MILK EGGS VODKA [By Bill Keaggy]

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.

St. Louis’ premier restaurant and food tab, Sauce Magazine, published a great review of Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found in the July 2007 issue. The book and I even got a big blurb of the cover! Excellent.

Absolutely addictive… I challenge you to pick up the book and not read it straight through, from intro to index. You’ll never look at grocery lists the same way again.

Ha! The first sighting of my book on eBay!

My sister sent me a weird recipe — it actually uses the ingredients milk, eggs and vodka! Check it out: White Russian Cupcakes with Kahlua Whipped Cream Frosting. It comes from a recipe book called Cupcakes: From the Cake Mix Doctor. Thanks, Kathy!

Been mighty busy for the last week. I’ve been neglecting most of my sites and I really need to step it up as Guest Editor over at Coudal Partners. Anyway, here’s a quick recap of some recent “Milk Eggs Vodka” blog mentions:

“I love Milk Eggs Vodka” —Gold & Silver Stars

“Yesterday a friend who knows my passion for the novel ‘A Canticle for Liebowitz’ passed me a website that is a posting of peoples Grocery lists…” —Varifrank

“I will be sure to flip through Bill Keaggy’s new book, Milk Eggs Vodka, when I see it.” —The Rage Diaries

“I find this fascinating.” —Beyond Madison Avenue

“This is probably the best way to make money. Collect people’s trash…” —Long Haired Thunder

“What more do you need?” —Strategy Chef

“Speaking of lists….what happens to them when they are tossed? Answer: they could end up in Milk, Eggs & Vodka.” —The Daily Geek

Along with a mention in St. Louis’ Arch City Chronicle, and that’s all for now… more later.

Cool, here’s a post about the lists and the book from the folks at Organic:

I recently discovered grocerylists.org, an ecclectic collection by Bill Keaggy… Keaggy recently published a book entitled “Milk Eggs Vodka” where he reprinted several hundred grocery lists in their crumpled, stained and misspelled glory (featured in AdAge)… As intrepid students of human nature, human behavior and constant seekers of insight, I am sure that we will be pouring over this treasure for some time to come!

Hey St. Louis, I’ll be a guest on Thomas Crone and Amanda Doyle’s The Wire radio show on KDHX 88.1 FM, the excellent community radio station here in St. Louis. It’ll run 7:30-8 p.m. Central tonight. Listen in!

Advertising Age columnist Lenore Skenazy wrote a wonderful piece on “Milk Eggs Vodka.” It was a lot of fun talking with her because she was very interested in the brands and customer profiles behind all of my found grocery lists — and that’s an angle I haven’t given much thought (compared to the amount of time I spend simply making fun of the lists ;-). Anyway, here’s an excerpt:

There’s a new reference book out for anyone trying to sell anything at the grocery — or understand America. It’s called “Milk Eggs Vodka.”

It’s a book of shopping lists.

Yes, real shopping lists — a couple hundred of them, reprinted in all their crumpled, stained and misspelled glory. They represent just a fraction of the thousands of lists collected over the past decade by oddball/genius Bill Keaggy, who hopes you’ll send him any lists you find too. He just loves them.

So do I! So do untold legions!

A couple weeks ago I did an interview with Sara Porter of St. Louis’ ‘West End Word.’ The issue just came out and I have to admit that it’s so well put together that even I couldn’t wait to read what I said!

The lists in the book are arranged in many different categories such as lists with bad spelling, lists that feature prominently healthy or unhealthy foods or lists with doodles on them. Keaggy said the categories were meant to make the reading more fluid and to provide more humor.

“I didn’t want to keep saying over and over — that’s a dumb list, that’s a dumb list,” Keaggy said. “So I put the lists into different piles to see what they had in common. Each chapter goes through 10 or 12 lists and the readers will turn to the next chapter and find another different kind of list. The categories also help the book flow better. On the site, they aren’t arranged in any order so people go on for 10 seconds, look and then leave. But with a book they expect to be fulfilled and to stay until the end.”

Jeff Houck, the food writer at the Tampa Tribune, has started a podcast for TBO.com called Table Conversations — and I’m pleased to be the first victim guest. ;-)

We talk about my book, “Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found,” collecting, bad spelling, obsessions, the humor and humanity to be found in other peoples’ grocery lists and … rocks shaped like shoes! You can check it out here: Table Conversations Podcast with Bill Keaggy. Thanks again, Jeff!

I’ll be on the radio here in St. Louis next Wednesday, June 13 around 10:30 p.m. Central time talking with the two Johns on KMOX 1120. Listen in as I talk and joke about the “Milk Eggs Vodka” book.

If you can’t hear me on the radio try to come see me at Left Bank Books the following evening, Thursday, June 14 at 7 p.m.

A hearty and heartfelt congratulations to Laura (who needs bleach and eggs) and Amber (who shops for Cosmo, chocolate donuts and pads, but only “once a month”). Laura and Amber were the winners of the “Milk Eggs Vodka” book giveaway. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest (I’ll probably do another soon!). Take a look at the sampling of the community grocery list y’all created:

British Mars bar
salami
cheeses
olives
dried vegetables
Hershey’s Special dark chocolate bar
5-grain bread from the bakery
shredded cheese
alcohol
ice cream
milk
avocado
black rice
dried figs
chocolate covered peanuts
bleach
eggs
toilet paper
peanut butter M&Ms
Cosmo
chocolate doughnuts
pads
lowfat sour cream
saltine crackers (store brand)

“Milk Eggs Vodka” is for sale at your neighborhood Borders and is usually filed in the “Humor” section (right next to Garrison Keillor’s titles!). But should you visit Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon (and you should), you’ll see that my book stands proudly in the “Cooking oddities” section. How cool is that? I didn’t even know such a category existed!

The Good: Jen Bekman — someone who I have much respect for — says, “Milk Eggs Vodka is an enjoyable book, well-designed” and calls it “particularly cool.” Thanks, Jen!

The Bad: Uncool Kids thinks Found Magazine was around before The Grocery List Collection. Oh well. “How publishers were giving away grocery bags that promoted Bill Keaggy’s new book Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Store [sic] Lists Lost & Found, basically a rip-off of Found Magazine that looks like it’ll be good for a few laughs.” Not to take anything away from the tireless genius of Davey Rothbart, btw! Found is profoundly awesome. [UPDATE: Stephanie tells me her words came out wrong and she meant it as a compliment... kind of a "if you like this, you might also like this" sort of deal. She amended the site to say "similar to" rather than "rip-off of".] Thanks, Stephanie!

The Beautiful: BB says, “I absolutely LOVE this book cover.” And why not? HOW Books designer Grace Ring did a fantastic job on all of “Milk Eggs Vodka.” Thanks, Grace!