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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

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Medallion Status: comparison is the thief of joy, and John Hodgman is the thief-taker

John Hodgman's last book, Vacationland, was a kind of absurdist memoir of a weird kid who'd grown up to the kind of self-aware grownup who really wanted to dig into how he got to where he was, with bone-dry wit and real heart (I compared it to Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes, but for adults who'd outgrown it); in his new book, Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms, Hodgman offers something much more uncomfortable (if no less funny), a series of vignettes that explore the hollowness of privilege, the toxicity of comparison, and the melancholy of accomplishment.

Medallion Status tells the story of Hodgman's post-TV life. After lucking into a role in a series of Apple TV ads, Hodgman went on to semi-regular stints on The Daily Show under Jon Stewart and a series of medium-sized parts on well-regarded sitcoms, but these have dwindled, and while Hodgman has many other claims to accomplishment and fame, they're not TV fame (and arguably, as Hodgman points out, even TV fame isn't TV fame anymore in our fractured world of streaming services). TV fame is a weird kind of fame, a stopped-in-the-street kind of fame, a fly from New York to LA every week and stay at the Chateau Marmont kind of fame. It's the kind of fame that gets you invited into the swag room at awards-shows where you can be measured for complementary custom-made leather shoes or take home a really amazing pair of jeans.

For Hodgman, as riven with insecurity as the next person (especially if the next person is a white, straight dude from a middle-class background who has a keen appreciation that he's living life on the lowest difficulty setting and is likely being serviced and fawned over by people who work harder and are more talented than he is), the gradual withdrawal of the trappings of privilege are a constant, nagging confirmation that every jolt of impostor syndrome you've ever felt was fully deserved.

This becomes the basis for an extended meditation on the many ways in which privilege feels gross and upsetting for the privileged: the systems around you are designed to tempt you to strive harder to attain the next level of privilege, where, you are assured, you can rest up from your anxious climb and enjoy the summit. But each summit reveals another summit, higher, more promising, more tantalizing summits you can attain.

This is both the literal and metaphorical life of a frequent flier, of course: each tier in the airlines' customer loyalty program is designed to remind you of how terrible things are on the tier below you and how marvellous they would be if you could only rise up by one more level. And each tier is designed to panic you as the year progresses and you realize that you might not re-establish your status. And it is status, exclusivity, a secret society for one percenters, celebs and looters, all rubbing shoulders and eating chef-prepared meals and drinking free whiskey at 30,000 feet in a lie-flat bed.

At this point, you might be thinking that if being privileged is such a burden, you should try having no privilege at all. Hodgman agrees with you: indeed, the story of Medallion Status is about how badly this works out for everyone.

From his perch on the middle tiers of celebrity, Hodgman is able to compare himself to people who are in much smaller cohorts than his own: if he's in the 15% of people-on-TV, he's comparing himself to people in the 5% or even 1%, and yet, whenever he comes close enough to tug at those tailored and exclusive shirt-tails, he realizes that those people are every bit as miserable and insecure as he is.

And therein lies the message of Medallion Status, latent amidst the very funny jokes and the charming asides and the disarming honesty: that the whole system of privilege and inequality isn't serving anyone: it makes you miserable to be at the bottom, sure, but it also makes you miserable to be at the top.

And worse: as Hodgman travels through, and finds some accomodation within, these rarified heights, he sees how privilege turns the privileged into monsters, including Hodgman himself, whose impulses are warped and stunted under its ferocious gravity. As funny as Hodgman is -- and he's very, very funny -- there is a kind of horror in this book, something appropriately Lovecraftian (given both Hodgman's dedication to New England and Lovecraft's revolting worship of elitism). What Hodgman describes is a horror-movie form of compartmentalization, in which the protagonist finds themself committing terrible acts, knowing that they are terrible, unable to stop themselves.

My absolute favorite mode of humor is "ha ha only serious." One of Hodgman's anxieties is that he's not serious enough to be a comedian: that making a career out of inventing untrue facts about orchestral instruments or being the straight man on The Daily Show makes you funny, but not a comedian -- not someone using humor to disarm power so that it can have truth spoken to it.

But Hodgman is speaking truth to power here: he's spilling the rich, white guy tea, which is that they're absolutely miserable. Not that the wealthy and powerful deserve our sympathy -- but it's important to understand that the system is frailer than you think, because the only reason its supporters defend it is because they're afraid that if they're not defending the hierarchy, they'll end up on the bottom of the pyramid.

