Part of the MIT contingent comes clad as"Temporal Security Special Officers," equippedwith walkie-talkies, massive water guns andflashlights strapped to their heads.
They guard the procession until it is 2 a.m.again, when the group sacrifices a paper sundialto Chronos in thanks for the extra hour.
A similar ceremony is held for the Going of theHour in spring. Other ceremonies include theMasquerade Ball in spring and ushering at theIgNoble Awards, which HRSFA co-sponsors.
HRSFA scavenger hunts in the past have askedmembers to retrieve "the essence of night," "twothings that hate each other," and, for theautomatic win, Professor of Geology Stephen JayGould.
There is a Bizarreness SIG and a Milk andCookies SIG, where HRSFA members gather togetherand tell stories culled from a made-up Britishchildhood.
And there is always more of the same on theway. On the group's Web page,www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hrsfa, one alum of the grouprecommends that every meeting be ended with thedeclaration that "as for me, I believe Carthagemust be destroyed."
If any member points out that Carthage hadalready been destroyed, the speaker must thenretort that he means Carthage, N.Y., he suggests.
Signs of Intelligent Life?
Heather F. Rose '02 surveys the other membersof the crowd assembled for the Coming of theHour--which featured among the black-clad masses afew trench coats, an unlit medieval torch and oneman in a giant black cloak who refused to give hisname.
"This is exactly what you would expect ascience fiction club to be," Rose says.
And to some degree, she's right--many of themembers are hard science concentrators andDungeons and Dragons fans from way back.
But group members say there's more to the groupthan gaming and sci-fi. They say it's a socialgroup for people with a similar, if unusual, senseof what's fun.
"I don't think there's any way to generalize[the people in the group]," said HRSFA co-chairIgor Teper '00. "It's just people getting togetherto have fun in these weird and silly ways."
And those people keep coming back. Alums areoften active in HRSFA events, like Ender, who madea grand entrance Saturday night into the roomwhere the hounds were painting themselves. Enderstrode in shirtless, already intricately paintedand carrying an enormous homemade bow and arrow.
"I think [other HRSFA members] were some of thebest people I met at Harvard," Ender says. "You gothere and meet them and there it is."
And according to Jennifer K. Sunami '02, at aschool like Harvard, people in HRSFA aren't muchfurther out there than the average student.
"There are a lot of weird people at thisschool," Sunami says, half of her body a lightblue. "So why should [this group] scare me?"