Anarchic, arrhythmic insomniacs

Montreal’s third annual Anarchist Book and Freedom Fair kicks off this Friday, May 17, at 5:30 p.m. with Visions of Anarchy, a panel discussion that includes B.C. indigenous activist Gord Hill and Oscar Carillo Arroyo, a Montreal-area activist and refugee from Mexico. The book fair, with over 60 tables and numerous workshops, is on from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m on Saturday, May 18. It’s all happening at 1710 Beaudry. Info: www.tao.ca/~lombrenoire.
After loading up on radical literature, you might want to catch some of the talent at Sunday’s Words and Music at the Casa. The show, a benefit for the book fair, features New York-based Canadian poet, cultural theorist and performance artist Adeena Karasick. A recent winner of the Edgewise Electrolit International Videopoem Award, lately she’s been tweaking a CD-ROM and a new “intra-genre” text called Arrhythmatrix. While all this might sound very egghead, Karasick’s live performances are guaranteed to be a language storm of psychedelic intensity.

From Toronto’s Annex, Insomniac author and creative dynamo Catherine Jenkins is coming to Montreal with her new novel, Swimming in the Ocean. Already known for her poetry, Jenkins also has a screenplay and a Master’s thesis on hardboiled literature under her belt. Other performers include Montreal spoken word phenomenon Fortner Anderson, poet Jim Slominski, who won second prize this year in the CBC Literary Competition, and Vendettas’ frontman and self-described “punk poet” troubador Paul Cargnello. May 19 at 4873 St-Laurent, 8 p.m. $5. :

—Vincent Tinguely