Linucon 2005: Adventures in Costuming

On Friday I went to a discussion panel “Adventures in Costuming”, where the panelists were Cathy Raymond (wife of Eric Raymond of open source fame, who was a guest at Linucon 2005) and Jay Maynard, a.k.a The Tron Guy.

I had to leave this panel halfway because it was late, and baby E was getting tired. Anyway, it was mostly Jay Maynard talking about all the fame (or infamy) that the Tron costume brought him. After a press story about him was posted on Slashdot, he braced for negative comments to come rolling in. He expected comments such as “a fat guy shouldn’t be wearing spandex” and… by golly, he got them. Several hundreds. But there were also a lot of people who said his costume was cool. He appeared some television talk shows. Even Howard Stern contemplated inviting him to his radio show, but decided that the story won’t make enough impact without the visuals.

Here is a much more detailed article about a similar panel at Linucon 2004: Costuming 101. It featured The Tron Guy, Cathy Raymond, and Kim Kofmel. That discussion was enlivened with all kinds of spicy details from the costume history.