Interview with A.J. Jacobs, Author of The Know-It-All
Reading The Know-It-All was one of the most enjoyable literary experiences I have had in the past two years for five reasons:
1. I found the concept riveting: Author A.J. Jacobs challenged himself to read the multi-volume Encyclopedia Britannica from start to finish. I found myself cheering him on, getting more involved in the story the further he got into the alphabet.
2. The author and I share some similarities, from having fathers with the same name, Arnold, to both thinking, at some point, we were smart and can become smarter through some educational project.
3. I am sucker for a well -done concept novel (See #1 above), and I like this book for the same reason I loved Word Freak, in which Stephen Fastis of the Wall Street Journal explored the world of competitive Scrabble by seeing how good he could get at that game. In that case I was reading the last part on a plane, and after it landed I did not want to get off since I first wanted to see how it all turned out. Now that's dedication!
As with Word Freak, the author explores fascinating questions like where the blurry line is drawn between knowledge and trivia, information that is useful and that which is not, and considers the consequences if your hobby becomes an eccentricity. If you liked Word Freak or the documentary Word Wars, also about Scrabble, or Wordplay, about crossword puzzles, I think you will like this book.
4. The book had some of the most intriguing, supportive blurbs I have seen in recent months, most notably this gem from Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and America (The Book): "The Know-It-All is a hilarious book and quite an impressive achievement. I've always said, 'why doesn't someone put out a less complete version of the encyclopedia?' Well done, A.J."
5. The book has a great confessional quality to it, which reminds me a bit of the style of Toby Young, and not just because both have written for magazines. Both authors chronicle not only their adventures and their many instances of making an @!$%# of themselves but also how it affects their family, friends and what others think of their deeds and misdeeds. Both also deal in their own way with the concept, later a fact, that they are going to become fathers and need to grow up.
I want to excerpt a few entries from the first half of the book:
P.T. Barnum: 'When he was eighty-one, P.T. Barnum fell gravely ill. At his request, a New York newspaper printed his obituary in advance so that he might enjoy it. That's brilliant. In fact, that could be a nice new revenue stream for newspapers – they could sell obits to people on their deathbeds. The encyclopedia is giving me lots of good ideas.'Book: 'The United Nations defines a book as a text that is at least forty-nine pages long. By that definition, the Britannica equals 683 books. Unsettling.'
Braille, Louis: 'Just as unsettling: the number of prodigies in the Britannica. Braille developed his writing system for the blind at age fifteen. Bentham — the one who later had himself muffified — was studying Latin at the age of four. (When I was four, I was studying the effects of shoving bananas up my nose.) At age five, Aleksandr Blog was writing memorable Russian poetry. If I had known about these whiz kids back when I thought I was the smartest boy in the world, I wonder if I would have seen them as compadres, or if it would have snapped me out of my dream.'Deseret News: I always thought the name of Utah's major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word "desert." But no, Deseret is the "land of the honeybee," according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years.
Scott Butki: I want to start by going back before you wrote the book. You said in the book that for a brief time in your childhood you thought you were a know-it-all genius. Was that part of the genesis of this book idea?
A.J. Jacobs: Absolutely. When I was a kid, I was under the bizarre delusion that I was the smartest boy in the world. As I got older, I realized this, sadly, was not the case. Far from it. So Operation Britannica was a way to at least bump up my IQ a couple of points.
Your dad also tried to read the Encyclopedia Britannica but stopped. Was that one reason you wanted to do it?
Yes, my dad made it up to the middle of the letter B, around the word "boomerang," I think. I wanted to finish what he started and erase that black mark from our family history. I guess there was a little Oedipal competition going on. But my dad is too generous – he wasn't jealous or threatened, just happy I was showing an interest in his beloved encyclopedias.
: I found the relationship between your father and you touching and it didn't hurt that my dad was named Arnold. What did your dad and other family members think of the book?
A.J.: Another Arnold! Excellent. It means 'mighty as an eagle,' by the way. My dad was very supportive. I was most worried about the reaction of my brother-in-law, Eric, who is the Harvard-educated nemesis in my book. He called me and said, 'Yes, I come off like a jerk, but at least you said that I was moderately good-looking.' That's the key – appeal to their vanity.
Scott: Why just the Encyclopedia Britannica? I mean if you really wanted to be Mr. Know-It-All wouldn't you need to read dictionaries, memorize atlases, etc. Was that too much?
