MILK EGGS VODKA [By Bill Keaggy]

Can’t sleep, so I just updated The Ultimatest Grocery List over at grocerylists.org. Numerous people pointed out that I forgot pasta. Duh.

Oops. I forgot to link up my interview on New York City’s NPR station, WFUV. On October 20 I was on Cityscape with George Bodarky, which airs Saturday mornings at 7:30 a.m.

I haven’t listened to it yet. I remember thinking to myself during the interview, “Usually I am much funnier.” I think the reason was that I did the interview in St. Louis’ NPR studio, and I could hear every movement and gesture in my headphones so I just sat still the whole time (usually I walk around and flail during interviews). Anyway… click the Oct 20, 2007 link to hear streaming audio.

This week’s Cityscape is chock full of tales from the supermarket. We’ll talk to a guy who collects abandoned grocery lists, hear why a Queens woman longs for the grocery stores in her native California, and check out a competition for New York City’s fastest grocery bagger.

Check this out! I got this awesome email from happy “Milk Eggs Vodka” reader named Bree:

Greetings!

While I sit here on October 1st, anxiously awaiting the free book alert that always alludes me, I thought I’d send you a note.

I’ve been reading your site for quite some time. It’s rather funny, of course, and it has taught me to reevaluate my odd grocery lists in the off-chance someone might encounter it and send it in for all the public to see and mock/reenact my purchases. And while it appears on nearly every list I write, I don’t think “food” is descriptive enough for people to stalk my buying habits.

On to my point… my sister’s birthday was quickly approaching this past July, and being the good younger sister that I am, I purchased her an assortment of presents: a t-shirt, lamp and a book—your book.

Upon my birthday visit to her, she also had an assortment of belated presents for me—though her collection of gifts put mine to shame, save for one item. Milk Eggs Vodka! We bought each other the same book! You can only imagine my delight and excitement to know that she had already experienced this book and that she wanted to share it with me. And honestly, I was jealous of having to part with the book that I had purchased for her. But in the end, we both won.

Milk Eggs Vodka for everyone!

Thanks for the quirky book. I look forward to sharing it with others, too.

PS: The best way to find out about the free book alert before everyone else is to sign up for my monthly email newsletter. Huzzah!

Been slow here lately, but I did get my first actual, cashable royalty check from the book! It was a real thrill but I won’t be retiring any time soon.

Anyway, yesterday I recorded an interview about the book and grocery lists with New York City’s NPR station, WFUV. I’ll post an update when I find out when it’s going to air.

Apparently we were featured in the September 2007 issue of Funny Times Magazine! Yay for us!

See? The book is F-U-N-N-Y. Funny!

Here’s a fun article by Mackenzie Dawson in today’s New York Post:

Book inscriptions, grocery lists, Post-it notes – one man’s trash is truly another man’s treasure.

Particularly if that man’s trash is really weird.

For example, a dated photo that features an older woman standing proudly next to a Christmas tree – which is topped with an enormous, jeweled armadillo.

Or a shopping list that includes “Kid hair de-tangler, ibuprofen, Fibre-all, Sensodyne, Prozac.”

Or a note that says “BIND ME, please! And bring COOKIES!”

It begs the question: What happens if the person brings the wrong kind of cookies – will binding not occur? (Or will they, perhaps, be bound as punishment?) When will the cookies be eaten: before, after or during?

It’s a lot for a complete stranger to ponder.

Bill Keaggy, the founder of Grocerylists.org, was leaving a grocery store one day when a sort of “silly serendipity” struck: he found a grocery list on a yellow Post-it note. The list itself was nothing special, but much like Raviv, Keaggy found himself fixating on the person it belonged to.

Several hundred of the best lists appear in my book, “Milk Eggs Vodka.”

I did a Five Questions With in the Scranton, Pennsylvania paper (but oof — they got the URL wrong! Hope that gets fixed soon). Anyway, thanks Ron!

In his weekly feature, copy editor Ron Davis poses five questions to Bill Keaggy, author of “Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found,” based on the Web site www.grocery-lists.org www.grocerylists.org — which is, basically, a collection of grocery lists.

Found this video on YouTube: Some goofballs doing shots of egg, milk and vodka, which seem to go down about as smoothly as my book!

And btw, “Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found” is now searchable through Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature.

Yay! A quick mention in the October design annual issue of HOW Magazine: “Laugh until you cry with this hilarious collection of lost-and-found grocery lists.”

Been a bit busy and haven’t blogged the blog mentions, so let’s do another gang roundup:

1. Sweatervestboy calls the intro story, “Amazing.”
2. Dana Graves at The Collecting Gene says, “I don’t know why THIS collection is so interesting…”
3. Michelle says, “fabulous, very funny“
4. Whippleworld says, “This is brilliant“
5. One Girl Revolution says, “This one is FUNNY!“
6. Sarah Cool says, “I was laughing so hard that I was kind of, well, really embarassing myself. It was soooooooooo funny!!!!!”
7. dreams of cottages says, “i am loving the book milk eggs vodka. i found it as i was browsing through our new non-fiction and was instantly captivated.”

Hey St. Louis and the rest of the Midwest — I’ll be interviewed on KMOX Radio (AM 1120) tomorrow morning, July 27, around 8:45 a.m. I’ll be on with Debbie Monterrey and Dan Grey on the Total Information AM Show, talking about Milk Eggs Vodka, of course.

Update: Here’s the podcast: Debbie Monterrey and Dan Gray speak with St. Louis’ Bill Keaggy, who compiled a book of abandoned grocery lists!

I was on vacation when this got posted, but the awesome mental_floss magazine is giving away a copy of my book Milk Eggs Vodka as part of the Harry Potter madness. It’s probably too late to enter now, but hey, they called the book “hilarious,” so I’m happy.

The Akron Beacon-Journal says this about Milk Eggs Vodka:

Some of the humor comes from the juxtaposition of commonplace items with the random, like the list by someone who needed Pepsi and “smelly stuff.” Others are funny because they’re vague… the lists alone, and Keaggy’s commentary, are reason enough to read this book.

I’m only linking to this Lenore Skenazy column because I wanted to be able to refer to myself as an “oddball/genius” again. The column originally appeared in Advertising Age but now is out on the wire courtesy of the New York Sun.

…John! John typed in “Oh the mundanity,” hit “Publish” and quickly won my potentially everlasting admiration.