A few years ago there was a Mafia hit in broad daylight outside a beauty salon in Montreal. The owner of the salon was assassinated in the parking lot. It was a place frequented by well-off women of Westmount, Hamstead and TMR. I thought: that’s it, the salon is going to close. Who wants to get their haircut where there’s been a mob killing? But the clientele was loyal to the salon. Maybe the women would go and talk with their stylists about the hit, feeling a little bad-ass as they did it, being that close to death, you know?

Montreal got its hooks in me at 14, and has never let go. Whenever I’ve left, I come back. I love it. I’m blinded by it.