A.J.: It's a good point. And some people said I should do a sequel where I read the entire Oxford English Dictionary from A to Z (it's actually longer than the Britannica – 60 million words as compared to the Britannica's mere 44 million). But there was something clean and self-contained about just reading the one thing. I wanted to climb the Everest of knowledge, not the whole Himalayan chain.
At what point did this idea switch from personal project to book project? Were you stopping and writing entries all along the way?
I wanted to read the Britannica, but I knew from the beginning that it'd help me to have a tangible goal at the end – a book. If I didn't have a book deadline, I'd probably still be somewhere in the letter 'G.' I was writing entries as I went along – I wanted to give the book a journal-like feel.
Scott: Similar question for your next book – what is the idea behind the book and when did it switch from personal project to actual book?
A.J.: The next book is called The Year of Living Biblically, and it's about my attempt to follow the rules of the Bible as literally as possible – from the famous ones like the Ten Commandments and Be Fruitful and Multiply right on down to stoning adulterers and growing a huge beard. That one was always both a personal project and actual book.
Scott: Have you read Word Freak? In that book author Stephen Fastis (of the WSJ) interviews Scrabble players in an attempt to better his game. They both alternate between serious and humorous, the important and the arcane.
A.J.: Yes, I did read and enjoy Word Freak. I'm not nearly at his level of play, but I did memorize all the two-letter words to help my Scrabble game. I just learned that ZA (which means pizza) was added to the Scrabble Dictionary recently. So I hope to use that very soon.
Scott: Have you seen the movie Wordplay? I watched it while reading your book and since both address the crossword puzzle tournament I was just wondering your take on it. In your book you seem dismissive of crossword players but I bet they'd be equally dismissive of you.
A.J.: I haven't seen Wordplay yet. But I'd like to. I hope I wasn't too dismissive of them. I covet their knowledge of four-letter words with lots of vowels. I tried to make my portrayal of the tournament loving and gentle mocking, much like the chapter about my trip to the Mensa convention.
Scott: Have you read Toby Young's book(s)? Between his adventures in magazines and his talking about his wife's pregnancy in terms most people wouldn't use... well, his book came to mind as I read yours. I interviewed him previously.
A.J.: I actually haven't read Toby Young's books. I'd like to someday. Plus, I hear his book parties are great.
Scott: I want to ask you a question I asked him: How much did you let your wife read what you wrote and how much did you change the book because of that? Because, like him, you make yourself out to be quite an idiot, at times, which I find somewhat charming.
A.J.: I let her read the whole thing before submitting it. She did have veto power, but she didn't exercise it once. She's startlingly understanding.Some of Jacobs' excerpts from the second half of The Know-It-All:
More excerpts:
Orgasm: They can be experienced from infancy. What? Did I orgasm when I was an infant? Did I smoke a tiny cigarette afterward?
Oyster: Oysters can change sex according to the temperature of the water. I always knew there was something emasculating about warm baths.
Poe, Edgar Allen: He married his cousin when she was Thirteen. Sort of the Jerry Lee Lewis of his day but with more interest in Gothic imagery.
Reproduction: The bandicoot male has a two-tipped penis, and the female a double-slotted vagina, so they can have a little orgy without sending out invitations.
Riot: You only need three rambunctious people to legally qualify as a riot. That's all. So Julie, our kid, and I could hold our very own riot.
Scott: What was your reaction to The New York Times review of your book by Joe Queenan, that was quite critical? When I just read it my reaction was that the reviewer was taking you way too seriously. But let me ask you for the record.
A.J.: Yes, I was surprised. I found it odd that the reviewer believed that I actually thought I was going to become the smartest person in the world, whereas I thought my book's absurdly hyperbolic subtitle might have been a tip-off. So I think your assessment is exactly right. Also, in the interest of Britannnica-esque accuracy, I should mention that The New York Times also ran a positive review by Janet Maslin.
(Jacobs also wrote a response to Queenan's review, titled, "I Am Not A @!$%#," that was printed in the Times. It is one of the funniest things I have ever read in the New York Times.
strong>
A.J.: Well, I knew I wasn't going to become Albert Einstein. Or even Alfred Einstein (Albert's cousin and a noted music historian in his own right).
I don't think knowledge and intelligence are the same thing. But after my journey, I've decided they are, in fact, distantly related. The metaphor that resonates with me is that knowledge is the fuel, and intelligence is the engine. The more knowledge you have, the easier it is to make connections and come up with creative solutions. At least that's what I tell myself.
Scott: You talk, in the entry about juggling, about how you wanted to have at least one major project, of the type that would garner you your own entry. Is this next book the chronicling of one such project?
