John Hodgman Discusses Absurdity in a Serious Way

8/3/2019 John Hodgman Discusses Absurdity in a Serious Way

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EDDIE IZZARD, JOAN RIVERS, DYLAN MORAN, &BOB SAGETthe funny issue

STEPHEN MERCHANT, DAVID CROSS, RETTA, BILL BURR, JOE ROGAN, DONALD GLOVER + MORfall / winter 2011 issue no. 3 {part 1 of2}


2/1184heddd : fall2011

JOHN HODGMANdiscusses absurdity in a serious wayInterview byELLEN MOYNIHAN Photographed byEVATUERBL Styled byJUSTIN MIN

So given that, every creative person I know

is like Id like to do something of my own. I

dont. Maybe if I had no other responsibilities

in the worldtheres something very calming

and zen-ish to surrendering to other peoples

whims. Look at me now: this morning I had

a life and death situation, and now I get to

sit here surrounded by people I dont know,

who are doing my hairits liberating to walk

blindly into this, nice people steaming your

clothes, nice people spraying things on you.

Speaking of nice people, John Hodgman

is unfailingly polite. Throughout the day,

he is accommodating to the stylists, the

photographer, the owners of the studio, and to

me. There is no discernable difference between

his public imageexacting, respectful, and

delighting in obscure topicsand the guy who

was sporadically clowning on set for the camera.

Widely known for his portrayal of the

Resident Experton The Daily Showas well as

the Apple ads in which he portrays the nebbish

!"#$%&'()*+'%&, %-, *, ./, +%, 01$+'&, 2%&34$,

!"#$%&"'()*$%#*'%+,-,$./0%1,../,'%2$%3#,$%4%*++25,'%*.%.#,%16$78//,'%

Kitchen Studio on a clear, early summer day. As the stylists perused the

racks of clothing for the shoot, Hodgman took a seat in the groomers

chair, extolling the virtues of passivity. The life of the actor is great;

you get to be furniture. This morning, Im on my hands and knees in acloset, looking for a hamster that got lost, and I know thatoh, this is my

9+":/,)%$"3;%%4%*)%+,19"$12:/,%.%8$'%.#21%#*)1.,+%

by a certain time, I will have to leave and the hamster will die Cookie is

the class hamster that goes home with the kids...So I had a hamster life in

my hands. Additionally, if that hamster diedeven if I didnt show up

with the hamsterthere was going to be a lot of explaining to do to a lot

of children, and thats too much responsibility

youthful, breezy Mac, it can be easy to overlook

the fact that Hodgman began his career as a

writer. Or going back even further, a literary

agent. Having just completed his latest book,

That Is All, which is designed to look like The

Satanic Bible, Hodgman was clearly enjoying the

free time after handing in his manuscript and

before the editing process was to begin.

Book writing is entirely up to you. Youre

entirely in that zone, youre in control of

everything. That is liberating sometimes, and

then just a pain in the ass...when I was in Los

Angeles, I had some meetings with professional

colleagues and theyre like So! What do you

want to make next? Eventually I will make a

new thing, but not nowUnderstandably,

everybody in that world comes upbeing

controlled by creative dictatorsthey all aspire

to be the creator of a thing, for personal reasons

*&5,(&*&)'*6,#"*$%&$7,*&5,+8*+4$,)%##")+7,91+,:,

did it backwardsI created a whole bunch of

+8'&3$,*&5,+8"&,*))'5"&+*66;,3%+, '&+%,(6


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JOHN HODGMAN



Photo Assistant:JOHN BASKIN.

Style Assistant:JACK LEE.

Grooming:BETSY KELLY.

Thank you to Gregory Kitchen + wife,

NY Shooting Studio, JH Manager & Miles

Running Rebel Studios & Rodney.

hapter three


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CUSTOMforJOHN HODGMAN suit & shirt.

RAY BAN sunglasses.

BILLY REID shoes.

hapter three


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its bestthats entertainment. And then

?'+8, @)A?""&";4$7, B*C", D33"#$, (31#"5, %1+,

something very smart, which is if you make

really beautiful books, people want to keep

themBut I think it [the Kindle] puts

emphasis on accessibility or readability, and

impulsive buying of booksI think it should

be good for everybody. Publishers would sell

more books, readers would buy more books

sort of on a whim, and people who really

believe in making beautiful art objects outof printed material wont be competing with

garbageperhaps Im an idealist.

There are no e-book editions of Hodgmans

titles, however, owning to the numerous charts

and tables included in his work. In More

4$



of reality. So with F.D.Rthis was a guy whohad an incredibly impairing disability that peopledidnt know about. And thats interesting.

And you could imagine that there was time in American history where the president mighthave a hook for a hand, and they would just only

photograph him from the wrist up.

And that struck the note I wanted to strike. So I

called Jeff and I said I dont want to do a triviabook, but how about a fake trivia book?and he

said: I really think my idea is better [laughs]Icould tell by the sound of his voice that he waslike: Youre a very nice guy, Ive known you for

a long time, youre a good writer, but clearlygoing crazy, or somethings gone wrong in yourlifeI thought I would write a proposal andgenerate enough material so that people couldget the idea, or realize that it wouldnt be terrible

to read I wrote a longer piece that wasnt just

*,6'$+F+8",6*$+,!'")",'&,+8",(#$+,9%%>IJK%1#L,Famous Monsters and Their Huntersthe

2%)8,M"$$,

and he wasnt speaking a human language, but how did

you meet him?

