Most Curious...

I am, again, working out of state.  This weekend, however, is different.

When I checked into the Marriott I've virtually lived at since March, the hostess offered to move me from the 5th floor to the 8th floor on Friday morning (yesterday).  I told her I did not want to move, but she repeated her offer adding that the hotel was hosting an anime convention from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning and the young people might be noisy.  She said, in a low voice, "Um, Mr. Ellis, things get kind of weird around here."

Anime is that really terrible Japanese animation that brought us cartoons like "Speed Racer" in the 1980s.

I assured her that I had enough kids at home that a little noisy fun would not bother me.  That was Tuesday night. 

On Thursday afternoon, coming back in from work, I noticed a group of youths sitting in the lobby.  One girl was wearing a plush headdress that made her look like the Pokemon character Pik-a-chu.

By 10pm Thursday the hotel seemed full of young people who appeared to be what we used to call "mods" or "goths" or "emo's".  They were all nice enough, and seemed to be having a good time.  Things in the hall outside my room were pretty loud until after midnight, but I'm pretty easy going.

When I came in from work last night (Friday) just before 8pm the hotel was crawling with youths - and some people who were just too old to be dressing up - in costumes ranging from monsters to mutants to ninjas to nurses.  I stopped at the front desk and the hostess, Kari, said, "Mr. Ellis, I told you!  Things get weird around here!"  I agreed with her.

It's Saturday afternoon and more than 200 costumed anime fans are on the hotel patio watching 2 of their ninja brethren in a mock sword fight, played out to the beat of a kibuki drummer girl, interrupted periodically for a line or two of stand-up comedy from the black ninja.  (The red ninja appears to be the "straight man".)  And the crowd is clapping and laughing enthusiastically.  Blue wigs and huge furry ears are nodding with understanding. 

The black ninja is saying something they can relate to!

Walking below my window is a very large black woman in a Thumbelina-esque costume and a stick thin young white man wearing nothing but a criss-crossed belt for a shirt, black trousers, and a black military hat.  Quite a pair. 

For all the freakishness, though, I have to make a few observations.
1.  No one is walking around texting or even talking on a cell phone.  All of their interactions are really in person!
2.  No one has been obviously intoxicated, smoking cigarettes is very rare, and they are not cursing.
3.  No one is fighting.  In fact there appears to be total love and acceptance of all by all.  They seem to be having a lot of good clean weird fun!

That's nice to see.