4. But leaving personal kindness aside, Vacationland is a tour de force stand up story telling routine, both hilarious & personal.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
5. Hodgman practices a very difficult tight-rope genre; the comedy of erudition -- the comedy based on deploying esoteric knowledge.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
6. The comedy of erudition can be contrasted to the more common & populist comedy of relatability.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
7. The comedy of relatability is based on the comedian foreground that part of his or her experience that is universal.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
8. Charlie Brown having the football jerked from him at the last minute is relatable comedy. "1066 and All That" is erudite comedy.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
10. Without giving away too much, Vacationland is structured around two homes Hodgman has owned, in Massachusetts & in Maine.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
11. Hodgman works hard to fix the local specificity of these homes: the cairns of Western Mass, the bleak joys of Maine.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
12. New England, the local of Vacationland, is also the heartland of American Gothic tradition: Hawthorne, Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, King
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Replying to @HeerJeet
13. Being erudite comedian, Hodgman of course alludes to Lovecraft & Jackson. Also has funny bit about daughter dancing on EB White's grave
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14. But there's the key thing: @hodgman's erudition is not for show or cleverness but part of the world-building that he's doing.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
15. I've never seen comedian with a surer sense of place than Hodgman. His New England as solid & tangible as one in Updike's fiction
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16. The horror writers Hodgman alludes to are there not just for local ambiance but because he's also, in his own way, telling horror story
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