A.J.: It certainly felt like a major project while I was doing it. It was probably even more challenging than the encyclopedia, which involved no uncomfortable facial hair growth. But as I said in that juggling entry, I'll never create a vaccine or open a trade route, so 'major' is a relative term.
Scott: Would you agree that this book, in addition to serving as an odd summary of the encyclopedia, also serves as a memoir of sorts?
A.J.: Yes, I wanted to make it a mix of Cliffs Notes to the encyclopedia and memoir. If you make the facts personal, I think — or hope — they are more interesting to readers. If I can relate 'Freud' to my relationship with my dad, or 'Kafka' to my relationship with my wife, then it's not just a collection of facts. There's a story to go along with it.
Scott: Would you recommend others duplicate your task?
A.J. Well, if you want to save a lot of time, you can read my book, of course. (Now available in paperback!) But I have had a few intrepid readers email me that they are going to give it a shot. One guy said he was going to read the Encyclopedia Judaica. There's a lot of fascinating stuff in the Britannica, but there is also 36 pages on Portuguese literature (no offense to the Portuguese, but nine or 10 pages would have done me just fine). So I wish them luck.
Scott: Are you still working at Esquire? How do you balance your magazine job and your book jobs?
A.J.: I'm still at Esquire. I balance it by having a very nice boss.
Scott: If you could recommend one letter, what would it be?
A.J. I'd have to go with 'Q.' First, it's so short. Just a couple of hundred pages. Second, it has another great two-letter word – QA, a type of Babylonian liquid measurement. I don't think it's in the Scrabble dictionary yet, but I'm lobbying for it.
1. I found the concept riveting: Author A.J. Jacobs challenged himself to read the multi-volume Encyclopedia Britannica from start to finish. I found myself cheering him on, getting more involved in the story the further he got into the alphabet.
2. The author and I share some similarities, from having fathers with the same name, Arnold, to both thinking, at some point, we were smart and can become smarter through some educational project.
3. I am sucker for a well -done concept novel (See #1 above), and I like this book for the same reason I loved Word Freak, in which Stephen Fastis of the Wall Street Journal explored the world of competitive Scrabble by seeing how good he could get at that game. In that case I was reading the last part on a plane, and after it landed I did not want to get off since I first wanted to see how it all turned out. Now that's dedication!
As with Word Freak, the author explores fascinating questions like where the blurry line is drawn between knowledge and trivia, information that is useful and that which is not, and considers the consequences if your hobby becomes an eccentricity. If you liked Word Freak or the documentary Word Wars, also about Scrabble, or Wordplay, about crossword puzzles, I think you will like this book.
4. The book had some of the most intriguing, supportive blurbs I have seen in recent months, most notably this gem from Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and America (The Book): "The Know-It-All is a hilarious book and quite an impressive achievement. I've always said, 'why doesn't someone put out a less complete version of the encyclopedia?' Well done, A.J."
5. The book has a great confessional quality to it, which reminds me a bit of the style of Toby Young, and not just because both have written for magazines. Both authors chronicle not only their adventures and their many instances of making an @!$%# of themselves but also how it affects their family, friends and what others think of their deeds and misdeeds. Both also deal in their own way with the concept, later a fact, that they are going to become fathers and need to grow up.
I want to excerpt a few entries from the first half of the book:
P.T. Barnum: 'When he was eighty-one, P.T. Barnum fell gravely ill. At his request, a New York newspaper printed his obituary in advance so that he might enjoy it. That's brilliant. In fact, that could be a nice new revenue stream for newspapers – they could sell obits to people on their deathbeds. The encyclopedia is giving me lots of good ideas.'Book: 'The United Nations defines a book as a text that is at least forty-nine pages long. By that definition, the Britannica equals 683 books. Unsettling.'
Braille, Louis: 'Just as unsettling: the number of prodigies in the Britannica. Braille developed his writing system for the blind at age fifteen. Bentham — the one who later had himself muffified — was studying Latin at the age of four. (When I was four, I was studying the effects of shoving bananas up my nose.) At age five, Aleksandr Blog was writing memorable Russian poetry. If I had known about these whiz kids back when I thought I was the smartest boy in the world, I wonder if I would have seen them as compadres, or if it would have snapped me out of my dream.'Deseret News: I always thought the name of Utah's major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word "desert." But no, Deseret is the "land of the honeybee," according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years.
Scott Butki: I want to start by going back before you wrote the book. You said in the book that for a brief time in your childhood you thought you were a know-it-all genius. Was that part of the genesis of this book idea?