This is the moment for that message, with an election only days away and the most egregious example of self-parodying, useless and overprivileged whiteness in the White House. Trump's whole "poor person's idea of a rich person" schtick is the living embodiment of the idea that comparison is the thief of joy. Trump is insecurity manifest, a would-be dictator whose manifesto could easily be titled Mein Angst.

The difference between a monster and a mensch is self-awareness. Hodgman's Medallion Status is the opposite of narcissism: it's an honest and terribly funny peek into a world that very few of us will get to see, one that is frank enough to admit that the only thing the people in that world enjoy about it is that we're not allowed in it.

Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms [John Hodgman/Viking]

https://boingboing.net/2019/10/15/owning-it.html

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croc-odette · 6 years

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The owner of the boatyard and his coworker watched placidly as I jack-knifed the trailer a second time, and then a third. Their faces showed neither alarm, nor derision, nor care. They didn't offer to help me. They would never help me. My failure in front of their stone faces would be my punishment for being from away. I despaired. But then I remembered the lesson of the cairns and did something very unusual for me. I stopped steering, rolled down my window, and said out loud, "I do not know what I'm doing." Their faces immediately broke. I would not say they broke into smiles, but into a kind of neutral living warmth they could deploy or reserve at will, like androids coming out of sleep mode. "We'll help," they said. I had misunderstood them completely. They weren't punishing me by not helping, they were respecting my privacy by letting me fuck up on my own. But now that I asked for help, the maritime gods came to my aid.

Vacationland, John Hodgman

#my personal lesson of the year: stop being paranoid and just ask #book quotes

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haixinggroup · 4 years

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Metal Cold Roof Tile Trapezoidal Roof Machine

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thisdaynews · 5 years

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Inside Susan Collins’ reelection fight in the age of Trump

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/inside-susan-collins-reelection-fight-in-the-age-of-trump/

Inside Susan Collins’ reelection fight in the age of Trump

GOP Sen. Susan Collins‘ reelection campaign is expected to be the most expensive in Maine history. | AP Photo/Patrick Whittle

2020 elections

The four-term Republican is facing a formidable opponent, anger over her support of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Democrats energized over the president’s divisive politics.

OLD TOWN, Maine — Shortly after Barack Obama won and Susan Collins was reelected in 2008, the president invited her to the White House to pitch the economic stimulus. It was not particularly subtle.

“He said: ‘You know Susan, they really like me in Maine. And I did really well in the last election,’” Collins recounted over sandwiches at the Governor’s Restaurant in Eastern Maine. “I practically had to bite my tongue in two to avoid saying: ‘They do like you Mr. President, but they liked me better.’”

Story Continued Below

For Collins to win a fifth term, she needs Mainers to again like her more than the current White House occupant. A whole lot more.

The 66-year-old political giant is facing the race of her life despite her universal name recognition and bipartisan reputation. President Donald Trump is targeting Maine as a battleground while his divisive politics has cleaved the state in two, and Collins has to share the ticket with him.

National Democrats, meanwhile, are backing Sara Gideon as her likely opponent, a battle-tested statehouse speaker who raised more than $1 million in the week after her launch.

Projected to be the most expensive in Maine’s history, the race is of imperative importance for party leaders and the Senate institution itself. With scarce opportunities elsewhere, Senate Democrats essentially need Gideon to win to gain a minimum of three seats and the majority. In the Senate, a Collins loss would be a potentially fatal blow to the reeling center of the chamber.

Faced with a cavalcade of challenges, Collins is projecting confidence while balancing her meticulous senatorial approach with an unmistakable shift into campaign mode. Collins, who is sitting on $5 million in campaign cash, bashes Gideon as a candidate who has “outsourced her campaign” to Washington and her longtime aides are gearing up for a knife fight.

Collins’ approval ratings, though, dipped below 50 percent in one poll. Republican strategists say they have her above 50 percent but acknowledge her unfavorables are up.

Collins is self-aware of her plight. She knows supporting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh cost her and laments that decision helped bring the permanent campaign to Vacationland.

