The Areas of My Expertise

July 25, 2005
In this super-literate, ultimately exhausting exercise in literary parody, New York Times
magazine contributor Hodgman has produced "a compendium of COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE." From sections titled "What Will Happen in the Future" to "What You Did Not Know About Hobos," he piles up smart-alecky nonsense in layer upon layer of surreal, wholly fictional factoids. Whether highlighting American presidents who had hooks for hands, or sketching out the mythical secrets of Yale University, Hodgman creates a strange and intermittently hilarious parallel universe where lists of history's worst haircuts (in addition to the Mullet, there are the Scrape, the Scab and the Shag-Swoop) are printed alongside descriptions of "famous novels that were not originally published as books." Sprinkled throughout with breathless "factual" interjections—"Were you aware of it? The body of Thomas Edison was never buried. Instead it was displayed for many decades in a traveling carnival.... DOES IT EVEN SEEM POSSIBLE?"—this "almanac" demonstrates Hodgman's formidable imagination, if not his ability to amuse consistently. The individual passages are funny but get lost in an already overstuffed work. For the hyper-well-read fans of publications like McSweeney's
, this is a treasure trove of twisted absurdist miscellany. For others, however, it may just be too much of a good thing. Agent, Kassie Evashevski.

October 2, 2006
Hodgman, "resident expert" on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
and a New York Times Magazine
contributor, prides himself as a leading authority in the realm of informative false world knowledge. In adapting his collection of fake trivia to audio, Hodgman couples sketch comedy showmanship and cerebral literary parody. Musician Jonathan Coulton enlivens Hodgman's more lengthy—sometimes plodding—narrative passages. Coulton's musical interludes during Hodgman's profiles of "Our 51 States" prove especially entertaining. Paul Rudd provides an "uncredited cameo" as the guest reader for "Jokes That Have Never Produced Laughter." The audio edition also includes a special bonus "700 Hobo Names" CD, an addendum to Hodgman's "Things You Did Not Know About Hoboes" chapter. Hodgman's distinct brand of offbeat humor somehow manages to spoof—yet ultimately embrace—an intellectual thirst for the esoteric. Admittedly, Hodgman can sometimes become mired in the long-winded details of his obscure falsehoods. Yet, connoisseurs of the Schott's Miscellany
titles and the Onion
will still find more than enough deliciously absurd faux facts to make for a worthwhile listening experience. Simultaneous release with the Riverhead paperback (Reviews, July 25, 2005).