A.J. Jacobs: Absolutely. When I was a kid, I was under the bizarre delusion that I was the smartest boy in the world. As I got older, I realized this, sadly, was not the case. Far from it. So Operation Britannica was a way to at least bump up my IQ a couple of points.
Your dad also tried to read the Encyclopedia Britannica but stopped. Was that one reason you wanted to do it?
Yes, my dad made it up to the middle of the letter B, around the word "boomerang," I think. I wanted to finish what he started and erase that black mark from our family history. I guess there was a little Oedipal competition going on. But my dad is too generous – he wasn't jealous or threatened, just happy I was showing an interest in his beloved encyclopedias.
: I found the relationship between your father and you touching and it didn't hurt that my dad was named Arnold. What did your dad and other family members think of the book?
A.J.: Another Arnold! Excellent. It means 'mighty as an eagle,' by the way. My dad was very supportive. I was most worried about the reaction of my brother-in-law, Eric, who is the Harvard-educated nemesis in my book. He called me and said, 'Yes, I come off like a jerk, but at least you said that I was moderately good-looking.' That's the key – appeal to their vanity.
Scott: Why just the Encyclopedia Britannica? I mean if you really wanted to be Mr. Know-It-All wouldn't you need to read dictionaries, memorize atlases, etc. Was that too much?
A.J.: It's a good point. And some people said I should do a sequel where I read the entire Oxford English Dictionary from A to Z (it's actually longer than the Britannica – 60 million words as compared to the Britannica's mere 44 million). But there was something clean and self-contained about just reading the one thing. I wanted to climb the Everest of knowledge, not the whole Himalayan chain.
At what point did this idea switch from personal project to book project? Were you stopping and writing entries all along the way?
I wanted to read the Britannica, but I knew from the beginning that it'd help me to have a tangible goal at the end – a book. If I didn't have a book deadline, I'd probably still be somewhere in the letter 'G.' I was writing entries as I went along – I wanted to give the book a journal-like feel.
Scott: Similar question for your next book – what is the idea behind the book and when did it switch from personal project to actual book?
A.J.: The next book is called The Year of Living Biblically, and it's about my attempt to follow the rules of the Bible as literally as possible – from the famous ones like the Ten Commandments and Be Fruitful and Multiply right on down to stoning adulterers and growing a huge beard. That one was always both a personal project and actual book.
Scott: Have you read Word Freak? In that book author Stephen Fastis (of the WSJ) interviews Scrabble players in an attempt to better his game. They both alternate between serious and humorous, the important and the arcane.
A.J.: Yes, I did read and enjoy Word Freak. I'm not nearly at his level of play, but I did memorize all the two-letter words to help my Scrabble game. I just learned that ZA (which means pizza) was added to the Scrabble Dictionary recently. So I hope to use that very soon.
Scott: Have you seen the movie Wordplay? I watched it while reading your book and since both address the crossword puzzle tournament I was just wondering your take on it. In your book you seem dismissive of crossword players but I bet they'd be equally dismissive of you.
A.J.: I haven't seen Wordplay yet. But I'd like to. I hope I wasn't too dismissive of them. I covet their knowledge of four-letter words with lots of vowels. I tried to make my portrayal of the tournament loving and gentle mocking, much like the chapter about my trip to the Mensa convention.
Scott: Have you read Toby Young's book(s)? Between his adventures in magazines and his talking about his wife's pregnancy in terms most people wouldn't use... well, his book came to mind as I read yours. I interviewed him previously.
A.J.: I actually haven't read Toby Young's books. I'd like to someday. Plus, I hear his book parties are great.
Scott: I want to ask you a question I asked him: How much did you let your wife read what you wrote and how much did you change the book because of that? Because, like him, you make yourself out to be quite an idiot, at times, which I find somewhat charming.
A.J.: I let her read the whole thing before submitting it. She did have veto power, but she didn't exercise it once. She's startlingly understanding.Some of Jacobs' excerpts from the second half of The Know-It-All:
More excerpts:
Orgasm: They can be experienced from infancy. What? Did I orgasm when I was an infant? Did I smoke a tiny cigarette afterward?
Oyster: Oysters can change sex according to the temperature of the water. I always knew there was something emasculating about warm baths.
Poe, Edgar Allen: He married his cousin when she was Thirteen. Sort of the Jerry Lee Lewis of his day but with more interest in Gothic imagery.
Reproduction: The bandicoot male has a two-tipped penis, and the female a double-slotted vagina, so they can have a little orgy without sending out invitations.
Riot: You only need three rambunctious people to legally qualify as a riot. That's all. So Julie, our kid, and I could hold our very own riot.
