the Grand Canyon Association

Magnificent photographs and a very informative text, at a bargain price!

Grand Canyon's Long-Eared Taxi, by Karen L. Taylor

Find out why mules are the only animals that can ferry people into the Great Unknown.

Roadside Geology Of Arizona, by Halka Chronic

Learn more about the Geology Capital of the World – from your car!

Gem Trails Of Arizona, by James R. Mitchell

Catch gem fever and go looking for not-so-buried treasure.

Talking Mysteries, by Tony Hillerman and Ernie Bulow

Read what Hillerman and Bulow have to say about their lives and about writing.

The Arizona Cookbook, by Al Fischer & Mildred Fischer

Authentic Indian, Western, and campfire recipes

Forest Cats, by Jerry Kobalenko (photographs by Thomas Kitchin & Victoria Hurst)

An informative text with breath-taking photographs

Frequently Asked Questions About The Saguaro, by Janice Emily Bowers

Find out why the saguaro is truly the movie star of the desert.

Sheep In A Jeep, by Nancy Shaw & Margot Apple

A wild and wooly expedition!

Brighty Of The Grand Canyon, by Marguerite Henry

The adventures of a beloved burro, with delightful illustrations