Love your public spaces!

While Indyish is off at the Salon des independents, I’m facing day four of being cooped up in my apartment doing my best to stop sneezing and coughing, drinking teacup after teacup in an attempt to regain my voice. Being sick is no fun, especially when you know you could be off having fun with the rest of the gang! Cool events are happening right now, body, so why did you have to fail me?

Annoyance at my immune system aside, I have been using my time rather well, navigating through cool Web sites with upcoming events to motivate myself to stick it out and regain my health (and voice). One event in particular would have me giggling excitedly in anticipation… if it didn’t hurt so much to laugh!

One of my roommates, a Toronto expat, has long been heavily involved in public space reclamation and activism. Among her piles of zines and magazines devoted to the cause, one caught my eye: Spacing. This is a magazine devoted to understanding Toronto’s urban landscape, and though much of the content’s details mean little to me, I read it cover-to-cover. As I flipped through, I found myself thinking, “What’s going on? This is such a Montreal thing. Why does Toronto get this magazine while we Montrealers, well, don’t?” After all, this is the city that banded together behind Alison Louder to vocally oppose Mayor Gerard Tremblay’s suggested av. du Parc name change! This is the city that comes together every Sunday during the warm summer months to dance, relax, and share its wares at tam-tams.

Clearly, we are a deserving bunch.

Much to my delight, a few clicks online brought me to the excitement that will be the Spacing Montreal launch party next weekend (though the blog’s been a happening place long enough for you to spend hours devouring it). Phew, at least I found it in time!

That’s right, Montreal, you have your very own public space-devoted blog! Why ponder and fret over such questions as “How did the manhole covers in Mile End get such a lovely paint job?” when you can find out by reading Spacing? (This was a very happy little learning experience for me!)

Ah, yes, the important details of the launch party… Next Sunday, 23 September, here is where you must be:

• Spacing Montreal Launch Party
• chez Le Cagibi (the former Esperanza), 5490 boul. St-Laurent
• the happenings begin happening at 7:30pm
• PWYC

If you’re a Facebook addict (don’t be so ashamed!), then you can add yourself to the event and see who else is going to be there.

Here’s what the Spacing crew has to say to entice us…

Spacing is happy to have Spacing Montréal join our family of daily coverage of urban issues.

If you’re looking for an excuse to go out on the town on a Sunday night, Spacing Montréal is throwing a launch party on September 23rd at the charming little club le Cabigi. We’ll have a DJ spinning some tunes, photos of Montréal (captured by our contributors) projected onto the walls, plus a few activities.

If you have friends in Montréal that care about this city and its public spaces let them know about this fun little party. Help us make it a successful night by coming out to support our crew of writers and photographers. Its pay-what-you-can (the money goes to support the costs of running this blog).

Whether you’re sick like me and need motivation to keep you from going stir-crazy, or you’re exhausted from attending all the happenings this weekend that I can’t be at and need motivation to rest up for more, now you’ve got it!