Scott: What was your reaction to The New York Times review of your book by Joe Queenan, that was quite critical? When I just read it my reaction was that the reviewer was taking you way too seriously. But let me ask you for the record.
A.J.: Yes, I was surprised. I found it odd that the reviewer believed that I actually thought I was going to become the smartest person in the world, whereas I thought my book's absurdly hyperbolic subtitle might have been a tip-off. So I think your assessment is exactly right. Also, in the interest of Britannnica-esque accuracy, I should mention that The New York Times also ran a positive review by Janet Maslin.
(Jacobs also wrote a response to Queenan's review, titled, "I Am Not A @!$%#," that was printed in the Times. It is one of the funniest things I have ever read in the New York Times.
strong>
A.J.: Well, I knew I wasn't going to become Albert Einstein. Or even Alfred Einstein (Albert's cousin and a noted music historian in his own right).
I don't think knowledge and intelligence are the same thing. But after my journey, I've decided they are, in fact, distantly related. The metaphor that resonates with me is that knowledge is the fuel, and intelligence is the engine. The more knowledge you have, the easier it is to make connections and come up with creative solutions. At least that's what I tell myself.
Scott: You talk, in the entry about juggling, about how you wanted to have at least one major project, of the type that would garner you your own entry. Is this next book the chronicling of one such project?
A.J.: It certainly felt like a major project while I was doing it. It was probably even more challenging than the encyclopedia, which involved no uncomfortable facial hair growth. But as I said in that juggling entry, I'll never create a vaccine or open a trade route, so 'major' is a relative term.
Scott: Would you agree that this book, in addition to serving as an odd summary of the encyclopedia, also serves as a memoir of sorts?
A.J.: Yes, I wanted to make it a mix of Cliffs Notes to the encyclopedia and memoir. If you make the facts personal, I think — or hope — they are more interesting to readers. If I can relate 'Freud' to my relationship with my dad, or 'Kafka' to my relationship with my wife, then it's not just a collection of facts. There's a story to go along with it.
Scott: Would you recommend others duplicate your task?
A.J. Well, if you want to save a lot of time, you can read my book, of course. (Now available in paperback!) But I have had a few intrepid readers email me that they are going to give it a shot. One guy said he was going to read the Encyclopedia Judaica. There's a lot of fascinating stuff in the Britannica, but there is also 36 pages on Portuguese literature (no offense to the Portuguese, but nine or 10 pages would have done me just fine). So I wish them luck.
Scott: Are you still working at Esquire? How do you balance your magazine job and your book jobs?
A.J.: I'm still at Esquire. I balance it by having a very nice boss.
Scott: If you could recommend one letter, what would it be?
A.J. I'd have to go with 'Q.' First, it's so short. Just a couple of hundred pages. Second, it has another great two-letter word – QA, a type of Babylonian liquid measurement. I don't think it's in the Scrabble dictionary yet, but I'm lobbying for it.
The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment.
A.J. Jacobs is one interesting guy and his books prove it. You know the expression "Write what
you know?" Jacobs does that, well, sort of.. actually a better way of putting it is he gives himself a challenge and brings the reader along for the ride.
In The Know-It-All he describes his endeavor to read the multi-volume Encyclopedia Brittanica to become, well, someone who knows everything.
He describes in this web video interview those projects as well as his newest one, The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment.
For his new book he tries different experiments including varying approaches to life from one where he outsourced not only his job but also tried having someone else - in India - argue with his wife, deal with his bosses, even read to his child. For another chapter he is
radical honesty about everything that crosses his mind and, yes, that just about as bad as one would imagine. And those
are just two of the more than ten chapters and adventures he describes.
We talked about his books, especially the new one, in a two part interview of which this is the first part.
What is the status of the movie version of the Year of Living Biblically and how do you feel about the idea of a movie being made of it?
It's 'in development,' but who knows if it'll ever get made. That's up to God and Paramount Pictures, not necessarily in that order. They did attach an actor to star in it. His name? Marlon Wayans. I went out to lunch with him and had a great time. But if you look at our pictures side by side, you could probably – and I'm going out on a limb here – tell us apart.
Have you always been funny? Do you think you're funnier on the page than you are in person? I ask because I think I am and we're both writers
My mother claims that when I was two, I hid my bottle and made everyone look for it even though I knew where it was and was giggling the whole time. Frankly, not my best work. Kind of hacky, if you ask me. In general, I'm probably more articulate on the page than I am in person. I'm certainly a better debater on the page. It's much harder to sputter on the page.
