February 9th to 15th

Thursday, February 9th

Anti-Hallmark Valentine's Day party! This Valentine’s Day, Head & Hands wants to invite you to come celebrate love in all of its forms. The evening will feature Montreal DJs DJ Maus and Julie D alongside rockout act Kill the Lights, and punk band Tundra. Andrew Johnston, who has a side project from The gentlemen's Club called The Hearts In Transit will also be part of the show. In addition we will have a theatre performance by The Dead Doll Dancers.

The evening will also act as the launch party to Head & Hands’ 2006 Save Our Sex Ed (SOS) campaign which aims to raise funds for Head & Hands sex education programs. Unlike other diseases, STIs and AIDS are completely preventable and education is the key to protection. Support Head and Hands in the SOS campaign and help us make sure that Montreal youth get the sex education they deserve.

8pm at El Salon, 4388 Blvd. St. Laurent. $10 in advance or $12 the door. Tickets are available at Head & Hands, 5833 Sherbrooke W, 481-0277.

Tomson Highway A lecture on his work, part of Festival Voix d'Amerique. McGill University, 4pm. For more www.fva.ca or (514) 495-1515

Friday, February 10th

Festival Voix d'Amerique Grand Opening: One of North America’s leading Aboriginal writers, Tomson Highway presents his words and songs in a very special evening. He is joined onstage by Patty Cano, an actor with Arianne Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil, and Eastern European saxophonist Ulrich Kempendorff, whose wistful notes lend just the right feeling to the Cree composer’s nostalgic music. La Salla Rossa, 4848 St-Laurent, 8:30pm, $15

Every winter for the past five years, Montreal has been celebrating oral literature, text performance and spoken word. This year’s Festival Voix d’Amériques (FVA), presented by Les Filles électriques, takes place February 10 to 17, 2006 with special guest Thomson Highway. For more on the festival: www.fva.ca or (514) 495-1515

Saturday, February 11th

Redbird Studios Party A circus atmosphere with Burlesque, Carnival and Freakshow performances throughout the evening.

Redbird Studios, 135 Van Horne, 10pm to 3am

Sunday, February 12th

Universal Nomads presents Full-Moon Chill Night: The Love Edition With special guests Omesha (hulahoop show), S-Vestas (fire-eaters), beatboxing, DJs Samira, Omshanti, Renaud-K & DJ Neerav (Interchill). Also, there will be tables to sell work made locally - don't be shy, come share your talents. Participate by bringing love poems to read to the crowd over DJ Music.

Les Minots, 3812 St-Laurent, 7pm to 3am, $4

Monday, February 13th

CinemaPolitica presents Dangerous Living and Locks, Chains and a City

Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World is a feature-length documentary that explores the immense changes that occurred for gays, lesbians and transgender people living in the Global South.

In the last decade of the 20th Century, a new heightened visibility began spreading throughout the developing world and the battles between families, fundamentalist religions, and governments around sexual and gender identity had begun. But in the West, few people knew about this historic social upheaval, until 52 men on Cairo’s Queen Boat discothèque were arrested for crimes of debauchery. That explosive story focused attention to the lives and trials of gay people coming out in the developing world and the film chronicles those events. For more, click here

Lock, Chains and a City is a creative and evocative look at the increasing security measures taken by the residents of San Jose, Costa Rica against a perceived rise in crime in the capital city. The film is a personal essay of the filmmaker's own experience at his parent's house, which - like many other middle to upper class homes in San Jose - begins to look like a barricaded fortress due to one break and entry where a carton of orange juice was stolen and left empty on the driveway.

Through the bundles of razor wire, titanium bars, and alarm systems, we see a society that is continually enclosing themselves in their own prisons in an effort to keep out thieves and other imagined riff raff. For more, click here

7:30pm, Concordia University, 1455 deMaisonneuve West, room H-110. For more: www.cinemapolitica.org

Wednesday, February 15th

Comedy on the Main's Comedy for the Loveless Here's the deal: comedy is funny, beer is yummy and cheap ($1 a bottle, seriously), sandwiches are tiny and $5 gets you in, AND...AND...AND you can win an all-expenses dinner-and-a-movie date* with the sexy comedian of your choice: De Anne Smith, Chantel Marostica, David Akerflug, Peter Radomski, George Braithwaite, Dan Bingham or Kwasi Thomas.

* Action not guaranteed, except with Akerflug

9pm, Kandyba Cuisine, 4147 St. Laurent