John Hodgman is an expert. At everything. (OK, maybe not sports.) But where he really excels is in creating the illusion of expertise — and not letting pesky facts intrude on that authority. From his first book, a compendium of faux trivia aptly titled The Areas of My Expertise, to his fiction-spewing shtick on The Daily Show to his role as the bloviating PC in those Mac ads, Hodgman handles the most obscure subjects with an aura of invincible confidence. The fact that it's fake? All the funnier. Hodgman talks to Wired about his latest book, More Information Than You Require (out in October), and his new area of bona fide expertise: being semi-famous.
Wired: Is your character on The Daily Show the same person narrating your books? Or, for that matter, the PC in your Mac ads?
Hodgman: I should clarify at this point: I'm not that John Hodgman. There's a guy who goes on The Daily Show claiming to be me. And there's a guy who goes on the Mac ads claiming to be me.
Wired: You should sue!
Hodgman: No, I would say that the Resident Expert on The Daily Show is all me, or at least a heightened aspect of myself. Aside from finding humor in the deadpan descriptions of things precisely as they are, I just veer off into the fantastic and the absurd.
Wired: And that has made you slightly famous.
Hodgman: Well, I always had this desire to celebrate and somehow be a part of things that I thought were really great. When I wrote about Battlestar Galactica for The New York...
Wired.com
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