Friday, June 20, 2008

is eat, sleep, read enough?

we hung a poster in the window at bob and bob yesterday. i was excited about it at first. but now i have mixed feelings.
i am a member of the american booksellers association. and because of the specialized nature of bob and bob, i often am unable to participate in some of their initiatives to support independent bookstores. but they have a new one i'm really enthused about. it's called indiebound and the idea is to support independent locally-owned businesses of all sorts and to help consumers understand how they personally benefit from the presence of these businesses in their community. i received a box and a tube of promotional materials from indiebound. included was a giant red poster that says, eat sleep read.
"cool," i thought. "that's me. and that's a lot of my customers." i asked my mom to arrange to have it hung in the front window because i can't hang something straight to save my life.
it looks great in the window and it blocks some of the sun.
but something is missing.
can a jew really be satisfied with eat sleep read?
but what would i add?
eat sleep read pray? sounds right, but isn't me.
eat sleep read save the world? closer, but pretentious.
eat sleep read love? sounds christian, even though love is all over the siddur.
eat sleep read pursue justice? getting warmer
when i figure it out, i may just have to adjust the sign. and once again feel like i don't quite fit in the american booksellers association.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think it's better with 3 words than 4 - so lose "sleep" (not literally) and it is -

eat, read, _______

eat read kvetch? no

eat read learn? hmmm

eat drink read? maybe for purim

eat read shmooze?

eat read connect?

Anonymous said...

I agree with David that 3 is the number. Here are some more:

Eat, read, ponder
Eat, read, play
Eat, read, procrastinate
Eat, read, peruse
Eat, read, promote
Eat, read, pander
Eat, read, placate

I had no idea this was going to be a "p" thing when I started.

Of the above, I'd vote for "play".

Fun piece. Do keep it up!

Anonymous said...

i really enjoyed this entry.

Anonymous said...

eat sleep read learn

Unknown said...

Sometimes 4 works just as well as 3 (e.g., arba imahot). Eat, sleep, read, do good.