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John Hodgman

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John Hodgman

John Kellogg Hodgman<ref>Hodgman, John. “Wish Lists.” Open Letters. August 20, 2000.</ref> (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 forseeable 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.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Hodgman was born and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts and attended The Heath School and Brookline High School. He received his higher education at Yale University. Hodgman studied clarinet performance at the All Newton Music School in West Newton, Massachusetts. 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.

[edit] Television appearances

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.” On January 16, 2006, Hodgman appeared on The Daily Show again, this time as an “expert” on Iranian nuclear ambitions in an interview with Stewart. Then on January 31, 2006, he appeared on the show for a third time as an “expert” to discuss the retirement of Alan Greenspan. He re-appeared in a report about India-Pakistan relations on March 8, 2006. 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). The Daily Show’s website currently lists Hodgman as an official contributor. On August 24, 2006 Hodgman appeared on the Daily Show to explain to the viewers about the new planets being added. He gives them an mnemonic to remember this. "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. 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.

Image:Fischotter, Lutra Lutra.JPG

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 Ol’ Lobster.” 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. During the course of the interview, Hodgman dispensed crucial information about hobo identification and Bruce Campbell. [1]

Image:Get a Mac ad characters.jpg

Hodgman appears in the Get a Mac advertising campaign for Apple Computer, which started in May 2006. In the ads he plays a humanized PC alongside his Mac counterpart, played by actor Justin Long. Hodgman is a Mac user in real life. [2]

[edit] References

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[edit] External links

In the media
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