Author John Hodgman - humorist, deranged millionaire and world's smartest person - is back this week with the release of "That is All," the third book in his trilogy of Complete World Knowledge.
Perhaps best known for his role as "The PC Guy" in Apple's ad campaign, Hodgman took a curious path to comedy stardom. After earning a degree in literature from Yale, Hodgman worked as a literary agent. His first humor book, "The Areas of My Expertise," won critical praise as an over-the-top satirical almanac of complete world knowledge. Hodgman's writing style, dense but weirdly eloquent, is suggested in the book's official full title:
"An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in The Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical, Matters Literary, Matters Cryptozoological, Hobo Matters, Food, Drink & Cheese (a Kind of Food), Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels, Haircuts, Utopia, What Will Happen in the Future, and Most Other Subjects."
Hodgman has developed a hybrid career as a "famous minor television personality" (He's a regular "guest expert" on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart") and prolific comedy writer. He contributes to several magazines and edits The New York Times Magazine humor section.
Speaking from his home in New York City, Hodgman discussed the new book, the coming Apocalypse, and the perils of semi-celebrity.
Q: All of your books are not only long, they're just densely packed with jokes, sidebars and all these fake charts and bibliographies. How long does it take to write these books?
The first book, I guess, was about 10 months of solid work. That experience was essentially pure joy. I was unleashed to do exactly what I wanted to be doing. I'd found a way to tell every joke that I've ever made up in my life.
The second book was a little bit harder. It took about the same period of time, but the difficulty was, now that I've told every joke that I know of in the world, how do I write another book that's as long if not longer? And I did want it to be longer. I think part of the joke of the second book, and the trilogy overall, is that it is superfluously huge.
But the real problem was realizing that there were certain kinds of jokes that I just couldn't tell anymore. I was getting more strange opportunities to do more strange and exhilarating things. And the weirdness of that was outpacing my ability to make up weird lies about my life. I certainly couldn't do a pose where it was strange for me to meet famous people. Now it was a joke about how normal it was for me to meet famous people.
Q: In the new book, it feels like there's an ambivalence there about semi-celebrity, and even a kind of sadness.
Well, there is a strain of melancholy - particularly in the third book. But let me correct any misapprehension you might have. It is not because I am ambivalent about semi-celebrity. I love semi-celebrity (laughs). What I am ambivalent about is semi-celebrity ending.
When I really started digging into it last spring, the Apple ads had ended. And additionally, I was not young coming into the game of performing on camera. I was 34 or 35 when I started on the "Daily Show." I'd just turned 39 starting this book, and as we speak today I'm 40. So there was that feeling of ending.
It helped when I realized that the book was coming out in late 2011 and, as we all know, in 2012 the world is going to end. So I thought: Now I know what I'm going to write about - the Apocalypse. Insofar as it is a perfect metaphor for the fear of death, and the fear of things ending, and the fear of becoming irrelevant. And also for the fear of Apocalypse.
Authentic lies
Q: So that's interesting - each of the books is really reflective of your authentic life experience at the time?
I think that's true of any book or creative endeavor to some degree. It wasn't done out of pretension, it was done out of a need to find a place from which to tell a joke. If there's one message I want to get across with all these books of made-up history and fake trivia it's that, if you want to tell lies, you have to be authentic. I think that's true of lies of the pernicious kind, and of writing fiction.
Q: You just released a very funny promotional video for the book, in your Deranged Millionaire persona, that literally has a roomful of celebrity cameos - Justin Long, Brooke Shields, Paul Rudd, Nas, Dick Cavett. How did that come together?
Tom Scharpling, the director, it was his idea to get all the cameos from celebrities - which is kind of a cliché in these types of videos - and put them all in one room and just waste them. Give them nothing to do. What I loved is that everyone got the joke. That I'm now at a point in my life where I'm just so unfazed by famous people that I just keep them in a room for whenever I want to see them.
Scharpling was amazing. He's something of a god in the comedy world. A wrathful, tentacled, Lovecraft god of anger.
Advice for writing
Q: Speaking of which, "That is All" features a list of 700 Ancient and Unspeakable Gods that will devour the world in 2012. Writing a list like that, does it come in chunks, or do you write one a day?
You mean that list in particular? You can't do one a - look, let me give some advice to anyone who's going to do a list of 700 names of Ancient and Unspeakable Gods. One, you can't do one a day or you'll never get it done. It's just math. You've got to do at least 10 a day, or you'll get stuck with days like I had where you've got to do 50 in a day, and that is not where you want to be.
