What happens when people with one common interest gather in monstrous, fluorescent-lit halls for the weekend? Sometimes they drive each other crazy, sometimes they fall in love.
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. (3 minutes)
Dark Shadows
John Connors has very mixed emotions about attending a convention for viewers of the TV program Dark Shadows. (18 minutes)
Dish Out Of Water
Dishwasher Pete, author of the book Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States, went to the National Restaurant Association convention on assignment from This American Life. (15 minutes)
When Worlds Collide
John Perry Barlow, a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and former rancher and Grateful Dead lyricist, on an experience that began at the boundary of two conventions. (20 minutes)
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Act Three: Radio On The Tv
Ira says a few words about what he learned from working on a television show himself and about what it's like to hear your name mentioned casually by a fictional character on a prime time drama.
Act Two: Lunch
Family dynamics seen strictly from the parents' perspective.
Act Three: The Unmasking
A story of guys who wear real masks, like superheroes, in their jobs as costumed wrestlers in a kind of Mexican wrestling called Lucha Libre.
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