Slashdot Mirror
The Areas of My Expertise
Hemos writes "Most of the books sent to Slashdot for review have words like
"Java", "hacks", or "802.11b" in the title, but occasionally an odd
general book arrives after a publicist hits the wrong button on the
keyboard. At first, I thought that John Hodgman's The Areas of
My Expertise , was a mistake, but now I'm not sure. Because
this is Slashdot, I'll spend the rest of the review wondering
whether the Internet is really changing jokes, humor in general,
and even all narrative form. But before that, I can tell you now
that there's something sly, odd, and very funny about the book even
though it is little more than a disconnected collection of lists
and details. It's a coredump from a mind filled with 700 names of
Hobos, the ways to use a ferret to rob a bank, the secret to
winning every fight (use henchmen!), and the first draft of T.R.
Roosevelt's famous command: speak softly and pierce their eyes with
a golden hook." Read on for Peter Wayner's review.
The Areas of My Expertise
author
John Hodgman
pages
230
publisher
rating
8
reviewer
Peter Wayner
ISBN
summary
Let me help the curiosity of the general reader before I get to the meat of the review where I reveal enough Internet-releated theories to satisfy the nasty trolls who like to wonder why Slashdot is wasting valuable bits on silly topic. As John Hodgeman is fond of promising on his book's cover: "THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED".
The book is said to be a relatively complete collection of all of the important expertise in the mind of John Hodgeman, the author referred to on the cover as "A PROFESSIONAL WRITER." There's one section that contains the "700 Hobo names you requested." ("Irontrousers the Strong", "Fleastick" are 55 and 79). Another includes random crap about the 50 states. The sections are all very silly and the humor emerges from a form of metaphysical misdirection. I still chuckle when I think about the list of jokes that "have never produced laughter." The jokes really aren't funny, but there's something insane in their very deliberate and plodding failure.
The book can be sampled like a box of chocolates. I tried to read it through directly to see if any grand arc emerged, but my mind couldn't extract any great signal from the cultural noise. For all I know, he wrote each bit on an index card and then shuffled the cards before typesetting the book. The gags are all about the randomness of the wrong information cluttering his minds and, to a large extent, the texture of the words.
Long ago, an editor would have thrown this guy out on his ear for even suggesting that 230 some pages of chuckles would be worthy of getting people together for a book publication party. I don't think the editor or the publisher let those worries get in the way.
Which brings us to the answer I owe you about why this is a post- internet book. As the non-funny "unified theory of the web" in Small Pieces Loosely Joined pointed out, the web is made up by many small pieces of information arranges with hyperlinks that join them, loosely if you will. Well, that's this book. Random pieces of crap, given an additional shuffle to make it seem all the more random. It's all very loosely joined.
Long ago, professional writers like John Hodgman included narrative arcs and well-wrought plotlines with their books. Perhaps we don't need them any more. Maybe the Internet has changed our brain and made us happy to graze from the bar without the need of a sitdown meal. To put on my PROFESSIONAL POSTER hat, I think that the Internet has made us accustomed to getting our stuff in loosely joined pieces.
In fact it's worse than that. Most bloggers write complete paragraphs, but many parts of the book are just a collection of tiny bits that don't even qualify as full paragraphs. Many of the entries are just lists and many of the items in these lists aren't even complete sentences. This modern approach to writing is everywhere. Even the old dead-tree-based print media is producing magazines filled with so-called stories that are nothing more than lists of cool things to do, watch, or eat. The high-toned magazines may even have two or three sentences per list item--enough, I guess, to qualify as a paragraph, but most are nothing more than lists.
Some folks seem to feel that this fragmented, attention-deficit- whatever life is a good thing. Steven Johnson, for instance, argues in his book that the jumpy plots made of many short scenes are evidence of an expanding intellect. Modern TV seems almost unwatchable to me. But I also find old Starsky and Hutch episodes to be terribly plodding. Won't they just get to the point and catch the killers? But, back then, the journey was 9/10ths of the fun. The point wasn't really the point.
But maybe I'm just making too much of it. Plenty of comedy has always been filled with short pieces. Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes , for instance, was broken into a number of very short bits, although there really were a few threads woven throughout the book. Absurdist comedy like Monty Python's Flying Circus was just a collection of wacky riffs, but they did try to come up with clever and even more absurdist segueways to carry the viewer from scene to scene. It was not usual to have a bunch of guys walk into the frame of a sketch and carry one or more of the characters off and into the frame of another set.
At this point, I sort of feel that I need to add what PROFESSIONAL WRITERS call a "kicker", some sort of question or twist that connects us with the top of the piece and gives the reader a sense of closure. They're hard to find and even harder to craft. Ones that are even slightly funny or insightful can get you promoted. But, given the spirit of the book, I feel inclined to invoke the spirit of a hobo, slack a bit, and steal the ending from the book itself. (I can do this without spoiling the book for you!) As Hodgman writes when he comes to the end of the deck of joke cards, "That is all."
