Oh Lord

It was a sunny Sunday in Manhattan, and a U.S. businessman took some visiting Japanese friends on a stroll along Fifth Avenue. At the eye-beguiling window displays of Lord & Taylor's department store, they paused appreciatively, then froze in shocked surprise. Kwannon the Merciful. Buddhist avatar of the 33 manifestations, deliverer from dangers of the sword, fetters, fire, water, demons, goblins and enemies, stood in the window, sore beset. Arrows had been shot at Kwannon. A dozen or so protruded from the flowered tapestry behind the figure; one had apparently lodged in Kwannon's head.

The room represented in the window display was described as a den or game room, and it looked like a battleground of Eastern serenity and Western fun. A long, low Oriental couch was strewn with playing cards; an antique charcoal brazier was topped by a game of checkers; poker chips were stacked on a nest of delicate tables. A Siamese temple deity served for a game of quoits--several had ringed its head and upraised hand. A placard announced: "From the Orient--intriguing diversions--has a room ever held such excitement?"

The excitement really began next day. The businessman returned, handed his card to a clerk. On it was tersely written: "Buddhist in window, arrow in head." Up went the complaint to Lord & Taylor President Dorothy Shaver herself. Down went a thunderbolt to the window-display department. Out came the arrows. Last week President Shaver sent letters of apology to the Japanese consul general and to Japan's ambassador to the U.N. "In their enthusiasm for creating an effect," she explained to an inquirer, "the window-display people went too far."

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