AANtastic!

If hazy memories and blurry Flickr pics are to be believed, the AAN conference was a blast.

by Brian Howard

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Published: Jun 11, 2008

Give us a second to get our bearings, pop out our contacts, check ourselves in the mirror. People, we are wrecked. We're exhausted, infirm, overwhelmed and overnourished.

As you may have read somewhere, City Paper hosted the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' 31st annual convention last weekend, and it was a rager. Editors and Web dorks and sales people and designers from alt-weeklies all over the country came to Philly to sleep at the Marriott, convene at the Convention Center and consume all over town for this so-called "Declaration of IndependAANts." (The punning is something the AAN folks get off on. Last year's was held in PortlAANd. Senior editor Pat Rapa wanted to call the Philly conference "AAN Get Your Gun," but he got shot down.)

If our hazy memories and blurry Flickr pics are to be believed, it was a blast.

There was an opening party at 30th Street Station, with food from just about every A-list nosherie in town. Granted, all journos swoon for free food, but even veterAANs like Ted Rall claimed it was the best he'd been to.

It was a who's-who of biz heavy hitters: Washington City Paper's Erik Wemple, SF Bay Guardian's Tim Redmond, Jackson Free Press' Donna Ladd and Philly legend/Creative Loafing Tampa's David Warner, to name a few. Some decidedly non-alt, non-weekly journalists showed up, like Sam Sifton and David Carr from The New York Times, who gave presentations. The venerable Seymour Hersh spoke at the keynote luncheon. The Capitol Years killed at a NoLibs pub crawl. And, for the finale, Gov. Rendell showed up for some slick Q&A at the Constitution Center.

Being the host paper was murder on a few of us (take a bow and a breath, Natalie Diener), but was pretty much worry-free for most of us. And we had all-access passes to everything. I was curious to hear what my editorial staff thought of it all, since none of them had ever been AAN-handled before. (Last one, promise.)

"Not to be predictable," says listings editor/Shopping Spree columnist Monica Weymouth, "but I love my free Sailor Jerry T. It is soft and a nice light pink and fits just right in the arms. It does, however, have a tattoo design that says 'mother.' Which is awkward, because the only thing I want less than a tattoo is a child."

"On Friday afternoon," recalls copy chief/arts editor Carolyn Huckabay, "I found myself standing outside Bar Ferdinand wearing an unfashionably bright orange volunteer T-shirt, helping lost AAN conventioneer puppies find their way around NoLibs. Over illegal sidewalk Lagers Bruce Schimmel told me something that hit home: that I should soak this in, because in the grand scheme, my job as an alt-weekly editor is bizarre — not a lot of people do what I do. But the ones who do are all here, in Philly, getting geeked out over critic standards and aesthetics and underground street art and so on."

What struck Rapa, seeing the city through the eyes of our guests, was how kinda awesome Philly is.

"I was hanging out at that Roots/Gnarls Barkley show near Penn's Landing with some cool folks from a paper in the mountains of western North Carolina," says Rapa. "As the cashew moon centered itself in the sky, the first non-oppressive breeze of the evening drifted in over the Delaware. Behind the stage, regional rails darted back and forth across the edge of the skyline, while PATCO cars did the same along the rim of the Ben to our left. My guests, enjoying a rare deviation from a seemingly idyllic mountain life in their new-age hippie hometown, were momentarily entranced by the illuminated metropolis around them, and for a second I remembered how to see it that way, too. All weekend, without even knowing it had to, Philadelphia seemed to put on its game face for the out-of-town journalists. We looked good. We look good, Philadelphia."

Really, even with our zombie walk, and our hair all mussed and our eyes bloodshot to hell? Thanks for noticing.

We're learning to take a compliment.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

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