Anthony Van Engelen | Quartersnacks

‘A Certain Amount Of Suffering’ — An Interview With Anthony Van Engelen

Features & Interviews May 6th, 2021 · 12:00 am · 5

Interview by Farran Golding
Collages by Requiem For A Screen
Original Photography by Anthony Acosta

The amount of people who have been able to pull off skate careers spanning over two decades is low. And in the skateboard-content-creation biz, we often fall on this assumption that these skaters have answered all the questions already, e.g. what can you truly unpack that Chromeball hasn’t?

But that’s false. Because the reason this group has been able to endure through the years is their prolific adaptability. The perspective of someone at the start of their third decade of a skate career is even different than it was when they were headed toward the latter half of decade two.

With A.V.E. on the horn for the “Favorite Spot” segment (thanks everybody for the kind feedback, by the way), not digging a bit deeper felt like a missed opportunity. Farran spoke to him on where his perspective on this thing called “professional skateboarding” stands today, entrenched in the third decade of doing it.

Favorite Spot With Anthony Van Engelen on The Green Bench

Video & Remixes May 5th, 2021 · 12:00 am · 16

Figured after last week’s “Favorite Spot” with Hjalte, now is as good of a time as any to keep the momentum going with this new series :)

You may remember back in the fall when skaters of a certain age bracket couldn’t help but think one really nerdy thought while watching F.A’s Dancing On Thin Ice video: was the bench from A.V.E’s ender the same bench that he was skating in The DC Video back in 2003?

In short, the answer is yes. But the story of how the bench came to re-enter skateboard history is one of many fateful contortions that only the man himself could adequately explain. Farran tracked down A.V.E. for the story of the green metal bench, and how it has endured through nearly two decades, with the help of some archival footage from the F.A. and DC videographers that were there as it happened.

Interview & Edit by Farran Golding. Archival footage is courtesy of: Greg Hunt, Cody Green, Benny Maglinao, William Strobeck and Colin Kennedy.

Previous Favorite Spots: Hjalte Halberg on Jarmers, Gilbert Crockett on Sun Trust & Downtown Richmond

The Best Skate Videos & Parts of 2020 — QS Readers Poll Results

Features & Interviews December 23rd, 2020 · 12:00 am · 25

Illustration by Cosme Studio
Ballot Tally Assist by 4Ply Magazine

One of the biggest cliches is discussing just *how much* skate content there is. Everything is available at once, and keeping track of it for one viewing — let alone multiple — is hard.

Last year’s decade poll aimed at a snapshot of skateboarding in a ten-year span, as it grew exponentially into the content waterfall it is today. It was very fun to do, but perhaps easier in that with ten years to reflect on, it was apparent what loomed large over tricks, styles and trends. We brought it back for a single year to try and form a canon at a time when so much of the conversation is geared around things moving too fast for a consensus.

Yes, you’ll notice an inherent recency bias here, and year-end content is obviously an imperfect art — the poll closed on December 4, which is before John’s Vid and Third Shift came out online, two projects that definitely would’ve ranked if eligible. (Honestly, John’s Vid might’ve ended up being #1 or #2 given the readership of this website.)

So here it is. No commentary for the full-lengths this round. Full-length skate videos capture a zeitgeist, and sometimes, it takes a while for those effects to truly make themselves known.

Shout out to all the writer friends from the internet who helped with write-ups, and extra major shout out to the team at 4Ply Magazine for the help on tallying the ballots.

And if you’re joining us, this ranking was voted on by QS readers during the first week of December, with voting ending on the 4th.

Oh Baby, You’re Being Dramatic — #TRENDWATCH 2020: Expressing Emotion

Daily News April 16th, 2020 · 1:17 am · 9

Everyone has witnessed A.V.E. beat up a street sign, and watched a stress montage or two. But what about the other 25 human emotions? Traditionally speaking, skate videos have not been a place for expressing them.

Sure, friends in the background are allowed to clap and cheer, but a stoicism has always been expected of the person rolling away. It is part of skateboarding’s great contortion of reality: a year spent on a video part is boiled down to three-and-a-half minutes, oh, and dude wasn’t even that hyped on himself when he landed those tricks.

Quarantinesnacks

Daily News March 16th, 2020 · 12:00 am · 1

Pic via @rinyahata_ on IG

Threw the remaining bits of our fall 2019 release on sale in the webstore. Truthfully, it’s mostly beanies and smalls, but there are a few loose other sizes left in there. Figured now was a good time to clear this out as everyone adjusts to the slower pace of life while we wait for this shit to calm down — yes, skate shops are affected. We’ll be good though, just gotta ride it out and be smart. It’s not like we have another choice, yaknow? ♥ Everyone be clean, be safe, be nice and be patient. QS content resumes as usual, because you already know that fashion never sleeps :)

Skate videos used to be so cute and innocent.

All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997) is coming soon. Think about that Slam interview with Eli Gesner from last week, but wider in scope, and in documentary form. (Timely name, too!)