If you had the woman you oursourced your life to write that chapter how would it differ from what you wrote?
I did end up outsourcing the writing of the last part of that chapter. And my outsourcer did a great job. If I'd outsourced the whole thing, it might have had more of an Indian tone to it, perhaps more references to Bollywood's Amitabh Bachchan.
Were there any experiments rejected by and/or others, i.e. becoming pregnant or having your body waxed?
Some readers have suggested that I do every position in the Kama Sutra. My wife put the kibosh on that one. Which is fine by me. I'm not sure I'm limber enough for the reverse crane. I also wanted to do an experiment where I tested how technology has affected our relationships. I wanted to spend a month with no face to face contact – only interacting through email, IM, Facebook, etc. But again, my wife vetoed that one. She said, our niece's bat mitzvah is coming up, and you're not going attend via Skype and have a monitor at the table. You're going to show up.
What do your children - how old are they now? - make of his dad and all of these odd jobs? Seems like it'd be hard to take you to school and explain what you do.
I actually have three sons (I had twins during the year of living biblically; just following the 'be fruitful and multiply' commandment). The oldest is 5. The interesting thing is, I don't think they realize that their dad does something unusual for a living. It seems they think everyone's dad pretends to be George Washington as their job.
Were you really a former Entertainment Weekly writer? Somehow I missed that piece of info before. Do you have a link to that piece they did with your wife where she got to dish about her thoughts on your books?
I was, for about five years. Here you go!
Is there any job you refused to do?
I don't think there's a job I refused to do. My first job out of college was working for a tiny newspaper in California. I remember I had to write a lot of stories on sewage. One involved a community that believed the local tap water was causing their poops to be fluorescent, and invited me to see.
you know?" Jacobs does that, well, sort of.. actually a better way of putting it is he gives himself a challenge and brings the reader along for the ride.
In The Know-It-All he describes his endeavor to read the multi-volume Encyclopedia Brittanica to become, well, someone who knows everything.
He describes in this web video interview those projects as well as his newest one, The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment.
For his new book he tries different experiments including varying approaches to life from one where he outsourced not only his job but also tried having someone else - in India - argue with his wife, deal with his bosses, even read to his child. For another chapter he is
radical honesty about everything that crosses his mind and, yes, that just about as bad as one would imagine. And those
are just two of the more than ten chapters and adventures he describes.
We talked about his books, especially the new one, in a two part interview of which this is the first part.
What is the status of the movie version of the Year of Living Biblically and how do you feel about the idea of a movie being made of it?
It's 'in development,' but who knows if it'll ever get made. That's up to God and Paramount Pictures, not necessarily in that order. They did attach an actor to star in it. His name? Marlon Wayans. I went out to lunch with him and had a great time. But if you look at our pictures side by side, you could probably – and I'm going out on a limb here – tell us apart.
Have you always been funny? Do you think you're funnier on the page than you are in person? I ask because I think I am and we're both writers
My mother claims that when I was two, I hid my bottle and made everyone look for it even though I knew where it was and was giggling the whole time. Frankly, not my best work. Kind of hacky, if you ask me. In general, I'm probably more articulate on the page than I am in person. I'm certainly a better debater on the page. It's much harder to sputter on the page.
If you had the woman you oursourced your life to write that chapter how would it differ from what you wrote?
I did end up outsourcing the writing of the last part of that chapter. And my outsourcer did a great job. If I'd outsourced the whole thing, it might have had more of an Indian tone to it, perhaps more references to Bollywood's Amitabh Bachchan.
Were there any experiments rejected by and/or others, i.e. becoming pregnant or having your body waxed?
Some readers have suggested that I do every position in the Kama Sutra. My wife put the kibosh on that one. Which is fine by me. I'm not sure I'm limber enough for the reverse crane. I also wanted to do an experiment where I tested how technology has affected our relationships. I wanted to spend a month with no face to face contact – only interacting through email, IM, Facebook, etc. But again, my wife vetoed that one. She said, our niece's bat mitzvah is coming up, and you're not going attend via Skype and have a monitor at the table. You're going to show up.
What do your children - how old are they now? - make of his dad and all of these odd jobs? Seems like it'd be hard to take you to school and explain what you do.
I actually have three sons (I had twins during the year of living biblically; just following the 'be fruitful and multiply' commandment). The oldest is 5. The interesting thing is, I don't think they realize that their dad does something unusual for a living. It seems they think everyone's dad pretends to be George Washington as their job.
Were you really a former Entertainment Weekly writer? Somehow I missed that piece of info before. Do you have a link to that piece they did with your wife where she got to dish about her thoughts on your books?
