The Mirror, Not Just A Crappy Publication.

I lived in Montreal for three months in the spring and summer of 2006. While I was there I took in as much culture as I could, I went out to pubs, drank lattes at cafes, spent an afternoon at La Place des Arts, ate poutine ... the usual. These cultural excursions would have been made easier had there been a free cultural publication of any note. There was not. The Mirror is Montreal's free mag and it leaves much to be desired. For starters, I will give you a thousand dollars if you can find one copy in ten minutes or less. Unlike most free publications, The Mirror is not available. Anywhere. There is a select number of pubs and cafes that carry The Mirror. If you do find one, it is either out of date or irrelevant to your cultural needs. It's surprising because many cultural happenings depend on publications of this sort for promotion. And I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "Thank goodness for the internet." Well, you're thinking wrong.

The Mirror's website www.montrealmirror.com is useless. It does not even begin to explore the medium. No audio, no video, no enhanced images, no movement, no mystery. The site does not explore colour combinations or typography. It offers nothing in terms of visuals. The menu is not displayed in a particularly appealing style. It doesn't draw the reader. To be honest, it does the opposite. The articles are all available but it has nothing to offer outside of the textual content. In fact, the articles are reproduced on the screen with black print on a white background, displaying only an introductory image to the article. It is lackluster to say the least. Ironically, the best feature of the website is a virtual edition of the paper publication. Cover page, Press The Arrow, Wait 10 Seconds and VOILA!, Page 2. It is literally a photograph of the entire magazine. Beyond the cool factor of this effect, a factor that lasts about 47 seconds, the virtual Mirror is equal to the paper version in that it is notably uninformative. I rate this site 1 Mouse Click, and that click is to another site.