Make footnote span entire text width in `twocolumn` mode in `memoir`

Question

I am trying to use the twocolumn option from memoir but it is also formatting the footnotes into two columns.

\documentclass[12pt,twocolumn]{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\chapter{The Example}
Some simple text\footnote{\lipsum[2]}
\lipsum[2-3]
\end{document}

I want the footnotes to span the bottom of the page, similar to how it looks if I use the multicol package:

\documentclass[12pt]{memoir}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\chapter{The Example}
\begin{multicols}{2}
Some simple text\footnote{\lipsum[2]}
\lipsum[2-3]
\end{multicols}
\end{document}

But I'd rather not use the multicol package here, unless it is the correct thing to do (I'd have to manually wrap each chapter in a \begin{multicols} block and use what I learned from this question to mimic the margins.) Is it possible to make footnotes in twocolumn mode span the entire page?

Answer 1

It has been over 5 years since you asked this question and I still have not found a solution which spans the entire text width with multiple columns, but Frank Mittelbach just released the ftnright.sty package which places all footnotes at the bottom of the right column to at least avoid the "different height footnotes on the same page" abomination.

\usepackage{ftnright}