A Note on the Text

The first thing that any self-respecting nit-picker will say upon seeing this book is, "Hey, she's got the Society years wrong!" I am well aware that the May event is traditionally used to mark the beginning of a new Society year. However, here I have chosen to use it to mark the end of the previous year so that the Society year runs from June of one mundane year to May of the next. This makes the Society year conform more closely to the academic year, which makes things much easier.

All articles taken from printed sources are presented exactly as they originally appeared, except for the correction of obvious typographical errors. Most of the stories told here were transcribed from tape-recorded conversations. They have been edited for grammar, clarity, and smoothness. An ellipsis marks where major portions of a story have been deleted; generally these were irrelevant digressions. Square brackets are used to insert comments and explanations from me, summaries of parts of stories, and occasional quotations from members of the audience present when the story in question was recorded.

The articles used here are several years old, and some of the people mentioned in them have since changed their names. No attempt has been made to update names. I did correct the spelling of a name if I knew for sure that the article had spelled it wrong; however, many people are mentioned whose names are not familiar to me. If anyone should spot an error, please let me know.