Quote of the week:

"There were maybe 20 people getting ready in the parking lot and stones began falling everywhere, except on their heads." - Serge Couture, president of Mont St-Bruno, after blasting at a nearby quarry sent rocks flying onto the ski resort, in Tuesday's Gazette. There were no injuries.

Pink Pages coming

For the second year in a row, Montreal is getting a phone directory catering primarily to the gay community. Next week, the Pink Pages/Pages Roses will be dropped door-to-door to 20,000 households on the Plateau, with another 30,000 copies dropped across the entire island over the next month. Look for them alongside Mirror racks.

Ilana Cohen, the book's editor and publisher, says the 2005 edition will include a strong editorial component, something she says is missing from similar publications in other cities. "This year we'll be focusing on family issues, like how to raise a child, marriage, divorce, how to conceive a child and parents' rights," she says.

According to Cohen, while Canada is making significant strides on the gay marriage front, there are still many legal grey areas for gay parents. For instance, as the law stands now, a sperm donor's rights and responsibilities for any future children they share DNA with end with the last shake of wee Willie. But, she says, many lesbian couples take sperm from gay male friends, some of whom would like to have a role in raising the fruit of their loins.

For more information, visit www.pinkpages.ca for English and www.pagesroses.ca for French, or call 486-4283.

» Patrick Lejtenyi

Stage's final bow

Another specialty bookstore in Montreal is closing its doors for good, and the city's arts communities will be lesser for it.

Stage, the 18-year-old shop that sold theatre, film and visual arts books, will take its final bow in late January of next year.

Though small, the store, on the corner of Ste-Catherine W. and Chomedey near the old Forum, offered an exceptional selection of books on art and literature, a favourite with Montreal thespians, film buffs and academics.

Owner and manager Simon Levine stocked the shelves with a broad range of books on everything from Shakespearean stage design over the centuries to the evolution of African-American representations on American television to Tennessee Williams anthologies.

"The market has really changed," says Levine. "Now there are the big chains and Amazon. A lot of people will simply order things online. I am not unhappy about this though. It's time to move on. No one should have any regrets about this - I certainly don't."

The store, located at 2123 Ste-Catherine W., will continue its closing sale until mid-January.

» Matthew Hays

Crap calamity

To say Holly Dressel is as happy as a pig in… well, you know, would be one gross overstatement. She and a coalition of rural South Shore residents are infuriated at the Quebec government's recent decision to lift a moratorium on industrial pork farms, saying that the waste produced would poison the water supply of both the local area and of Montreal. The Haut St-Laurent Rural Coalition has teamed up with Kahnawake Mohawks and the northern Quebec Cree to take the government to task and sound alarm bells about the incoming flux of what she describes as the "Wal-Mart of pork raising."

"The material entering the water supply is full of the usual shit" like antibiotics and hormones fed to the pigs, Dressel says. "With a new influx of industrial hog farms, there isn't a prayer for decent drinking water."

The coalition staged a demonstration on Wednesday, Dec. 15 at the South Shore Mercier bridge entrance and plan on future actions in the new year. For more information, visit www.rurale.ca.

» Patrick Lejtenyi

Three-ring outcry

Local animal rights activists at Global Action Network (GAN), never ones to shy away from camera-friendly stunts, will once again be vilifying humans who make money by exploiting non-humans. Their institutional target this time is the good ol' circus.

Super Cirque, billed as the Greatest Show on Earth, is of the traditional, three-ring kind that relies on dancing bears, lion tamers and the like. GAN will be holding a show of their own on Boxing Day to let people know about the dismal conditions the animals are kept in and the cruel practices used to train them. They've also asked the city to pass a bylaw banning live animal performances. "They've done this in Victoria, Vancouver and other major Canadian cities," says GAN's Regina Flores. She reports little movement from city hall.

Flores says 10,000 people have signed a petition protesting the circus and hopes that many of them will be joining the anti-circus demo on Sunday, Dec. 26, at the Bell Centre (1260 de la Gauchetière W.) beginning at 10:15 a.m. For more info call 939-5525.

» Patrick Lejtenyi

REAR-VIEW MIRROR

12 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
Dec. 17–Dec. 24, 1992

On the cover: Record producer Pierre Marchand, for the Mirror's 6th Montreal Music Annual. "I'm attracted to lyrics that leave room for the imagination," he tells Martin Siberok. "They should trigger images, not dictate them. I'm not into ‘get up and dance' or ‘driving in my car' type songs."

• Among other articles is one of various musicians opining on the state of Montreal music. "After going across Canada, we discovered that CKUT is the worst college station for supporting local bands and the Mirror is the worst local paper," says the Ripcordz' Paul Gott, bemoaning the emphasis on touring out-of-town bands. "Yes, I think we're a major factor in the 1992 Montreal scene. Nobody's doing dick shit here," adds the Doughboys' John Kastner.

• The Boys of St. Vincent, an NFB film about sexual abuse at a Newfoundland orphanage, is banned because of an ongoing trial in Ontario. Steve Kokker writes that the ban "calls attention to an unstable justice system which favours inconveniencing millions over the ‘protection' of 12 jurors."

Angel >> Google's library project The world's most popular search engine announced earlier this week that it's teaming up with several universities and libraries to add their collections onto its searchable database. Involved in the project are Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and Michigan universities and the New York Public Library and an estimated 15-million books. Google founders promise that they can scan and digitize tens of thousands of pages a day, and the eventual goal is nothing less than the collection of the world's knowledge available for free online. But don't expect to download the latest bestseller, as the agreement only covers works whose copyright protection has expired. Leave that to P2P.
Insect >> Deadlines According to data compiled by the Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Programme, workers toiling under tight deadlines are six times more likely to suffer a heart attack within a day of a high pressure situation. The study, which examined various elements of stress in the workplace, reported that short-term stress was more likely to lead to heart attacks than long-term stress. This is bad news for journalists, among others, many of whom enjoy a reckless lifestyle. Interestingly, the study also noticed that praise from the boss can also double the risk of a heart attack.