Almanac of the Absurd

As he neared hobo name No.436 (Hot Gnome Jimmy Jackson),John Hodgman hit a wall."I really started to doubt not just the list of 700 hobo names but the entire project," he says,referring to his new book,"The Areas of My Expertise," a kind of almanac parody that claims to contain "complete world knowledge." "It seemed to wholly embody the madness of doing this book,filled with fake history and fake facts." Such as: the abbreviated words used by submariners to conserve oxygen,failed palindromes to avoid when writing,a brief timeline of the lobster in America and jokes that have never produced laughter.Somehow,"The Areas of My Expertise" doesn't come across as silly.The entries,plainly false,are unnervingly plausible."It was very important to me that it not be too absurd," says Hodgman,who is also a contributor to McSweeney's and NPR's "This American Life." "Somehow,these fake pearls of nonwisdom actually manage to contain some real wisdom." Hence,entries like "History's Worst Men's Haircuts" and "Handy Measurements of Time When You Do Not Have a Watch." "It's like sonar," Hodgman says."You try to go out into the dark waters of fakeness and ping against something plausible."