I was, for about five years. Here you go!
Is there any job you refused to do?
I don't think there's a job I refused to do. My first job out of college was working for a tiny newspaper in California. I remember I had to write a lot of stories on sewage. One involved a community that believed the local tap water was causing their poops to be fluorescent, and invited me to see.
I love AJ for his writing style, for his books, for his interviews with me.
I sang his praises at part one of this two part interview which was published here.
In The Know-It-All he describes his endeavor to read the multi-volume Encyclopedia Brittanica to become, well, someone who knows everything. He talked to me about that project with this interview.
For the Year of Living Biblically he tried to follow as many rules of the Bible as possible, though he did wimp out on a few, like stoning people.This is book is both funny and powerful, and is also a great read. We talked about that one here and here.
He describes in this web video interview those projects, as well as his newest one, The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment.
For his new book, he tries different experiments including varying approaches to life. In one chapter he outsourced his job and also had someone else - in India - argue with his wife, deal with his bosses, even read to his child. For another chapter he attempts radical honesty about everything that crosses his mind and, yes, that just about as bad as one would imagine. Those are just two of the more than ten chapters and adventures he describes.
Scott: You dedicated your latest book to a guy in exchange for giving you a Wii (back when you had to stand in line to get one. This makes me wonder if this has become the literary version of the jingle/campaign "what would you do a Klondike bar" So it makes me wonder: what do I have to do in order to get mentioned in your next book?
I'll include you in the acknowledgments if you promise to interview me when it comes out. But for a dedication, you need to buy me some serious electronic equipment.
What was the most difficult part about the experiment - the most entertaining of the bunch to read about - in which you followed all of your wife's instructions?
Probably realizing just how much of a slacker I was around the house before the experiment. That month I learned about chores that I didn't even know existed. I thought the liquid soap dispensers just magically refilled. But as it turns out, someone has to do it. Now, sadly, that person is me.
Why in the world did George Washington have a rule about shifting your private parts?
It's as baffling to me as the day I read it. (The rule reads: " . When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usually discovered. "). But obviously it served him well. He did end up founding our nation.
I think the chapter/experiment I most related to was the one about how difficult - yet how important it is - to
try once in a while to unitask (or monotask as I call it). Do you think it's something everyone should try every once in a while?
Absolutely. It really changed the way I behave, it even changed the way my brain works. I become calmer, more Zen. Even something as simple as just talking on the phone, instead of answering emails while talking on the phone -- that's a big change. You're actually listening to the other person. And responding!
OK, two more but quickies - you mention you've gotten good at doing book blurbs. What would your blurb be for this interview and for your own book
For this interview -- "Scott Butki is like Conan O'Brien meets vintage Ted Koppel, though without the unusual hair."
What did you end up doing with that chastity belt? it's not something you can just drop off at the pawn shop is it? ebay?
No, I suppose I should recycle it -- it's plastic. But right now it's securely hidden in a drawer.
How do your children respond when, each month, daddy is following a completely different set of rules?
The thing is, they're so young that they don't think this is out of the ordinary. They think everyone's father does this kind of thing for a living. I'm hoping they don't catch on.
Can your wife have a chapter in any subsequent books? I really liked that part.
I think that's a good idea. Maybe she can even write alternate chapters. And throw in a couple of chapters my kids as well, right?
If you could sit down with George Washington and really tell him your opinion of his rules, what would you tell him? Any you particularly liked and plan to keep on with?
I'd tell him that I love a lot of his rules. Many are about self-sacrifice, self-control and respect – values we could use a lot more of in our society. Plus, I'd be excited, because presumably he wouldn't spit on me while talking. (Rule Number 12: "bedew no man's face with your spittle by approaching too near him when you speak."
Of all the experiments you tried, which one would you recommend to someone else to give a stab at?
There are several that I think everyone could try. One is to try to eliminate multitasking from your life. As I call it, unitasking. Try having a phone conversation – just a phone conversation, sitting down at your desk. No checking email, no doing the dishes. I closed my eyes to help me concentrate. You'll be surprised how much it changes the conversation. You're actually listening and responding to what the other person says. A novel concept.
Are you outsourcing this interview? Care to pose naked for a shot, real quick?
That's a great idea – I should have sent this to India. And maybe my outsourcers could have posed naked. But no, it's me, and I'm fully clothed, and hope to remain so for the rest of my writing career.
How's the healthy living going? Broken down over any bacon cheeseburgers yet?
