The Magical Realism Almanac


 


I have to say, this is such a deal that you should not pass it up. The iTunes Music Store is offering a free download of the audiobook version of The Areas of My Expertise , by John Hodgman. Free. Yes, Free.

Now, I laugh easily, and am even charmed by wit I don't laugh at. So I'm not the world's best filter on the funny/not funny membrane. The fact that I laughed quite a bit at the book is no compelling recommendation.

But the thing that I particularly liked about this faux almanac/false trivia book is Hodgman's sympathy for that peculiar pocket of our culture: science fiction, fantasy, pulp adventure, comic books. There's plenty of jokes, amusing conceits, and little blasts of surrealism that would be at home in any humorous writing---but time and again, he ends up spinning stories that sound less like flip comments than plots for decent fantasy stories. In his gazetteer of the 51 United States of America, Hodgman had me irretrievably in his camp when he said that the state nickname of Colorado was 'The Dwarrowdelf', and went on to equate Norad with Moria. But when he went on to talk about the 51st state as this magically moving plateau inhabited by Thunderbirds and how Franz Boas saved the U.S. Congress from being taken over by a fallen Thunderbird--well, we're walking in a different territory from Dave Barry (who most assuredly also makes me laugh.)

The audiobook is also more like a live broadcast than a book-on-iPod: the author and musical accompanist Jonathan Coulton chat and do shtick. So go and download it: You can't go wrong.

Oh wait, yes you can: After the end of the book proper, there's an audio appendix, in which a list of 700 hobo names is recited to the guitar accompaniment of "The Big Rock Candy Mountain." A lot of creativity went into the list, but it's really like listening to Philip Glass doing standup. it goes on. Listen to that last part in chunks, if at all--and definitely not while piloting a lonely vehicle across the night-darkened lonesomeness of the Great Plains.

UPDATE: ...checked iTMS, and the book's no longer free. Ah well.
Going to your local public library and getting the book is a good idea.

Posted: Wednesday - January 03, 2007 at 03:46 PM        

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