Conventions

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)