MADreads

What’s on your list?

April 15th, 2008 Molly - Central

Have you read FOUND Magazine or any of the books featuring lost, tossed and forgotten items?  Now, imagine grocery lists that have been left behind.  And the people who left those lists behind.  Hillary Carlip has done just that in her new book À La Cart:  The Secret Lives of Grocery Shoppers. 

She has been collecting found grocery lists for years and ingeniously creates and acts out characters for each of her 26 lists, including: 

Bernadette - the office worker buying party supplies for the co-worker who got promoted to the job she wanted for herself and who surmises she may be buying items for her own going away party as well.

Darcy - the anarchist Goth girl whose list includes Chap Stick, dried cat food and frozen pie. 

Dr. Bloom – the deli-meat buying therapist whose children hate her.

Carlip carefully orchestrates photographs and narratives for the different lists, and includes the actual written list.  Multicultural, male or female, teenager or senior citizen, all of her characters are meticulously costumed, coiffed and made up in various market settings.  The transformation is remarkable;  part of the fun is looking for the real Carlip underneath the facade.

If the idea of someone dressing in disguise creeps you out, think of this as performance art.  Fans of Kevin Aucoin’s Face Forward will find much to digest here and folks who like to make grocery lists will cringe at the possibility of showing up in Carlip’s next book.

Entry Filed under: Nonfiction