Resolute

I stole one my New Year's Resolutions from Marianne at 716 Comic. In one of the volumes, she says that she tries to do one thing a week that can only be done in New York. I am not quite so strict--I have been trying to do one thing a week that New York makes it easy to do. So if a band is on tour or there is an independent movie I want to, I count it, even though, technically, I could do those things somewhere else.

So far I've been doing pretty well. I missed a week or two, but did a few things a couple weeks, so it events out. Here is a sampling.

1) The Annie Leibovitz exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. While her celebrity pictures seem increasingly gimicky, the photos of her friends and family, including the post-mortem shots of Susan Sontag, were touching.

2) The African Comics Show at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Beautiful, touching, and brillant, as promised.

3) Sleepwalkers, the films of Douglas Aitken projected on side of MOMA. We wisely went on one of the coldest nights of the year, but the movies were still haunting.

4) Frances, at the Mercury Lounge. Neilson's downstairs roommate is the bassist in the band. Unlike many bands of friends, this one is actually good.

5) Jonathan Richman at the Knitting Factory. He was at his blissed out best and seemed on the verge of tears as realized how much the crowd loved him.

6) Steve Malkmus and the Jicks at Maxwells. A great show, with more intense guitar based rocking out than I was expecting. We got to go for free, because Neilson is college friends with the guitarist. He brought us free beers from the backstage lounge. (Also, Maxwells has great quesadillas, if you even happen to be in Hoboken.)

Coming Up: New York Comic Con and Steve Earle at the Blue Note.