The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
Books
 jhb the baby train




From: linden@positive.Eng.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Book alert "The Baby Train"

As everyone who is anyone knows, Prof Brunvand (folklorist emeritus, and chief of the Utah old hat Cabal) has come out with the latest in his "Curse the Choking Hitchhiker" series of books.

I don't have time for a full review now, except to say that this book differs from earlier ones in that it contains a lot more legends, including more than a few that haven't already been discussed to death here. Also JHB spends less time in the tedious analysis of "and then I heard this story from a reader in Kalamazoo, only it was a Ford not a Chevy." which his earlier tomes suffered greatly from.

Highlights: JHB shares my view that one key characteristic of a UL is that they are almost always 100% false. My additional caveat is that almost all legends to do with Goverments (wastefulness, stupidity, surveillance, etc) *are* 100% true.

This view (of UL guaranteed bogosity) is not held by most distinguished Old Hats, including the keeper of the FAQs. Back to JHB: he includes a little monologue on how he reads AFU everyday, as I have long suspected, although he doesn't yet confirm the second part of my theory about why he doesn't post (to avoid "blow-back").

"The Baby Train" also includes a few "sex" legends, but unfortunately they are written about in perfectly good taste. "The Baby Train" -- without it, you're just scum.

--
Peter van der Linden linden@Eng.sun.com 415 336-6206 Men over 5 feet tall are numerous.
Men over 10 feet tall are not numerous. Therefore, men over 10 feet tall are not men over 5 feet tall.


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