Vagabonds

Blazing swordplay, Samuel L. Jackson, Ameri-Euro-Japanese influences, and a revenge-obsessed protagonist with big hair. These elements form the 2007 anime series Afro Samurai, as well as the new Namco Bandai game released for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. But do they fare as well in this new incarnation?

Interview

Three writers pay homage to the music and influence Bob Dylan

My name is Rage 5. I am a graffiti writer and street artist residing in Montréal. SNAP! asked me to write about my artistic process. I declined, but I promptly suggested that I interview my art instead. SNAP! accepted. What follows is an interview that I conducted with my KING SHIT series of street posters. Enjoy.

This is it, I’m leaving. After dealing with the monotony and pointlessness of my existence up until now, I’m finally going to do something with myself... fuck the money, the rules and the comforts... time for something real.

Where were you born? White Rock, near Vancouver, B.C. Where do you call ‘home’? Wherever I am for more than amonth!

I grew up in a small beach town on the east coast of Australia called Coolum. Town names in that area are predominantly Aboriginal and most have double ‘o’s. There is Mooloolaba and Maroochydore, Noosa and Marcoola.

I woke up one Saturday morning last August and decided to catch a plane to L.A. to blow off some steam. I had 48 hours before I had to work again so I cabbed to Trudeau, bought an overpriced $900 return ticket and was in L.A. hours later. From L.A.X. I called my sister in Hollywood to ask for a ride to my friend’s place. It was a jerk move but nothing new as I had already tricked her into driving me to East L.A. the year before when I wanted to photograph some gangbangers. In this case she was getting off relatively easy, and she complied- probably because I said I’d buy her lunch and get us drunk- exactly what we did post-airport.

Well-known Latin-American intellectual Darcy Ribeiro once wrote, “No one visits an indigenous community in impunity.” This quote summarizes how I felt when I came back from a travel shoot in La Romaine on the Lower North Shore of Quebec. Unamen Shipu as the Innus call it, is a small community of approximately a thousand people living on the coast of the St-Lawrence River. It’s a place you can only get to by boat or by airplane as there is no road after Natashquan.

Interview

City living really wears down your senses. What with the cold and ice, traffic and pollution, your five senses can take a real assault. The best place to treat yourself to some amazing tastes, smells, sights and sounds? Our pick is Little Italy, the charming Italian quartier that surrounds St. Laurent from St. Zotique to Jean Talon packed with places to explore.

Octobers were no good for sleeping on the street. The warmth of the day would betray the coldness of the night. I had no place to go, living in the seat of poverty, by the seat of my pants. I was living the life of a Tennessee Williams, subsisting and depending on the kindness of strangers. I would act in high melodrama, like somehow the trauma of concrete bedding came with a Douglas Sirk film score. I pretended to be a beatnik wayfarer, the itinerant vagabond that could easily be romanticized to girls over coffee. I was just a broke street kid spending my nights in the gutter.

My partner’s mom recently passed away. While the death hit him hard, our libidos surged. Since we got the news, we’ve been doing it like bunnies. It took me a few days to clue in to the fact that the appearance of death in our lives prompted this great stirring of emotional and sexual passion. It’s back to the honeymoon phase; all I want is to touch him, be near him. It seems that the thought of losing him has created a sense of urgency.

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