“Have I lost some votes because of my decision to support Justice Kavanaugh? Yes, I have. And I’m sad about that because I explained in great depth my decision-making,” Collins said. But “there still is an appreciation in Maine for someone who looks at the facts of an issue, votes with integrity and independence.”

Party leaders are openly preoccupied with Collins’ fate.

“We’re paying a lot of attention to it. She’s made some tough votes, she stepped up big time and did a very courageous thing … on the Kavanaugh vote. But there’s a political price that comes with that,” acknowledged Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.). “She’s the person that can keep that seat.”

Collins hasn’t officially announced her campaign, though it would take a seismic event for her not to run.

“No doubt that this is going to be a tough race,” Collins said. But “those who are eager to count me out … should take a look at [2008], where I had a truly, very worthy superior candidate.”

That’s a swipe at Gideon, an energetic 47-year-old mother of three who is eager to contrast Collins’ efficacy in the Trump era with her own role battling former Gov. Paul LePage and pushing progressive legislation. The race is already getting ugly.

Gideon says Mainers are “worried” that special interests are coming before them and suggests Collins stood by while thousands lost their lives to gun violence. Collins and her team see Gideon as a hypocrite on big money in politics and are ready to whack her for corporate donations and a campaign finance violation.

The tense atmosphere is not what Maine, or Collins, is used to. The Trump Era has frustrated a senator known for rigorous research, mild manners and a belief the Senate can still solve problems.

She toils away on health care legislation, then is confronted with the president’s tweets. She voted against the Obamacare repeal, then the administration backed a lawsuit aimed at sweeping the health law away.

Collins herself has no real relationship with the president, though she speaks with his daughter Ivanka Trump on topics like family leave and apprenticeships. More than anything, Collins resents the notion that she hasn’t stood up to the president.

“It’s never enough. Never. For those who truly hate the president, I’m never going to be able to do enough for them,” Collins said between bites of banh mi, which she frugally tucks into a to-go container before hurrying to a paper mill reopening. “I get tired of the ‘she speaks but doesn’t act.’”

Collins supported Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, but voted against Betsy DeVos as Education secretary and tried to override many of Trump’s vetoes. She took the lead on disapproving of Trump’s emergency declaration at the border.

Senate Democrats like working with Collins but would much rather have the majority. And to some, she’s in the way.

“This isn’t about Susan,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “You’ve got to make winning back the Senate a priority.”

Unlike most Senate races in 2020, Collins’s bid is a true referendum on her. Maine is not transient and everyone knows her.

Collins, one of two true GOP moderates along with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, is hyperfocused on Maine issues as the chairwoman of the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging (demographically, Maine is the oldest state) and is often a lonely, if reserved, critic of Trump.

Collins’ strategy appeals to the middle. But Trump’s polarity gives Gideon an opening.

“She has voted with her party more than she ever has before. And I think that is worth repeating and remembering,” Gideon said over coffee in left-leaning Portland. “Part of the whole aspect of Mainers feeling left behind by Sen. Collins is she can not decisively say where she is on an issue.”

Gideon asserts that Collins is no longer the senator she once was, after her support for Trump’s nominees, the tax cuts that endangered Obamacare and her lack of a firm stance on Trump’s reelection. No matter how you ask about Trump’s 2020 campaign, Collins answers the same: “Not going to go there.”

“There will come a time when she’s going to have to make decisions and really tell people where she stands,” Gideon said.

Yet Gideon isn’t firm on hot-button issues herself. Eager to avoid the GOP’s “socialist” label, she won’t explicitly endorse Medicare for All or the Green New Deal but says climate change and universal health care access are priorities.

She doesn’t say whether she would support Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as leader and doesn’t have a “fully developed position” on expanding or reforming the Supreme Court.

“You’re asking me questions that my six-week-old campaign self has not quite gotten to yet,” Gideon said, when asked about the legislative filibuster, which Collins defends.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee endorsed Gideon shortly after she launched her campaign, snubbing liberal candidate Betsy Sweet. Backed by the progressive Justice Democrats, Sweet says Gideon’s strategy is misguided.

“Careful, try not to say too much, don’t ruffle any feathers,” Sweet said of Gideon. “People are hungry for real policy and they’re hungry for real ideas.”

But national Democrats argue Gideon has put the race on the map as much as Trump, with DSCC Chairwoman Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) calling her “a tremendous candidate.”

