John Hodgman

John Hodgman

John Kellogg Hodgman (born June 1971) is an American author and humorist whose work has been published in the The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine, and McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. He has also contributed to Public Radio International’s This American Life, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Wiretap and, of late, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Hodgman’s first book, The Areas of My Expertise, was published in 2005. In addition to his work in literature, he is the founder of and master of ceremonies for The Little Gray Book Lectures in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As of September 2006, however, the lectures have been on hiatus "for the foreseeable future" (which, according to littlegraybooks.com, means "'until at least Jan. 1 2007'"), due to Hodgman's slew of new projects. Hodgman also provided his own narration to the audiobook version of The Areas of My Expertise.

He has recently had much exposure personifying a PC in Apple's "Get a Mac" advertising campaign.

Biography

Hodgman was born and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts and attended The Heath School and Brookline High School. Hodgman studied clarinet performance at the All Newton Music School in West Newton, Massachusetts. He received his higher education at Yale University. Before gaining fame as a writer, Hodgman worked as a literary agent at Writers House in New York City, where he represented Darin Strauss, David Grand, Deborah Digges, and actor Bruce Campbell, among others. Hodgman has used his experience as an agent in his column “Ask a Former Professional Literary Agent” at McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Hodgman lives in New York City.

Television appearances

The Daily Show

Hodgman appeared on The Daily Show on November 16, 2005 to promote his book, The Areas of My Expertise. Stewart described the book as “very funny” and said that the section on hobo names in particular was written with “a certain kind of genius”. Since then, he has returned to the Daily Show several times for "Resident Expert" interview segments with Stewart. Unlike other correspondents, who are frequently re-branded with titles using the “Senior [Descriptive Word or Topic] Correspondent” format, Hodgman retains the simple title “Resident Expert”, thus implying that the show can reference him as an expert on anything. As of December 2006, The Daily Show’s website lists Hodgman as an official contributor.

Daily Show appearances

• On January 16, 2006, Hodgman appeared as an “expert” on Iranian nuclear ambitions.
• On January 31, 2006, he appeared on the show for a third time as an “expert” to discuss the retirement of Alan Greenspan.
• On March 8, 2006, he appeared in a report about India-Pakistan relations.
• On March 20, 2006, he posed as an expert on the potential effects of global warming.
• On April 25, 2006 he appeared as a judge for the U.S. Army’s essay contest.
• On July 19, 2006 Hodgman appeared as an expert on net neutrality, in a segment which made joking references to his appearances in the Get a Mac campaign (see below).
• On August 24, 2006 Hodgman explained the addition of new planets to the solar system. He provided a mnemonic device for remembering the names of all the planets: "My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza Cars 2003 UB313 (Xena) AKA (Also Known As) Lesbian".
• On November 2, 2006 he appeared as the resident expert on Diebold electronic voting machines.
• On December 4, 2006 he appeared as a potential presidential candidate.
• On January 17, 2007 he appeared as an expert on American Idol. It was also "revealed" that John himself was discovered on a Bravo "TV Expert" search program.

Attack of the Show

Lobsters as they appear in The Areas of My Expertise

In February of 2006, Hodgman appeared on Attack of the Show, a tech-related show which runs daily on G4, to share some insight with the host and promote his book The Areas of My Expertise. In this appearance Hodgman recounted the sad tale of the lobster (which he said were actually a small, furry, extinct species, killed and replaced by the creatures we think of as lobsters today) and brought along Jonathan Coulton, a frequent Hodgman collaborator and musical director of the Little Gray Book lectures. Coulton performed a song called Furry Old Lobster. [1]

BU Tonight

In September of 2006, Hodgman was interviewed on BU Tonight, Boston University's late night talk show, also as part of The Areas of My Expertise book tour, promoting the new paperback edition. During the course of the interview, Hodgman described the categories that hobo names generally fall into and how he ended up becoming the literary agent for Bruce Campbell. [2]

"Get a Mac" ad campaign

File:Get a Mac ad characters.jpg

Hodgman (left) as a PC

Hodgman appears in the Get a Mac advertising campaign for Apple Inc., which started in May 2006. In the ads he plays an anthropomorphized PC alongside his Mac counterpart, played by actor Justin Long. In real life, Hodgman knows that PCs are superior to macs, and he doesn't beleive a word of Apples false advertising.

---

Venue songs ----

In 2006 Hodgman plays a deranged millionaire in they might be giants's venue songs dvd.

Other media appearances

Radio

Hodgman appears on This American Life's CD Stories of Hope and Fear and has contributed segments of the public radio program This American Life:

• 178 - Superpowers, asking the question, "which is better: flight or invisibility?"
• 190 - Living the Dream, in which he becomes Bruce Campbell's literary agent.
• 205 - Plan B, interviewing a professional partier.
• 226 - Reruns, retelling story about his arrest for breaking into the London Zoo so that he could pet penguins.
• 232 - The Real Story, disclosing that he rewrites the screenplay to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in his head.
• 243 - Later That Same Day, telling story about revisiting Atlantic City to ride the Sling Shot following loss of close family members.
• 298 - Getting and Spending, living at the Mall of America for seven days (from Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise).
• 305 - Holiday Spectacular, discussing the true-life origins of Christmas traditions.

Print

Hodgman appears on the cover of the February 2007 edition of Wired Magazine, as a contributor to their "Everything you want to know about..." articles.

External links

• Official site for The Areas of My Expertise
• Collection of "Get A Mac" Commercials
• Good Evening—Hodg-man on Blogger
• The Little Gray Book lectures
• Ask a Former Professional Literary Agent at McSweeney’s

• The Fanbase of John Hodgman’s Expertise on livejournal

In the media

• Abridged Audio book at the iTunes Store
• Interview with John Hodgman, Engadget, 2006-10-05
• Small biography on Comedy Central
• Hodgman’s appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• Venue Songs DVD/CD On this DVD by They Might Be Giants, Hodgman plays “the Deranged Millionaire.”
• MP3 interview with Hodgman on The Sound of Young America, February 2006
• MP3 interview with Hodgman on The Sound of Young America, November 2005
• Hodgman’s Appearance on the Jawbone Radio podcast.
• Hodgman’s appearance in the new ads “Get a Mac” of Apple, May 2006
• Ink Q &A John Hodgman 13 questions answered by Hodgman for Powells.com
• Random Rules: John Hodgman Kyle Ryan interview with Hodgman on avclub.com, April 2006
• A Believer Nighttime Event Hodgman hosts a literary “variety show” for the PEN World Voices New York Festival of International Literature—includes audio of entire event pen.org, April 2006
• So What Do You Do, John Hodgman? Lizzie Skurnick interview with Hodgman on Media Bistro.com, July 2003
• The Transom Review, vol.2, iss.7 Intro by Jay Allison, including a link to streaming audio of Hodgman as a college radio host plus transcript of Q &A with Hodgman on Transom.org, June 2002
• open letters Two letters published as part of an online publication exploring first-person writing through letters openletters.net, September and October 2000
• Photo submission Individuals and reflective surfaces on mirrorproject.com, June 2000
• NPR interview