The symptoms are many and the diagnoses few, but having been sick for the past few days (many spent almost exclusively in bed), I’ve had the time to finish reading Diablo Cody’s Candy Girl, watch an episode of her new Showtime TV show, United States of Tara, and get started on the new John Hodgman book, More Information Than You Require.
Having only begun the book (getting through the cover, alone, is at least one good sitting), I am already delighted by the wry, deadpan nature with which Hodgman addresses his fake almanac, a follow-up to his earlier work, The Areas of My Expertese. For those of you not in the know, John Hodgman plays the part of the PC in those ubiquitous and clever “Get a Mac” advertisements. Most recently, he also played the father in the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.
My road to Hodgman is a bit different, though rest assured, all roads do, in fact, lead to Hodgman. See, as a bit of a musician, myself, I did a few shows and became friendly with fellow singer/songwriter, Jonathan Coulton. Coulton and Hodgman were college roommates at Yale and remain best friends to this day, with Coulton touring alongside Hodgman on the Areas of My Expertise book tour (inexplicable furry hat and all), playing music written specifically for the book (later included in the audiobook version) and Hodgman accusing Coulton of killing his cat on the back cover of More Information Than You Require.
By any means, I’m just at the beginning of the book and I’m thoroughly enjoying it, while also looking forward 700 Mole-Man names, including their occupations, after having so wholly enjoyed the earlier 700 Hobo names, including their occupations (later put into art form by means of fellow podcaster and all-around artistic wizard, Len Peralta’s 700 Hoboes Project).
Do you have any 6-degrees-of-separation-to-an-author stories? If so, share them in the comments section below.
