The Areas of My Expertise
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- Published by: Penguin Group, Inc.
- eBook Publish Date: May 08, 2006
- Print ISBN: 1594482225
- Filesize: 9.60 MB
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Overview
In the great tradition of the American almanac, The Areas of My Expertise is a brilliant and hilarious compendium of handy reference tables, fascinating trivia, and sage wisdom on all topics large and small. Although bestsellers such as Poor Richard ' s Almanack and The Book of Lists were certainly valuable, they also were largely true. Here is a different kind of handy desk reference, one in which all of the historical oddities and amazing true facts are sifted through the singular, illuminating imagination of John Hodgman ' which is the nice way of saying: He made it all up.
John Hodgman brings his considerable expertise to bear in answering all of the questions book buyers have been asking:
' What are the mottoes of the 51 United States
THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED
' Who were the U.S. presidents who had hooks for hands
THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED
' What role does the Yale secret society ' Skull and Bones ' play in the secret world government
THERE IS NO SECRET WORLD GOVERNMENT
' What was the menu at the first Thanksgiving, and did it include eels
Technically, that is two questions, but do not apologize, for John Hodgman shall answer them both ' LATER.
' Aside from a compendium of fake trivia, what is the best kind of book to write
A SIMPLE TABLE OF THE 55 MOST DRAMATIC LITERARY SITUATIONS PROVIDES THE ANSWER, and John Hodgman is the author of that table.
Imagine if The Book of Lists had been rewritten by Peter Cook and Jorge Luis Borges under the pseudonym of ' John Hodgman ' and then renamed The Areas of My Expertise, and you will only begin to have a sense of the dizzying, uproarious, sublimely weird, and strangely wise journey that is contained within this book (along with all the pages and words).
Perfect for anyone who thirsts for knowledge, and especially for collectors of books of fake trivia, The Areas of My Expertise offers through absurdity a better understanding of the world we share ' and recognizes that while the truth may be stranger than fiction, it is never as strange as lies ' or as true.
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Author Information
Bio of John Hodgman
John Hodgman lives in New York City, where he curates and hosts. The Little Gray Book Lectures, a monthly colloquium of readings, songs, and dubious scholarship. He is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and a frequent voice on public radio's This American Life. Further fiction, nonfiction, and genres in between have appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney's, One's Story, and The Believer. He has performed at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, as well as on the great stages of Chicago, Philadelphia, and London's Barbican.
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Additional Info
Imprint
Penguin Group, Inc.
Filesize
9.60 MB
Number of Pages
256
eBook ISBN
9780786570607
Excerpt from: The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman
OMENS AND PORTENTS FOR THE COMING YEAR
Traditional almanacs regularly included information about what to expect in the coming year with regard to crop yields, tidal patterns, moonrises, and so on. However, they were hardly scientific, relying heavily on astrology and various ancient methods of "scrying," such as crystal gazing, tea-leaf reading, sheepdog consultation, and guessing.
But modern times require modern methods, and also more general predictions for those who are not necessarily farmers or sailors or werewolves. Thus, the accompanying OMENS V. PORTENTS table, of the kind currently in use by most actuaries.
As these scientific soothsayers know, the signature of the future is written on the here and now. Thanks to careful observation and experimentation we now know, for example, that a rise in oil prices occurring in the same year as the birth of an albino buffalo will cause us to inevitably embrace polygamy and the open use of jet packs.
FIGURE 1: Omen Tabulation Pool, Circa 1989
Herewith some more commonly observed predictors that, when correlated, produce some of the more startling predictions for the coming year.
*Omens and Portents must be observed in the same three-month period. If a sword or picture of a sword is observed the same day, the omen and/or portent must be discarded from consideration. If you are a sailor or seaman, please see "Special Long-Term Predictions for Sailors".
**This is an actuarial term that should not be confused with the more popularly understood definition from Norse mythology. In those epic sagas, "Ragnarok" referred to the predestined end of the world, in which the gods known as the Aesir will meet the legions of evil led by Loki, the trickster god, on the battlefield of Vigrid a doomed confrontation in which nearly all participants will perish and the earth itself will be consumed in fire. Among professional actuaries, however (at least those who are not Vikings), "Ragnarok" refers to the same event, but it is not believed that Surt will join the battle with his army of fire giants, and most of the Aesir will die instead from lifestyle-related causes long after the battle itself, including smoking, snuff-taking, and mead-addiction. In both cases, however, all humans die in flame.
