Miskatonic University Press

No matter how big your dream is … one more night’s sleep could make it even bigger.

The CUPE 3903 strike at York University is finally over, ended on day 143 when Bill 2, the Urgent Priorities Act passed. It’s an omnibus bill the new Conservative government introduced: part of it is back-to-work legislation called Back to Class Act (York University), 2018.

David Doorey’s The Back to Class Act (York University): A Quick Summary is one place to read more about it. There will be a lot on social media, and, briefly, in the papers. CUPE and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association will mount a charter challenge, arguing that the law violates the right to strike.

The winter term is wrapping up messily and the summer terms are confused. It will be good to have everyone back in September.

I created a Wikipedia page for Joan Bodger, who deserves one. It’s been up for six or eight hours and hasn’t had warning tags slapped on it, so that’s a good sign. I’m sure people will add improvements as they find it—look what happened to the page about the Soul Rebels, which I created as just a tiny stub in April 2012. (If you ever get a chance to see the Rebels, don’t miss it. They do a fantastic show.)

The Toronto Public Library call number for In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes is charming: MYSTERY HUG.

I’m continuing to read my way through my Philip K. Dick books. However readable they all once were, few are rereadable.

I’m up to Galactic Pot-Healer, from 1969. It’s typical PKD in many ways: nebbishy male protagonist with a shrewish ex-wife, stuck in a dead-end job, no money; gets mixed up with a group of people, none of them developed characters that seem like real people; one is an attractive woman who soon has sex with the protagonist; they all travel somewhere far away—Europe, the Moon, a different solar system—on a spaceship, and, unlike most SF, no attention is given to how any of that works; reality becomes confused, or God appears, or both, etc. I dropped it midway.

On the first page (just inside the cover of this paperback, there are no endpaper or flyleaves), there is this inscription:

Peter,

May the P.K.D. “Death-Cult” live forever.

Enjoy, Peter

I like to think that Peter inscribed the book to himself but forgot he did so, and when he found it began to question if reality existed.

Something new: Interviewing at York University Libraries is, as it says at the top, “everything I can think of about the hiring process for librarians and archivists at York University Libraries (YUL) that might be useful to someone interviewing for a job.”

A couple of months ago an old friend got in touch because he knew someone who was up for a job at YUL and asked if I could give them the inside scoop on what happens at interviews. I was happy to do it, and told everything I could. Then I got to thinking about the other candidates (their names had been posted internally) and thought to be fair I should see if they wanted any tips. However, I wasn’t going to email them at their current workplace. Two had no personal web presence; the other requested everyone be in touch through Twitter. I gave up.

To stop this from happening again, I decided to write down everything here so everyone has equal access.

It may also be of interest to other academic library workers who want to compare hiring processes.

A library (the public library, I think) isn’t seen but is mentioned in “Mother Hen-Pecked,” which I read in B&V Friends Jumbo Comics 261 (July 2018). It originally appeared in Betty 125 (July 2003).

The story is about Betty being kept up by birds chirping outside her window, but at one point Nancy drops by and reminds her about her entry for the library’s literary contest. Later we learn Betty did not win.

The story was written by Mike Pellowski, pencilled by Stan Goldberg, and inked by John Lowe. No colourist or letterer is given. It is copyright Archie Comics Publications.

Listening to Art 03.05 is up today. It’s a field of recording of Caravaggio’s “Judith Beheading Holofernes” done at at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. This is the second of six Caravaggios in a row, finishing up in September.

I also cleaned up the sidebar and made indexes for previous volumes.