Q: What’s ullage?
A: It has several meanings: the air at the top of a bottle, the sediment at the bottom, deficiency, lack, the fumes in an engine. Used as a verb, it means “to replenish a drink.”
Q: How am I supposed to know that?
A: It’s in the dictionary.
Q: What, I’m supposed to use a dictionary?
A: It’s a painless procedure.
Q: What’s this all about, then?
A: We take ullage as the emblem of all things unorthodox, forgotten, unpopular, uncommercial, and marginal.
Q: Why do you hate the mainstream?
A: We don’t, in principle; in practice, we’d often like something else.
Q: Who’s in this thing?
A: These days, mostly Doug Skinner, Anthony Matt, and Lisa Hirschfield. Others drift in and out, as the spirit moves.
Q: This looks like fun, but fun in a way I’m not used to. I feel giddy and flushed.
A: Perhaps you’d better sit down. May we ullage you?