What happens when people with one common interest gather in monstrous, flourescent-lit halls for the weekend? Sometimes they drive each other crazy, sometimes they fall in love.
Prologue.Convention worker. Andrea worked at a bakery under a convention hotel in Chicago. The conventioneers used to drive her crazy because people act so different when they're in a crowd of their own kind.
Act One. Dark Shadows.
John Connors attended a convention of Dark Shadows viewers last week in New York.
Act Two. Dish Out of Water.
Dishwasher Pete, publisher of the zine Dishwasher, who is on a personal mission to wash dishes in all fifty states, went to the National Restaurant Association convention this year on assignment from This American Life. If you're curious, Dishwasher Pete's zine can be had for a buck. Mail him at P.O. Box 8213, Portland, OR 97207.
Act Three. When Worlds Collide.
John Perry Barlow, head of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, former rancher and Grateful Dead lyricist, on an experience that began at the boundary of two conventions.