Just got home last night, having posted only one comment from Chicago, and having read nothing but the one diary I commented on (which was live blog, and so mostly content-free, unless "Scott Kleeb is cute" counts as content.) So it goes.
Wednesday night, I went to the PFAW party, which was completely surreal. It was jam-packed, dark and noisy. It was too dark to read people’s name tags, and even if I got out my glasses and got under a light, they had driver’s license names, not screen names. No faces to recognize either. And mostly too loud to ask. Anyhow, because we only know each other by screen name, and words and ideas, I decided to photograph footwear as a way to show more about fellow Kossacks while still maintaining "anonymity." Of course, we have fellow travelers and hangers-on, too, so I photographed some of them as well.
Here’s some of our netroots candidates. Trauner & Kleeb wore the only cowboy boots I saw the whole time:
Disclaimer: I screwed up my notes a little, and ended up with a lot of unidentified feet. So if you got left out, that's probably why. And it was great to meet everybody!
On to the main event:
First, overall, there’s a lot more diversity in female footwear than male, so I much more frequently approached women I didn’t know because of them having interesting footwear.
The Chicago 17
Kid Oakland organized an effort to pay for people who otherwise couldn’t attend. The goals were ethnic, geographic and class diversity, and also to include more youth. KO did an awesome job of that in the space of less than a month. I think of him being like our Tom Sawyer, who can get everyone to help paint the fence (or whatever else needs doing). Big cheers for him! I hope to help out to make the "scholarship program" better for next year - maybe 70 instead of 17. I didn’t even get to meet all of the 17, much less photograph all their feet, but did get a few of ‘em:
Candidates for Office
Daily Kos Institutions
Who, of course, require no introduction, or they wouldn’t fit here.
CA-11 Veterans
Also, Kid Oakland and Matt O, included in the Chicago 17 group above. And my apologies to babaloo - I know I photographed your shoes, and you certainly earned a spot here. But my notes were too big a mess to figure out which pic was you. Sorry!! We are all veterans of a campaign to give Pombo the Boot which makes us connected for life. Great work everyone!!
Famous People
By which I mean I recognized them from having seen them on TV, or heard them on the radio. Wes Clark was one of the first, and a very cordial guy. When I asked, he was standing casual, but immediately snapped to attention. I had to ask him to relax instead for the other picture.
Wonkette, by wearing such high heels, clearly wanted her feet noticed. So I chased her across the room at the Netroots Candidates party, where she was hangin’ with Roger Simon and Karen Tumulty. My pen quit, so Simon was kind enough to give me his Hyatt Hotel ball point, and I photographed his feet, too. But Tumulty would have none of it, claiming her pedicure was not up to snuff. Like anybody cares! She was the only one who declined, save the Secret Service - who didn’t want to be distracted from their security mission. Shoulda just zoomed in from father away without asking. Live and learn!
The Rest of Us
Sharoney got a blister, and had to change shoes:
Sidnora wouldn't let a little injury keep her away, even if Arianna Huffington did:
Lurkers & Rare Posters with Cool Shoes
In some cases, I asked people to do their feet because of their Daily Kos presence: Like dengre, or like Kos himself. But others, I just photographed because their footwear caught my eye, for whatever reason:
This guy asked to have his shoes photographed, and even wanted to argue about whether they were unique or not. Something about semiotics. Say what? I just wanted to get to the next event, not argue about shoes:
Others
There were a lot of people who didn’t have kos usernames. Some were lurkers, who read a lot. Others, not at all. Plus there's other bloggers, and those some other identity on the web.