No bacon cheeseburgers yet. But I do sin against health all the time. It's a struggle. Yesterday I had not one but two Cheese Nips. The temptations are everywhere. The grocery store is basically a collection of sugar, fat and salt packaged in different ways. Mmmm.
I sang his praises at part one of this two part interview which was published here.
In The Know-It-All he describes his endeavor to read the multi-volume Encyclopedia Brittanica to become, well, someone who knows everything. He talked to me about that project with this interview.
For the Year of Living Biblically he tried to follow as many rules of the Bible as possible, though he did wimp out on a few, like stoning people.This is book is both funny and powerful, and is also a great read. We talked about that one here and here.
He describes in this web video interview those projects, as well as his newest one, The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment.
For his new book, he tries different experiments including varying approaches to life. In one chapter he outsourced his job and also had someone else - in India - argue with his wife, deal with his bosses, even read to his child. For another chapter he attempts radical honesty about everything that crosses his mind and, yes, that just about as bad as one would imagine. Those are just two of the more than ten chapters and adventures he describes.
Scott: You dedicated your latest book to a guy in exchange for giving you a Wii (back when you had to stand in line to get one. This makes me wonder if this has become the literary version of the jingle/campaign "what would you do a Klondike bar" So it makes me wonder: what do I have to do in order to get mentioned in your next book?
I'll include you in the acknowledgments if you promise to interview me when it comes out. But for a dedication, you need to buy me some serious electronic equipment.
What was the most difficult part about the experiment - the most entertaining of the bunch to read about - in which you followed all of your wife's instructions?
Probably realizing just how much of a slacker I was around the house before the experiment. That month I learned about chores that I didn't even know existed. I thought the liquid soap dispensers just magically refilled. But as it turns out, someone has to do it. Now, sadly, that person is me.
Why in the world did George Washington have a rule about shifting your private parts?
It's as baffling to me as the day I read it. (The rule reads: " . When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usually discovered. "). But obviously it served him well. He did end up founding our nation.
I think the chapter/experiment I most related to was the one about how difficult - yet how important it is - to
try once in a while to unitask (or monotask as I call it). Do you think it's something everyone should try every once in a while?
Absolutely. It really changed the way I behave, it even changed the way my brain works. I become calmer, more Zen. Even something as simple as just talking on the phone, instead of answering emails while talking on the phone -- that's a big change. You're actually listening to the other person. And responding!
OK, two more but quickies - you mention you've gotten good at doing book blurbs. What would your blurb be for this interview and for your own book
For this interview -- "Scott Butki is like Conan O'Brien meets vintage Ted Koppel, though without the unusual hair."
What did you end up doing with that chastity belt? it's not something you can just drop off at the pawn shop is it? ebay?
No, I suppose I should recycle it -- it's plastic. But right now it's securely hidden in a drawer.
How do your children respond when, each month, daddy is following a completely different set of rules?
The thing is, they're so young that they don't think this is out of the ordinary. They think everyone's father does this kind of thing for a living. I'm hoping they don't catch on.
Can your wife have a chapter in any subsequent books? I really liked that part.
I think that's a good idea. Maybe she can even write alternate chapters. And throw in a couple of chapters my kids as well, right?
If you could sit down with George Washington and really tell him your opinion of his rules, what would you tell him? Any you particularly liked and plan to keep on with?
I'd tell him that I love a lot of his rules. Many are about self-sacrifice, self-control and respect – values we could use a lot more of in our society. Plus, I'd be excited, because presumably he wouldn't spit on me while talking. (Rule Number 12: "bedew no man's face with your spittle by approaching too near him when you speak."
Of all the experiments you tried, which one would you recommend to someone else to give a stab at?
There are several that I think everyone could try. One is to try to eliminate multitasking from your life. As I call it, unitasking. Try having a phone conversation – just a phone conversation, sitting down at your desk. No checking email, no doing the dishes. I closed my eyes to help me concentrate. You'll be surprised how much it changes the conversation. You're actually listening and responding to what the other person says. A novel concept.
Are you outsourcing this interview? Care to pose naked for a shot, real quick?
That's a great idea – I should have sent this to India. And maybe my outsourcers could have posed naked. But no, it's me, and I'm fully clothed, and hope to remain so for the rest of my writing career.
How's the healthy living going? Broken down over any bacon cheeseburgers yet?
No bacon cheeseburgers yet. But I do sin against health all the time. It's a struggle. Yesterday I had not one but two Cheese Nips. The temptations are everywhere. The grocery store is basically a collection of sugar, fat and salt packaged in different ways. Mmmm.
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