You can purchase The Areas of My Expertise from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Let me help the curiosity of the general reader before I get to the meat of the review where I reveal enough Internet-releated theories to satisfy the nasty trolls who like to wonder why Slashdot is wasting valuable bits on silly topic. As John Hodgeman is fond of promising on his book's cover: "THE ANSWER IS PROVIDED".
The book is said to be a relatively complete collection of all of the important expertise in the mind of John Hodgeman, the author referred to on the cover as "A PROFESSIONAL WRITER." There's one section that contains the "700 Hobo names you requested." ("Irontrousers the Strong", "Fleastick" are 55 and 79). Another includes random crap about the 50 states. The sections are all very silly and the humor emerges from a form of metaphysical misdirection. I still chuckle when I think about the list of jokes that "have never produced laughter." The jokes really aren't funny, but there's something insane in their very deliberate and plodding failure.
The book can be sampled like a box of chocolates. I tried to read it through directly to see if any grand arc emerged, but my mind couldn't extract any great signal from the cultural noise. For all I know, he wrote each bit on an index card and then shuffled the cards before typesetting the book. The gags are all about the randomness of the wrong information cluttering his minds and, to a large extent, the texture of the words.
Long ago, an editor would have thrown this guy out on his ear for even suggesting that 230 some pages of chuckles would be worthy of getting people together for a book publication party. I don't think the editor or the publisher let those worries get in the way.
Which brings us to the answer I owe you about why this is a post- internet book. As the non-funny "unified theory of the web" in Small Pieces Loosely Joined pointed out, the web is made up by many small pieces of information arranges with hyperlinks that join them, loosely if you will. Well, that's this book. Random pieces of crap, given an additional shuffle to make it seem all the more random. It's all very loosely joined.
Long ago, professional writers like John Hodgman included narrative arcs and well-wrought plotlines with their books. Perhaps we don't need them any more. Maybe the Internet has changed our brain and made us happy to graze from the bar without the need of a sitdown meal. To put on my PROFESSIONAL POSTER hat, I think that the Internet has made us accustomed to getting our stuff in loosely joined pieces.
In fact it's worse than that. Most bloggers write complete paragraphs, but many parts of the book are just a collection of tiny bits that don't even qualify as full paragraphs. Many of the entries are just lists and many of the items in these lists aren't even complete sentences. This modern approach to writing is everywhere. Even the old dead-tree-based print media is producing magazines filled with so-called stories that are nothing more than lists of cool things to do, watch, or eat. The high-toned magazines may even have two or three sentences per list item--enough, I guess, to qualify as a paragraph, but most are nothing more than lists.
Some folks seem to feel that this fragmented, attention-deficit- whatever life is a good thing. Steven Johnson, for instance, argues in his book that the jumpy plots made of many short scenes are evidence of an expanding intellect. Modern TV seems almost unwatchable to me. But I also find old Starsky and Hutch episodes to be terribly plodding. Won't they just get to the point and catch the killers? But, back then, the journey was 9/10ths of the fun. The point wasn't really the point.
But maybe I'm just making too much of it. Plenty of comedy has always been filled with short pieces. Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes , for instance, was broken into a number of very short bits, although there really were a few threads woven throughout the book. Absurdist comedy like Monty Python's Flying Circus was just a collection of wacky riffs, but they did try to come up with clever and even more absurdist segueways to carry the viewer from scene to scene. It was not usual to have a bunch of guys walk into the frame of a sketch and carry one or more of the characters off and into the frame of another set.
At this point, I sort of feel that I need to add what PROFESSIONAL WRITERS call a "kicker", some sort of question or twist that connects us with the top of the piece and gives the reader a sense of closure. They're hard to find and even harder to craft. Ones that are even slightly funny or insightful can get you promoted. But, given the spirit of the book, I feel inclined to invoke the spirit of a hobo, slack a bit, and steal the ending from the book itself. (I can do this without spoiling the book for you!) As Hodgman writes when he comes to the end of the deck of joke cards, "That is all."
You can purchase The Areas of My Expertise from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Yep. That'd be slashdot.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
But everyone knows hobos don't have names. It's always just 'That guy on the median at the intersection of Ironwood and Laneview St.'.
At first, I though that everyone, knew how to use proper, punctuation. But, now I see, I, was wrong.
My other account has mod points.
That's why I found a rubber stick in my girlfriend's purse.
and even more absurdist segueways to carry
is that pronounced seg-way-ways? Reminds me of the "ATM Machine" joke...
