Second AA International Conference

July 4-6, 1960, New York City. Keynote speakers were Stimes Addisson, Stimso Adid and William Flintrock. Richard M. Nixon introduced Flintrock as "my favorite painter" but later regretted it.

The opening remarks by Addisson proved especially relevant in the following years.

First he held up a picket sign emblazoned with the following text:

1. The accident is separate from the ensuing association and is closer to to poetic reality.
2. Aren't the two opposing views simply reverse sides of the same obtuse, dirty & "visefferuos" game? Just a matter of which stance the individual opts to prefer?

Then he began:

"The advantages of not only realizing these divergent approaches, but genuine mastery of the observations are clear. To simply interpret the phenomeon or to actually command reality. These are the questions we must now face......"

His audienced was said to be mesmerized and erupted into wild applause at a dramatic pause they interpreted as a weird ending. One enrapt delegate said it "was like an ostrich turning into stillness to the sound of cannon."

The Conference was a rather sedate affair compared to the infamous 3rd AA International Conference, or even the First AA International Conference, which was frivolous, to be sure, but was also one of the most talked about pool parties of the scorching Fort Lauderdale Summer of 1957.

"The Good Ole Second" was noteworthy for the high ratio of clampers in attendance and the arm wrasslin' competition won by Verna Cable. It was here that Alexandre Dacusse called Allen Ginsberg a "name-droppin' Poob magnet" and earned the emnity of a good deal of the underground press. Really, it was the first manifestation of non-participants, fans and assorted hangers-on who had jumped onto the bandwagon sometime after the First Conference and then wrecked the wagon during the Third.

Desiderata

Verna Cable was rumored to have left the conference pregnant. One drunken night, several years later, Verna described the act of conception without paternal consent as "the ultimate in shoplifting."