It will take more than that to beat Collins, who has always been able to balance the divergent needs in the “Two Maines,” split between a pair of congressional districts drifting in opposite directions.

Prosperous Southern Maine has tourists, Portland’s booming restaurant scene and big-city transplants. The feeling there: Collins is toast.

The rest of the state largely resides in the sprawling Second Congressional District. This is Trump Country with shuttered paper mills, endless forests and economic challenges. It’s also the heart of Collins’s support.

At the Governor’s Restaurant, she’s stopped repeatedly by fawning diners. These voters are decidedly not on Twitter fuming about their senator. But they’ll feel the effects of the resistance against Collins soon enough.

Advertising Analytics projects spending in the race at $55 million, easily the most expensive in Maine history. Outside groups are already softening up Collins.

“People in Maine do not like billionaires coming to our state to take out our senator,” said former GOP state Sen. David Trahan.

Collins adds: “I have never seen the far left as energized.”

The left is only one piece of Maine’s intricate political puzzle, a state that never neatly breaks down party lines. A prime example: moderate Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, a former Collins staffer, will stay neutral in the race.

“I haven’t met anyone who works harder than her to be honest with you. And obviously I’m working hard to try to follow in her footsteps,” he said of Collins.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who endorsed Collins in 2014, won’t say whether he will do so again. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) endorsed Collins, earning himself an angry call from Schumer.

“I can’t believe everyone’s so damn hypocritical. She’s the one person I work with all the time,” Manchin said. “Why would you not expect me to do that?”

“Yes,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), when asked if she’s conflicted. “I’m very fond of her. I consider her a friend. I trust her. I believe she’s a good senator.”

For others, winning the majority is far more important than playing nice in the Senate’s shrinking center. Collins said she supports Mitch McConnell as GOP leader, which is all some colleagues need to hear.

“Any vote to put Mitch McConnell in the leader’s chair is a vote to stifle climate action, period, end of story. It’s pretty categorical,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Collins says some of the people rooting for her defeat are the same ones on the Senate floor each day, eager to speak with her.

“I have literally a line of people waiting to talk to me about: ‘Could you co-sponsor this bill, could you sign this letter?’” she said. “Clearly, my support is valued.”

In 2020, Trump will likely win an electoral vote in Maine’s Second District but lose the state overall. That means Collins probably needs thousands of voters to split their tickets. And the dynamics are anything but fixed.

Republicans harbor long-shot hopes that the Democratic primary gets ugly, aiming to elevate Sweet and put Gideon at odds with liberals. And Collins faces a potential time bomb with the Obamacare lawsuit, which originated from the GOP’s tax bill that killed the law’s individual mandate. She’s confident Kavanaugh will not strike down the entire law, which could fundamentally alter the race.

Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine), whom Collins handily dispatched in 2008, admitted she maintains an edge despite the massive national campaign against her. But he drew a parallel to another famous Maine Republican senator, not entirely favorable.

“Someone that’s elected four times to the U.S. Senate has got to be a favorite,” he said. But Margaret Chase Smith “ran for a fifth term. And she got beat. Susan Collins is running for a fifth term. And I think the chances of her being beaten are pretty good.”

#fight #Foreign #Politics #Trump

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punalavaflow · 6 years

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County: 20 ‘tiny homes’ for displaced residents almost ready

The county said 20 “tiny homes” for residents displaced by Kilauea volcano lava are almost complete and ready to be moved into at Pahoa Sacred Heart Church.

“They don’t have electricity but they do have … communal showers (and) kitchen,” Janet Snyder, spokeswoman for Mayor Harry Kim, said this morning. She said the houses are the prefabricated units sold by HPM.

Snyder said Gov. David Ige is scheduled to arrive in Hilo today and will announce funds for the Big Island, “presumably for the housing.” She said she didn’t know how much money is being appropriated.

According to Snyder, Mayor Harry Kim spoke to those working at the Emergency Operations Center at county Civil Defense headquarters this morning. EOC is closed to media and the public.

“We, as county government, are trying to do everything we can to expedite the people getting out of their tents and cots,” Kim told the emergency workers, according to Snyder. “We’ve got to show the people that there’s a better tomorrow. The only better tomorrow is what we do for them. I really believe we can give them a better tomorrow.”

Kim confirmed that all of Vactionland, which was about 160 homes, is gone, and about 320 of the approximately 350 homes in Kapoho Beach Lots have been consumed by lava.

