Fantasia: Sushi and slugs on your Saturday plate

If you dig Japanese cuisine, naked ladies and Reservoir Dogs, this one’s for you. There’s only one naked lady, really, and she serves as a sexy sushi platter at a reunion of crooks tying up the “loose ends” of a six-year-old diamond heist gone wrong. The gang is full of familiar faces, though even the most diehard Star Wars fan is unlikely to recognize Mark Hamill, who really Hamills it up as a queeny gunman/amateur dentist.

Guy Delisle and Jerusalem come to Montreal

Initially trained as an animator, Quebec City native Guy Delisle turned to comics as ever more of animation is outsourced abroad. Traveling alongside his wife, a Doctors Without Borders administrator, and children, he has gone to some of the least-travelled and most politically unsavoury—and, let’s face it, most dangerous—places on earth, recording his experiences in a series of comic travelogues. His latest book, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, is being celebrated tonight, Friday July 20th at Librairie Drawn and Quarterly. The book follows up on his last several books, Shenzhen, Pyongyang and Burma Chronicles, and it shares these books’ striking greige palette, accessible narrative and compelling insights into places many of us have not and may never go.

Golf slap: lamenting the loss of cheap, on-island links

This was originally supposed to be a short primer on golfing in our fair city, with frugal beginners in mind, but as a lowly plebeian who’s been swinging away since puberty, I can’t help but feel that cheapy golf’s gradual decline in Montreal is denying a whole generation of ignoble youths the chance to learn the game. It all started with Fresh Meadows. The hackers’ delight above the tracks in Beaconsfield was where many a middle-class West Island runt took their first embarrassing swings, and although their clubhouse (in actuality, a trailer held up by cinder blocks) was lacking in basic amenities and garter snakes roamed the out-of-bounds areas, that unkempt nine-hole horror show was a $12 slice of paradise.

Écoute pour voir gets up close and personal

Écoute pour voir, an interactive dance project led by choreographer Emmanuel Jouthe, is on a mission to create intense, intimate meetings between two people outside of a stage setting. Dancers perform choreographed solos and are equipped with an iPod connected to two sets of headphones, to share a tune with one sole spectator. Separated, yet closely linked by a stretchy choreographic umbilical cord of sorts, the dancer invites the spectator into a private musical world.

Today’s Sounds

I’m still not certain whether Nas’s 10th album title suggests that life in and of itself is good, or if it is rather a reflection of his state of mind. Nearly 20 years deep into defining his legacy, he’s the only legitimate household name in hip hop who continues to broaden listeners’ expectations of his music. “Daughters” finds Nas musing (read: trippin’) on the options open to his 17-year-old girl. Nowhere near ready to be Grampa Jones by 40, Nas tells his young lady the difference between what boys think and men know, in real terms.

Did you get the demo? Memories of a Vagabond – Broken Destiny

Michel Duguay is a game tester by day and a game creator by night. The Montrealer and his dedicated team of five—they’re called Darklite—are currently working on Memories of A Vagabond – Broken Destiny, a dark, atmospheric Japanese-style turn-based role-playing game that fans of Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger will immediately take a shining to.

Dancehall heads Poirier and the Salivation Army team up for No Vacancy

Montreal clubbing mainstays Ghislain Poirier and the Salivation Army (aka Sarah Bernard) are joining forces for No Vacancy, a steamy new weekly premiering tonight at Royal Phoenix. So what caused the Karnival creator/King of Bounce and Montreal’s reigning dancehall queen to team up? “We both like the same music, and having played a few parties together, we realized that our styles were so complementary that throwing a new night together was the most natural and logical step,” says Bernard.

Rock’em sock’em women? Top 5 roller derby myths

As an avid roller derby fan, I find myself explaining the rules to curiosity seekers and newbs on a fairly routine basis. Almost always, without fail, the first question is, “So, do they hit each other and stuff?” It’s perplexing, since this question usually comes from people not old enough to remember the second wave of roller derby as WWE-style sports entertainment in the 1960s and ‘70s, which was markedly more violent than the new roller derby of the aughts.

This little foodie went to the market

There’s no better complement to a gorgeous Montreal summer than a little shopping alfresco at the Atwater Market. With all of the farm fresh Quebec produce rolling in from the fields every day, this is the time of year when local food is at its best. Last year’s expansion led to the addition of an outdoor food court serving everything from satay sticks to lobster rolls. If you haven’t had the chance to check it out yet, here’s a little guide to let you know what’s up.

Mental about movies: Kier-La Janisse’s House of Psychotic Women

The Montreal anglo arts and media scene is very small and incestuous, to the point where the line between “community coverage” and “back-scratching nepotism” is sometimes blurry. And so it was with some hesitation that I approached an interview with Kier-La Janisse—intrepid programmer at Fantasia, Film Pop and the late, lamented underground screening room Blue Sunshine, as well as the author of the new book House of Psychotic Women, published by Fab Press.