From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment, which you can also hear at KCRW.com.

My guest, the Honorable John Hodgman, has made a career

going from literary agent to literary lion to working with the paper line, George Plimpton.

Wow. Deep cuts. Deep cuts. Author, actor, John Hodgman is here. We're talking about the newest

installment of his almanac, which I

have sitting right here in front of me, that is all. I like so much about all the arminacs

is each one should come with its own almanac because it's, you forget what reading

almanacs used to be like when you get lost in the annotations. Yes. And the footnotes need

footnotes. Yes, exactly. No, well, the footnoting specifically is something that I

stole from two sources. One, Jorge Luis Borges, who is my Argentine literary idol. I have a

literary idol for all the nations of South America, obviously, but it is specifically my

Argentine literary idol. And then David Foster Wallace, who is one of my heroes late and lamented and sadly passed.

I just thought I was rereading that for some reason, because to get ready to read the new biography of him,

rereading that collection, the wonderful lobster essay.

Yes.

And thought for myself going back and forth between that and that is all.

Just because that, but I also.

So you see, so you see my, you see where I'm stealing from.

I see where the mirror effect takes place.

Yeah.

One of the things I'd always want to ask you, lots of things I always want to ask you, was if you were a

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