Hometown brew

Some quick Montreal news.

Montreal Gazoo columnist James Mennie notes that efforts to rename Beaudry subway station after the gay village are stalled. "It would appear the process of changing a metro station's name, like the state of matrimony, is not to be entered into lightly."

Moving beyond the eye-rollingly tedious comparison: "For the past two years, the Montreal Transit Corp. has slapped a moratorium on any name change....." World Outgames folk are hoping for some action before June's gay sports and culture gumbo.

An inventory of historic Montreal buildings has been compiled by the city, and is available en français ici. Left out, this morning's paper notes, is the giant milk bottle of Guaranteed Pure Milk Co. Ltd.

The Festival des Voix d'Ameriques schedule is here.

The general interest news-and-think Maisonneuve mag is giving up on international distribution. A year ago, I wrote a short piece for the media trade pub Masthead, in which Maisonneuve publisher Derek Webster was quoted: "To be sustainable and important, a magazine has to be able to succeed in the U.S. as well.... Sticking a maple leaf on the cover is not going to make anybody buy it." Parochialism, he said, dooms magazines to thinking small and being small. At the time, Webster said Maisonneuve placed 5,000 copies on U.S. newstands.

Webster also seemed to think that regional publications were good things. They do "a better job of delivering the local market to advertisers" than do most national rags.

As of September, Maisonneuve will be a locally-focused bimonthly. I look forward to an eclectic and broad-minded publication free of big baby politics. Montreal needs a decent local magazine.