More Information Than You Require

When I heard that John Hodgman's next book was to be a follow-up to his extremely successful (and bizarrely brilliant) The Areas of My Expertise, I was apprehensive -- hilarious and unique as Areas had been, its role as an Almanac of False Knowledge seemed limiting. Surely a follow-up book built on the same model, with similar "compendium of knowledge" structures, couldn't have the same spark of particularity that its predecessor had.

That being said, flipping through the first thirty pages of the book in Borders had me laughing out loud (something I'm not overly wont to do) and so I bought it. Or rather, pressured a friend into buying it and loaning it to me. Whatever. Point is: it's superb stuff. Its highs are as high as that of Areas: the Presidential factoids inform us that Rutherford B. Hayes had the nicknames "His Illegitimacy," "Rutherfraud B. Hayes," "Frauderfraud Bogus Hayes," "His Excellency, Fakey Votethief" and "El Stealo," and that Martin Van Buren ("Brueny Van Economic Crisis," "Fancy Van Ascot, the Little Magician") had a hook for a hand. The list of mole-men names, while as eventually drudging as the list of hobo names in Areas, is specialized and -- for the first hundred or so -- funny. He teaches you how to win in poker ("Sure Thing #2" in betting, just after Roulette) by indimidating your competition: "My cards are going to set your cards on fire and then put out the fire with piss." "My cards are going to drown your cards in a rain barrel the same way I murdered your children. (Even if you're not in the hand, this sends a message that you are a REAL card plaer, and maybe even a child murderer.)" And so on; it's all very good stuff, and Hodgman throws so much oddball humor out there that he basically has to score a hit every few pages.

What's rewarding, though, is watching Hodgman stretch his voice. Some of these pieces appeared elsewhere before being folded into this work ("700 Mole Men Names" is listed as being previously published under the title "700 Hobo Names"), and a piece on his newfound minor celebrity that has been adapted from its appearance on This American Life is simultaneously outrageously implausible and really quite poignant. Perhaps the best example of this balance between madcap goofiness and personal voice comes at the tail end of Hodgman's passionate, ardent explanation as to the plausibility of UFOs and the existence of life on other planets. The piece closes with an encounter Hodgman holds up as a potential alien encounter, with his then-girlfriend (now-wife) abandoning him on vacation in Mexico. While she's announced her intention to return, Hodgman is wholeheartedly convinced that he's lost her forever, and is joined while waiting nervously for her outside their hotel by a group of young men from a stag party who ultimately take shifts staying with him and cheering him up while he waits for her to come back. When she does, everybody's spirits lift, and Hodgman's closing words are heartwarming more than anything else: "Even now, a decade and a half later, when she is out of my sight, I never stop looking for her. And even though, you must admit, the likelihood is that while she was away she was kidnapped and replaced by an alien clone, I still love her."

If this tempered, dementedly sweet Hodgman is who we have writing the forthcoming third volume, That is All, I think we have much to look forward to.