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
...I was thinking the same thing on about the third sentence of that review.
Or, speak loud verbose nonsense and wave a bigger stick around. Who ever said that everyone would be perfect?
Could be worst... Might've been Bill Clinton's cigar. :P
I think the Internet will breed a new dialect of english, and I'm not talking about leet speak, or "how r u" abbreviations. I think it will permit english to be used in new ways where the reader isn't sure what the writer is getting at. Sound bytes will be more important in winning someone over to the writer's view, not a coherent argument.
New English Rulez! (for instance).
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Most of the books sent to Slashdot for review have words like "Java", "hacks", or "802.11b"
I thought most books had the words "Google", "Apple", or that up-and-comer "Ubuntu".
Oh wait, that's articles. Never mind.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
At least, in that they're filled with lots of random little suggestions on how to do things.
The O'Reilly books are incredibly useful, though - at least Linux Server Hacks certainly was; I just used hack # 99 (the RewriteMap hack) a week or so ago to do some simple load-balancing. Very handy.
The Army reading list
Vonnegut tried to write Slaugherhouse-Five as "a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore." In Tralfamadorian books, there is no story arc -- just a colleciton of clumps of symbols. "Each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message describing a situation, a scene. Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image which is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects."
Vonnegut tried to mimic this style by taking a traditional story arc and shuffling the pieces, but maybe this (or the new types of loosely connected symbols on the web) gets closer to the ideal by removing the story arc entirely.
It certainly seems like you get a sense of character from this book, even without any type of narrative.
It's been coming our way for a while now, and this book is very much in tune with the times.
We've had our renaissance and our golden ages of reason and intellectualism and humanistic idealism that gave rise to pro-people icons like the Constitution of the United States.
Now instead we have the encroaching 1984 of Blair, the religious fundamentalism of Bush, and a corporate-driven media culture which farms the brainless masses like cattle and teaches them the new values of disconnected speech. Who needs Voltaire when your mind can find fulfillment in Snoop Dog?
The book of TFA is mainstream in this new world of post-intellectualism. Welcome to the new Dark Age.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Dude, they do. They're called page edges, and you activate them with a thumb flip rather than a mouse click. HTH.
"The gags are all about the randomness of the wrong information cluttering his minds"
Gack. I feel overwhelmed sometimes with all the info clouding my single mind, I wonder how he manages with two or more?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I still chuckle when I think about the list of jokes that "have never produced laughter."
If they made you chuckle then they no longer belong in that list, right? Kind of like the set of all sets that do not include themselves...
I guess book reviewer's a gamer too
...both interiorlly, and exteriorlly.
More like "speak softly and carry a wiffle bat."
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
The reviewer fails to mention that this entire book is a send-up - it's fiction - What this guy "knows" is like Stephen Colbert from the Daily Show - This is a physical manifestation of an observation Mark Twain is reputed to have made: "Our biggest problem is not what we don't know; it's what we know, that ain't so."
Media don't kill ideas, people do.
"The sections are all very silly and the humor emerges from a form of metaphysical misdirection. I still chuckle when I think about the list of jokes that "have never produced laughter." The jokes really aren't funny, but there's something insane in their very deliberate and plodding failure."
Sounds like a very baked-out idea to me. Plodding failure is a joke in itself.
PS what in the world is 'metaphysical misdirection?' is that like ending up in purgatory? Or getting lost on the way to church?
Reminds me of what Lord Byron wrote in Don Juan:
"Explaining metaphysics to the nation, I wish he would explain his explanation."
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Maybe he was the inspiration for this guy.
Literature Teeters on the Edge of a 'Gr8 Fall'
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/post_1.html
...and ungrammatically, too.
Yep, that's the web, all right.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/hoboes.html
Did anyone else find that hard to read?
Do we have to explain everything to you? The great-grandparent was obviously meant as a joke, yet it was moderated insightful. Strangely enough, the reply, which was just a quote of the grantparent was modded funny.
Not only are the mods stupid, the comments are too. I mean worse than normal - normally if something is modded up a few times it is somewhat intelligent.
I did, I still am trying to figure it all out lol
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
John Allen Paulos mentioned a similar idea in his book Beyond Numeracy.
He reviews a fictional 3,200 page book about a mathematician. Every article in the book links to other related topics, creating a Fractal mesh consisting of pretty much everything he knows. Below is one paragraph from this section, the whole chapter can be found at http://www.math.temple.edu/~paulos/humcon.html
"For example, Rucker idly picks his nose while thinking about his theorems, and if the reader chooses to follow up on this, he is directed to a page (on the disk version the alternatives are listed on a menu which appears at the bottom of the monitor) where Rucker's keen interest in proboscis probing is discussed at length. What percentage of people pick their noses? Why do so few people do it in public; yet, in the false privacy of their automobiles why do so many indulge? If you push even further in this direction, there is the memory from a few weeks previous when Rucker, stopped at a red light, saw the elegantly coiffed Mrs. Samaras seated in the BMW across from him, her index finger seemingly deep into her frontal cortex."
core dumps these days?
