T0dd:

chicago1:
As for costumes, I'll never forget the first time I attended an party of Esperantists and saw one lady wearing an evening dress in a fabric of dark green stars on a pale green background.

Todd

She's a true believer. At least she wasn't dressed up as Dr. Zamenhof.

ceigered:
Esperantists often try hard to differentiate esperanto by talking about how much it is a living language, ...

It definitly is a living language. Simply check i.e. the partoprenintoj numbers of the IJK and what efforts they took to travel to the renkontiĝon location. I'm sometimes quite a bit shocked/surprised what (money) efforts international esperantists take to join a European (in detail JES, maybe it's the same for FESTO) Esperanto renkontiĝon. Okay, there are a lot of "travel around Europe" gap-year'ers. But. Pooh. Incredible.

At last JES I heard (surloke) that 50 participants from Ukraine went via a train(?) karavano to Germany. Hey, these are around 1,300 kilometres just for the wish of attenting a international Esperanto renkontiĝo. 1,300 of "crowded European" kilometres. In my opinion Esperanto definitly is a living language.

ceigered:Everyone looks awful with a rubber forehead and pointy ears

A bit of easy googling can disprove that assertion.

As for the notion that it's an "insult" to mention Esperanto along with Elvish and Klingon... that sounds like a serious chip on the shoulder, like someone feeling insulted that humans and cows and pigs are all mentioned in a book about mammals.

Whether or not it serves the cause of promoting Esperanto is a separate question, but I find it difficult to believe that the book's author intended to insult Esperanto; the intent was to discuss various significant constructed languages, since it is, after all, a book about constructed languages (as opposed to a book about promoting Esperanto, or a book about groups persecuted by the Nazis, or any of the other notions being used to argue that it's an insult...)