Amazing, Amazing, Amazing

It was in 1995 that I first became aware of what I maintain is the most astonishing thing about the Internet - its ability to connect people based on a pop-culture obsession. No matter where your interest lies, it's possible to find a community of people who are just as devoted to it as you are - and, often, about a billion times more devoted to it. Forget the wide-reaching implications of a lightning-quick global information-dissemination service - the best thing about the Internet is the way it finds you people who, like you, can share theories on anything from the symbolic meaning of the four-toed statue on last season's Lost finale to who makes a better couple, Kirk/Spock or Spock/McCoy.

Ever since discovering that you could meet people through the computer, I've benefited from this quality of the Internet in two ways. One, I've found real-world friends who share my love for things like literary fiction and Elvis Costello, and two, I've found places to enthuse about things my real-world friends just aren't into.

(Had I been on the Internet back when I was thirteen years old and fantasizing about marrying Christian Laettner, I assure you, I might have turned out a whole lot less healthy than I did.)

Either way, I came of age in surroundings where my favorite things were so esoteric and/or unpopular that it still, a dozen years later, never fails to astonish me when I come face to face with a whole cadre of folks who not only know about my pet interest du jour, but have loved it so much they have nuanced opinions and theories about it. I doubt it will ever fail to astonish me.

And, indeed, that's how I felt last night when I visited a bar in Midtown for TARcon to attend a gathering for fans of "The Amazing Race": astonished.

While I've enjoyed an episode or two from previous seasons, this season, the "All-Stars" edition, was the one that really hooked me. For weeks, I shared theories with fellow enthusiasts on various message boards in the absence of having any real-life friends who watched the show, but every Sunday night I watched the show itself alone, usually while doing laundry. (Sometimes I'd luck out and find someone else in the laundromat who was watching it, and we could share a few cheers or jeers at the appropriate teams, but usually I was flying solo.) I loved the show for its explorations of global culture; its frenetic pace; and the way different teams, with their different relationships, interacted under pressure. It's one that looks like it's a hell of a lot of fun, but I know I'd be terrible at it. Even as I fantasize about sky-jumping off of the Macau Tower, or learning how to throw a Maasai weapon at a target, I know that the stress of navigation and the pressure of the race would make me absolutely terrible at it. So I have that much more respect for the contestants on this show.

And last night, I actually got to tell several of them as much, which was in itself almost as cool as connecting with fellow fans. (I didn't take many photos, but up at the top of my entry is a camera-phone shot of second-place finishers Dustin and Kandice, which I nabbed while they were filming a segment for Fox Reality.) Watching the finale in the company of other people who cheered and laughed (and booed) in all the right parts made even what I considered a disappointing outcome seem like great entertainment.

When I felt like I'd performed my fair share of sycophantism, I made my exit and went home to collapse. It was an amazing end to an amazing day.

And TARcon wasn't even the most amazing thing I did all day. Stay tuned.