Creating fake facts does require a measure of haphazard research, insofar as they need to not just be possible, but also interesting.
John HodgmanAmericans don't need a metaphor for war. We have war. If anything, we use war as a metaphor for sports.
John HodgmanI do not think that a museum needs to engage with pop culture in order to make itself interesting to museumgoers. Museums are already interesting and engaging with pop culture for its own sake is just a quick way to seem and become dated.
John HodgmanI never stopped feeling abject terror until I got on television and went on a national ad campaign and realized, "I will be able to feed my children. I have somehow averted the destiny that awaited me, which is endless, crippling debt forever."
John HodgmanI think that I'm reaching a point in my life and in my career where soon it will be important for me to get out of the way and let younger, hungrier, more interesting people do what it is that I do. Maine is a wonderful place to hide, because no one ever looks for you there. And the goal of every person in Maine, whether native or from away, seems to be to mitigate as possible all human interaction. So it's a good place to disappear in.
John HodgmanHoudini, the magician who debunked magic, could not bear to see the great rationalist [Arthur Conan] Doyle enchanted by ghosts and frauds. And so he did what any friend would: He set out to prove spiritualism false and rob his friend Doyle of the only comforting fiction that was keeping him sane. It was the least he could do.
John Hodgman