This American Life: Conventions

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74:

Conventions

Originally aired 08.29.1997

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.

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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. (3 minutes)

Act One. Dark Shadows.

John Connors has very mixed emotions about attending a convention for viewers of the TV program Dark Shadows. (18 minutes)

Act Two. 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)

Act Three. 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)

Selected Contributors: John Connors, Dishwasher Pete, Ira Glass