(founded 95,000,000 yrs ago, very space opera)
One section of the book-- "Secrets of the Mall of America"-- was read by the author as part of the September 23 edition of the public radio show "This American Life". The show is in their online archives for this year. Or you can go directly to the stream of the show.. Hodgman's part begins around 45 minutes into the show.
And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?
TZ
Had to be done.
"But then again I haven't turned on my TV for 3 months, and have started limiting my online times, because they were taking away from intellectual activities."
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
You can mimic something that's fictional, but not if it's your creation
Why is that true? What would happen if I were to make up a character who has an injured foot, and then demonstrate his limp by imitating it? Does the Earth crash into the Sun? Do dogs and cats, well you know.
You're badly mistaken. The new phrase isn't "Speak softly and carry a big rubber stick." It's "Speak loudly as hell ('cause then nobody'll notice that you're lying) and lay about wildly with a great big stick (and make no plans for picking up the pieces afterwards)."
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Everyone! Don't click the link! It is just some disgusting image.
many sets include themselves:
they obviously have to be infinite though.
the set of all sets is a set.
the set of all things which are not teaspoons is also not a teaspoon.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Media built out of apparently random pieces of information - often non-original that are assembled to create a whole new experience... that occurred before the internet Sampled Music - RAP, Hip Hop, etc... Music Videos - every one ever made non-linear film plots - Citizen Kane, Pulp Fiction... Chicken Soup for the the XXXX part NNN
"The Book of Lists" by David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace.
"Eyeless in Gaza" by Aldous Huxley.
"Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
....but if you're Jack Nicholson, it's more like, "Speak loudly and swing a golf club at everyone that gets in your way."
Whatever. Everyone has their thing.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
Speak when you're called on and ask the other countries if its okay if you use your fluffy rubber stick somewhere if you're really careful and get back home before dark. Then give out a few loans to countries that won't pay them back.
--- Nebulous
w00t!!!11!!! Thats my new motto. Tomorrow I'm going to run downtown screaming to the top of my lungs while randomly hitting things with a nice aluminum bat....
irony
When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea
> Long ago, professional writers like John Hodgman included narrative arcs and
> well-wrought plotlines with their books. Perhaps we don't need them any more.
> Maybe the Internet has changed our brain and made us happy to graze from the
> bar without the need of a sitdown meal. To put on my PROFESSIONAL POSTER hat,
> I think that the Internet has made us accustomed to getting our stuff in
> loosely joined pieces.
Am I now Old School, then, because I like reading someone who can spell and finish sentences? Don't need plotlines and narrative arcs? I'm not in that "we", sir. This sounds like a particular kind of book, not a harbinger of all that will come. I'm not saying I wouldn't enjoy this book, because I probably would, I'm just saying I'd enjoy it for what it is: an idiosyncratic collection of drivel to read in bits and pieces while getting rid of shits and feces (and no one will ever pardon me for that, but I'm okay because I still like me).
The Internet may allow the idiots to be louder now, but the smart folk can still tell the difference. I'm not the brightest cookie in the tool shed, but I'll go for the sitdown meal every time.
---Bruce
There was this frog once, taught me everything I knew. I've learned this since: never listen to frogs that speak.
Similar effort - a book full of stuff
You missed the joke. It said first draft.
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
I'm a spelling nazi, not a grammar nazi :)
So what the hell is the book about?
Moron.
John Hodgman, in addition to being a professional writer, has long been known as a former professional literary agent, whose twelve part series of f-p-l-agent "advice" can be found at mcsweeney's internet thing. But Hodgman is even better doing his schtick as host/purveyor of the Little Gray Book Lecture Series, live in NYC or via "podcasts," which as far as I can tell are just mp3s. The Lecture Series installment on D&D was especially good ("we cast a spell of illumination. we proceed with caution"); a partial "podcast" available here. He seems to be an all around nice guy, and talented enough to inspire envy.
Except your post doesn't count as irony; merely wit.
As referenced: On Boing Boing!,
mentioning the 700 hobo names,
which were recorded with geek-folk-copyleft-rocker Jonathan Coulton,
as can be heard here,
or seen illustrated by a number of independent artists via Flickr,
and as was also mentioned with great humor on November 16th's Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Analysing your post for some basic logical structure containing premises, inferences, and conclusions, I conclude that you've just pasted a load of tosh.
I assume it was a made-up, anti-reasoning piece created as a joke.