Author meets craving for information by making it up http://www.cbc.ca/arts/books/story/2008/10/27/john-hodgson.html
Daily Show writer and author John Hodgman has built his career on a flaw in the human condition — a craving for useless facts. Hodgman released his second book, More Information Than You Require, last week. "My first book, The Areas of My Expertise was a compendium of complete world knowledge," he told CBC cultural affairs show Q. "It was a book of trivia and fascinating historical oddities and amazing true facts, with the distinction from other books of trivia is that in my book all of the amazing true facts were made up by me." On the strength of his first book, he was invited to spread more misinformation with a regular appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. His second book builds on the first, with misinformation such as methods of curing disease using goose grease and a cat. "All of the expertise that I put into my books and into my Daily Show routines are basically the clichés and half-truths and received wisdoms that we have have lodged in our brains, and I sort of chisel them out as though they are profound observations," he said on Monday. Hodgman said he's not the first to notice the human passion for information — almanacs, encyclopedias and how-to guides, such as the Victorian era domestic guide, Enquire Within Upon Everything, have been satisfying it for years. "The almanacs and the internet that became the electronic almanac of the future represent or respond to our constant thirst for useless information on stuff we don't need to know about," he said. The internet, a mine of both information and misinformation, has added an essential element. "I think what the internet introduced was fakeness to the occasion, such that Wikipedia is my favourite source for dubious fact and false expertise. If anything you could say I took an old form, the almanac form in North American tradition and added to it lies," Hodgman said. Hodgman's Daily Show schtick makes fun of the bevy of experts created by 24-hour information television with its insatiable demands to fill air-time. But Hodgman, who is also the face of the PC on the ubiquitous Macintosh ads, says his own minor celebrity is contingent on flights of imagination as well as satire. "When I write a long chapter in my book about the history and culture of the advanced civilization of molemen who lived beneath the earth and who interacted with Thomas Jefferson and helped him draft the Declaration of Independence, that is not me trying to make fun of anything, that is me being really interested in molemen," he said, joking. "The book for me is entirely an opportunity to explore my own esoteric interests and where facts do not support those interests, I make them up." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Like TV only smarter. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