JH: [Laughing] We went to college togetherwe became very close friends. He was always

a brilliant songwriter, but like me, always notdoing the thing that he felt he wanted to do


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or power whatsoever, which is who I wasso Igave the letter to Dave, and he published it, and

it was just right.

Sometimes it takes that onethe fact thatyoure writing for a friend, that youre not

?#'+'&3, $"#'%1$6;7, +8*+, ;%1, #"*66;, (&5, ?8*+, '+,is youre wanting to say, and how you want tosay it. So that became this hugely liberating

moment for me, like Oh, maybe this is what Ishould be writing, and I continued to write for

McSweeneys and was not afraid to be funny,and when youre not afraidto be the thing youthink youre not supposed to be, then youre not

afraid to do anything. And thats when writingor any kind of artgets really interesting

So it was a way to interact and a way to publish

my work that was fun to me, and dynamic, andinterestingand [I] discovered this voice that

was really me, made a lot of sense to methisphony authority. And it was a very productive

way for me to write and explore all kinds ofideas that Id been fascinated with but Id

forgotten that I even cared about. Like Bigfoot

or the Church of Satan. All the shrapnel ofstuff that I had absorbed as an asthma inhaler-sucking kidreading triviahobo lore that Ihad picked up. So thats how I got started doing

this. So Im very pro-Internet.

DDD:Yeah, do you think you would have had the samesort of career trajectoryno, youre shaking your head.

JH: NoIm shaking my head. No! No, for

all sorts of reasons. I guess Im a pretty goodwriter, but I would have had to really convincemyself to take a big risk and leave my job at theagency. And in order to justify that big risk I

would have had to discover what it is I wanted to

say, and I learned what I wanted to say throughthe Internet. And similarly, if there were noInternet, there would still be book publishing,and Id probably have a pretty successful careeras a literary agent. But I would be unhappyinside, becausea whole alternate history

would be unfoldingin a parallel dimension.

DDD: How did you come to collaborate with TheyMight Be Giants as the Deranged Millionaire character?

JH: Like most good things in my life, this

happened through Dave Eggers. The Giantshad recorded music for an issue ofMcSweeney's

John Flansburgh and John Linnell became partof a traveling McSweeneys roadshow that I

would occasionally emcee. They had alwaysbeen one of my very favorites, because they areso smart and so uncompromisingly themselves.

They were never afraid to be funny.So I was stunned to be able to work near them,never mind with them. But Flansburgh is justincredibly gracious and absurdly productive and

pathologically enthusiastic and encouraging. Forzero reason and less dollars, Flans and his wifeRobin Goldwasser offered to record my radio

*++*)>, *5$, -#%,%-,)%

that I previously denied myself, such as wineand sports, and also how to stock your survivabrownstone for the end of the worldhintcanned antsThis is pretty much what all post

forty-year-old men are thinking about: wine and

sports and the end of the world.

DDD: ?*/G% *:"6.% .#,%


10/1192heddd : fall2011

THIS AND THAT WITHJOHN HODGMAN

ET CETERA:

Interview byELLEN MOYNIHAN

DDD:Ive never had a Fresca.

JH: Its uhits refreshing.

DDD:How alike Sprite is it?

JH: Not at all.

DDD:No? Its bitter?

JH: Its a little more grapefruit juice-y. But you

know, it is aits a bunch of chemicals in a glass.

DDD:Remember Bob Dole and the pen?

JH: WellI mean...yeah [laughing]. Yes.

DDD:I dont want to laugh at that, but its funny! They

stuck a pen in his hand all the time.

JH: Yeah, and like: who are you fooling? You

know, who are you fooling?

DDD:Theres something called Goth Cruise that I really

want to see.

JH: Whats that?

DDD:4.>1%*$%2$',9,$',$.%8/)%)*',%*%-"69/,%"< %0,*+1%*(";%

Every year, a bunch of goths get together and

JH: Go on a cruise?!...Totally. That makes sense.I went on a cruise like that, except for nerds.

JH: I lived on Twenty-second between Second

and Thirdit was a duplex apartment in the

basement, which meant that half the apartment

was underground and half was at street level,

where people could look in and urinate.

DDD:Oh! WonderfulAnd what was the neighborhood

like back then, besides people peeing in the window?

JH: It was veryNew York changes a lot, but

people always urinate on the street.

DDD:Yeah, thats true.

JH: Thats one constant.

JH: George Saunders loves to hit people. You

know that, dont you?

DDD:No, I didnt know that.

JH: Oh, he punches people like crazy.

DDD:Wow.

JH: Yeah.

DDD:Unprovoked?

JH: Yeah. He thinks its funny. He thinks its

hilariousNo, I dont know that thats true. Hes

a really sweet man, Ive met him beforehe has a

tremendous beard.

hapter three


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John Hodgman Discusses Absurdity in a Serious Way