According to Snyder, the mayor, who lost a second home in Vacationland to the lava, became emotional yet hopeful when talking about the devastation in lower Puna.

“This is, was and always will be a beautiful place. I do believe there’s a better future. We just can’t see what it is just now,” Kim reportedly said.

Snyder said Kim thanked everybody for working so well.

“We’ve lost about 500 homes, or close to it, in a period of just three days,” Snyder quoted Kim as saying. Kim said all of the infrastructure in the area has been taken by lava and it would take a minimum of $5 million per mile to repair roads, which would require lava removal.

She said Kim told Willie Nunn, the regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “We commit to you a hundred percent of what is in terms of honesty and what we need.”

Snyder said some of the 24-hour duty shifts “are going to wrap up soon” at the EOC. Many county, state and even some federal personnel, including Hawaii National Guard members, have been taken away from their usual duties to man the command center since the current eruptive activity started on May 3.

“We’re still in response, but we’re also in recovery mode,” Snyder said. “… There are still communities at risk, so we’re definitely going to maintain watch, but there’s plans to scale back on the EOC here.”

Hawaii Volcano Observatory had just finished an overflight and confirmed that, as of this morning, fissure No. 8 remains the only active fissure.

“It is flowing unabated; the channel is full, and there are minor breaks in the rim,” Snyder said. “The ocean entry is strong.” She added that the northern, or upslope end of fissure 8 “is weakly active.”

“The northern end is the place to look at, because there are places that haven’t been hit by lava, so far,” Snyder said.

She said northeasterly tradewinds have weakened, but have continued a day longer than previously forecast, but winds are forecast to shift to easterlies Friday, which would bring more vog, and presumably sulfur dioxide, to the interior portions of the island, including Hilo.

“It’s going to be pronounced easterly winds,” she said. Snyder said emissions would be “pronounced” Friday and Saturday with “lots of inlands and wraparound to Kona.” Tradewinds are forecast to return Sunday or Monday at 15-20 mph.

Email John Burnett at [email protected].

The post County: 20 ‘tiny homes’ for displaced residents almost ready appeared first on Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

from Hawaii News – Hawaii Tribune-Herald https://ift.tt/2sE1nK2

#Hawaii Tribune Herald

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

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#2yrsago John Hodgman's Vacationland: a masterpiece of humor that means something

If you -- like me -- are a loyal listener to the Judge John Hodgman podcast, then you have a sense of what makes Hodgman a treasure: it's his combination of understated, low-key wit; his quick self-deprecation; and his deep compassion, which is what makes his comedic "fake internet courtoom" into more than a quick gag, turning it into reliable source of thought-provoking insight into how to be a better person. If that's your thing, then you will love his latest book, a memoir called Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, which isn't just funny... it's also sneaky as hell.

I was raised on collections of dry, weird comedic essays like Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes and Groucho Marx's Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover, books that became touchstones for me and my little crowd of weird, smart, not-very-social dudes, and we memorized them and photocopied them and stuck them on our doors and so on.

My first impression of Vacationland was that I'd found a modern version of these much-loved books. Hodgman is so very witty, and as he sets up his memoir -- the story of how he was a weird kid raised by loving but largely unconcerned parents -- he has so many tinder-dry asides and beautifully turned sentences and jokes with long fuses that unexpectedly detonate paragraphs later that I was really getting ready to relive my own childhood.

But this is a sneaky book.

There's a useful literary criticism term, "bathos," that the Turkey City Lexicon defines as a "Sudden change in level of diction. 'The massive hound barked in stentorian voice then made wee-wee on the carpet.'" Bathos is that whipsaw you get when something funny turns serious, or vice-versa, and the mismatch in moods keeps anything useful from gelling out of the exercise.

But all literary rules are made to be broken. "Bathos" is what we call mood-switches when they fail. When they work, we call them genius (see, e.g. Neal Brennan's justly celebrated "3 Mics").

Right as I was getting comfortably settled into Vacationland, I discovered that Hodgman had smoothly transitioned me into some really profound emotional truth -- it's where he starts talking about his mother's untimely death and how he reacted to her terminal illness -- and then back into that dry, comedic mode, slipping the knife in and pulling it out so smoothly that I hadn't even noticed until the blood started to drip. That kind of maneuver requires both a steady hand a very sharp knife, and Hodgman has both.

