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 One
Allison Silverman reports on This Is Your Life, a show from the 1950s where unsuspecting—and often famous—audience members would have their biographies created on the spot for 40 million viewers.
Act One: Why Aren't You At Work?
All those people you see in the middle of the workday, in coffee shops and bookstores? Who are they? Why aren't they at work? Reporter George Gurley tackled these tough questions.
Act Four: Grace Note
After all this doom and gloom about the difficult lives of artists, we end the show with a more hopeful story from Joel Kostman, a New York City locksmith, who tells us about an incident that happened to him on the job.
