FEED YOUR MIND

If your New Year’s resolution is to better your mind and kick the Facebook habit, there are two performances today that will set you on the right path. The Poetry Project’s 36th Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Benefit Reading is the starriest of the two with artists including Steve Earle, Philip Glass, Lenny Kaye, Jonas Mekas, and Elliott Sharp, performing all day long inside the lovely St. Mark’s Church. If you want free entertainment (and who doesn’t?), Broken Light: The 16th Annual Alternative New Year’s Day Spoken Word Extravaganza requires no tickets for 10 hours of performances from more than 150 artists; you can also score yourself some good karma by bringing a paperback for the prisoner literacy program Books Through Bars or canned food for the homeless.

Fri., Jan. 1, noon, 2010