This sneaky book pulls that move over and over, using comedy and narrative confidence to make important points about privilege, self-delusion, parenting, death, birth, cities, alienation, love -- the whole gamut.

All without ever losing the comedy, which is funny stuff, and it's not a spoonful of sugar that helps all that serious medicine go down, it's perfectly blended into those serious themes.

This isn't a book like Cruel Shoes: it's the book Cruel Shoes gets to be when it grows up.

Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches [John Hodgman/Viking]

https://boingboing.net/2017/10/24/cruel-shoes-all-grown-up.html

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years

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#1yrago John Hodgman's Vacationland: a masterpiece of humor that means something

But this is a sneaky book.

But all literary rules are made to be broken. "Bathos" is what we call mood-switches when they fail. When they work, we call them genius (see, e.g. Neal Brennan's justly celebrated "3 Mics").

All without ever losing the comedy, which is funny stuff, and it's not a spoonful of sugar that helps all that serious medicine go down, it's perfectly blended into those serious themes.

This isn't a book like Cruel Shoes: it's the book Cruel Shoes gets to be when it grows up.

Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches [John Hodgman/Viking]

https://boingboing.net/2017/10/24/cruel-shoes-all-grown-up.html

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years

Text

#1yrago John Hodgman's Vacationland: a masterpiece of humor that means something

But this is a sneaky book.

But all literary rules are made to be broken. "Bathos" is what we call mood-switches when they fail. When they work, we call them genius (see, e.g. Neal Brennan's justly celebrated "3 Mics").

All without ever losing the comedy, which is funny stuff, and it's not a spoonful of sugar that helps all that serious medicine go down, it's perfectly blended into those serious themes.

This isn't a book like Cruel Shoes: it's the book Cruel Shoes gets to be when it grows up.

Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches [John Hodgman/Viking]

https://boingboing.net/2017/10/24/cruel-shoes-all-grown-up.html

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years

Text

John Hodgman's outstanding Vacationland: now in paperback!

I found John Hodgman's Vacationland to be a genuinely moving and hilarious read; and it has stuck with me in the year since its hardcover release -- now it's out in paperback, and Hodgman is touring with it.

Here's my original review:

But this is a sneaky book.

But all literary rules are made to be broken. "Bathos" is what we call mood-switches when they fail. When they work, we call them genius (see, e.g. Neal Brennan's justly celebrated "3 Mics").

All without ever losing the comedy, which is funny stuff, and it's not a spoonful of sugar that helps all that serious medicine go down, it's perfectly blended into those serious themes.

This isn't a book like Cruel Shoes: it's the book Cruel Shoes gets to be when it grows up.

Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches [John Hodgman/Viking]

https://boingboing.net/2018/05/25/cruel-shoes-mark-ii.html

7 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 7 years

Text

John Hodgman's Vacationland: a masterpiece of humor that means something

If you -- like me -- are a loyal listener to the Judge John Hodgman podcast, then you have a sense of what makes Hodgman a treasure: it's his combination of understated, low-key wit; his quick self-deprecation; and his deep compassion, which is what makes his comedic "fake internet courtoom" into more than a quick gag, turning it into reliable source of thought-provoking insight into how to be a better person. If that's your thing, then you will lovehis latest book, a memoir called Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, which isn't just funny... it's also sneaky as hell.

But this is a sneaky book.

There's a useful literary criticism term, "bathos," that the Turkey City Lexicondefines as a "Sudden change in level of diction. 'The massive hound barked in stentorian voice then made wee-wee on the carpet.'" Bathos is that whipsaw you get when something funny turns serious, or vice-versa, and the mismatch in moods keeps anything useful from gelling out of the exercise.

But all literary rules are made to be broken. "Bathos" is what we call mood-switches when they fail. When they work, we call them genius (see, e.g. Neal Brennan's justly celebrated "3 Mics").

All without ever losing the comedy, which is funny stuff, and it's not a spoonful of sugar that helps all that serious medicine go down, it's perfectly blended into those serious themes.

This isn't a book like Cruel Shoes: it's the book Cruel Shoes gets to be when it grows up.

Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches [John Hodgman/Viking]

https://boingboing.net/2017/10/24/cruel-shoes-all-grown-up.html

8 notes · View notes