John Train (1928–2022)

I was trying to remember what book was a modern version of "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds". Digging through my old notes I found it - this book. Here are my notes from when I read it in 2002.

August 6, 2002
Causes of Financial Fiascos
One, further investment of capital when it is no longer needed.
Second cause of disaster, overstaffing - nothing gets done because everyone thinks someone else is doing it.
Being too early or too late to market. The same words, but the pauses are wrong.

Readers should learn at least one lesson, the lesson of humility.… (more)

PHILADELPHIA—A former Philadelphia fireman, in Federal Court here trying to overturn his dismissal for long hair, set his head on fire.
"It must have been the hairspray I used," said the sheepish ex-fire-fighter, William Michini, who apparently tried to dramatize that his locks were not a safety threat to his job.
"Hair is self-extinguishing. It doesn't burn," he boasted.
With that he struck a match and held it to his head, which caught fire.—Associated Press

This is an extremely short collection of excerpts of personal anecdotes and short newspaper and magazine stories, such as the one listed above, about supposedly true but hardly believable events of marginal interest and minimal humor that the author collected in the 1970s. Train was an editor of The Paris Review along with George Plimpton, who wrote the book's preface, and his literary connections probably explain why this book, which nowadays could have written by a middle school student with access to the Internet over a weekend, was ever published.

True Remarkable Occurences, which can be read in half an hour, is recommended only to those who need to add a quick book to their annual total, or budding authors who doubt that their manuscript is good enough to warrant publication.… (more)