Short Takes

Heading out to see a 68-year-old rocker, you can’t help but ask yourself: Can he still do it? Last weekend, in a delightful bandbox of a New Jersey club, on the hottest day of the year and working under lights that added a few degrees, Garland Jeffreys proved he could --- and then some. Working with a band of astonishing crispness, he rolled through his new CD, his greater hits and a golden oldie; he even jumped off the stage and sang on a table. It was a life-affirming, righteous performance --- his wife, who has no doubt seen him perform before, jumped out of her chair and danced --- and you won’t be wasting your time if you check his tour schedule to see if he’s coming your way.

You, of course, recognize that line --- from an e.e. cummings poem. On Friday, when the news came from Norway, no one at The New York Times thought of it; the first Times stories focused on a kneejerk equation: “terror” equals “al Qaeda” and “Muslims” and “jihad.” But no one got it as wrong as Jennifer Rubin, who blogs for The Washington Post under the banner of “Right Turn.” Late Friday afternoon, she suggested that the Norway bombing and shootings were likely connected to al Qaeda and jihadists. Very soon after, the world learned that the Norwegian police had arrested a white, blond, Christian, right-wing, native-born extremist, but Ms. Rubin went on to post four more blogs on Saturday, and then, finally, at 8 PM on Saturday night, got around to making…. well, see if you call this an apology. I write about Ms. Rubin not to make a political point --- the Butler ground rules wire my jaw shut --- but a journalistic one: What does it say about the Washington Post that she is still employed? 

It's "Pumped Up Kicks," from Foster the People. Listen to it once and you'll be its slave. Here is the real-world reference. You can download it here. This is an acoustic version, more personal, more gorgeous. And charming? Look how the drummer has taped his wallet to the drum head A reader responds:  “Fine, you've had your fun...now be kind enough to publish the antidote. I am 50 years old and simply cannot continue walking through my days thinking, humming or mindlessly singing aloud (at times performing jerky little shoulder shrugs to the beat, god help me). I would never have encountered this song if it weren't for Head Butler, so you get ALL the blame!”

"Lost hours and secrets too/ No one will find but you/ Falling is like brand new rain/ Places I have never been/ I thought these things would come to me/ Love is another country, and I want to go." That is Tift Merritt, from Another Country, and in a month when the national conversation is ugly, I find it heals.

Summer is cruel to the poor --- and especially to poor children. Seventeen million American kids get free lunches during the school year. In summer, they get nothing. The effect of hunger is never good, but when it comes to kids, hunger slows brain development, and kids come back to school in September less able to handle the challenges. Share Our Strength --- a terrific organization; we turned our wedding into a benefit for it --- has teamed up with the Ansara Family Fund at the Boston Foundation. Every dollar you donate, up to $25,000, will be matched. To get acquainted with SOS, click here. To make a tax-deductible contribution, click here. 

No doubt you know of GiltCity.com, the site that sells luxury items and experiences at preferred pricing. What you may not know:  The blogs of Gilt City's “Unlisted” site give you very savvy, very inside information about goods, services and experiences in New York (and, soon, more cities.) And now Head Butler will be appearing there, probably every Monday. Is it copy I’ve cut-and-pasted from this site? No, although sometimes I’ll surely be inspired to expand on ideas and reviews I’ve already shared here. As I was, in my first column, urging readers to see “Tree of Life.” To find me, click here. 

Where it's playing. Why to go:

No. Not true. But if you’re interested in East/West spiritual/psychological integration, you can chat up the author of The Art of Flourishing: A New East-West Approach to Staying Sane and Finding Love in an Insane World at a book launch/signing at Tibet House, 22 West 15 Street, this Thursday (6/16), 7-9 PM. 

The soloist amazes me. Bet she'll bring tears to your eyes too.

Kudos to those of you who picked up on Steve Lerner’s Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States when I reviewed it last fall. It has just won the Lillian Smith Book Award, the South's oldest and best-known book award. (Previous winners include James Farmer, John Lewis, and Alice Walker.) “Sacrifice Zones” is an exhaustive chronicle of toxic chemical exposure in our country --- if you want to get angry over something more substantial than the daily scrum on cable TV, here’s your book.  

We can't use our 3 tickets to War Horse --- a play that seems to sell out for every performance. They're for the 2 PM matinee on Saturday, June 4. Excellent seats: Row J in the Orchestra. Yours for $425. Write me.

We went to see The Normal Heart on Broadway last night. (Tickets are 50% off at TKTS.) I had seen the original production in 1985, when we had a President so opposed to acknowledging homosexuals that he didn’t speak the name of the disease until 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with it and 20,849 of them had died. You may imagine what it was like, then and now, to sit in a largely gay audience and watch a play about the start of the AIDS epidemic and the men who tried, with little success, to get the city and medical establishment interested in it. Buckets of tears. A standing ovation. And, this time, the consolation that we have made some progress in the last 25 years. 

But when we came home, there was the news, from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker “believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it.” It is my mandate at HeadButler.com not to discuss politics here, but Gov. Walker’s denial of human tenderness at a moment of ultimate vulnerability has nothing to do with politics. It’s much deeper. In a word, I did not understand how this man --- a churchgoer and the son of a minister --- could call himself a Christian. 
 
To write the governor is to waste the effort; I’m sure all out-of-state e-emails are routinely dismissed by aides as some sort of liberal harassment. So I looked up the church he is said to attend --- the Meadowbrook Church, in Wauwatosa --- and saw how to contact the Senior Pastor, John Mackett.
 
This is what I wrote. Perhaps it will inspire you to do the same. (If so, I’ll love it if you’d send me a copy: HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com.)
 
Pastor Mackett –
 
The Journal Sentinel reports that Gov. Walker, who is said to worship with you, “believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it.”
 
This does not strike me as consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Of the many Bible passages that come to mind, the most compelling for me is Matthew 25:31-46: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” A sick homosexual whose personal relationship enjoys less than equal legal status in Wisconsin --- wouldn’t you agree this is someone Jesus had in mind?
 
As you’ll recall, the passage in Matthew goes on to condemn those who turned away from the least of these: “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” And Jesus condemns those people to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” If you take the Bible seriously --- and your web site tells me “the pastors’ sermons are always based upon the Bible, God’s written Word for us” --- are you, Pastor Mackett, not at risk of eternal damnation if you do not speak up about issues like this?
 
I may have it wrong. It may be that Gov. Walker’s views on denying homosexuals the right to visit loved ones in the hospital are consistent with your ministry. If so, would you correct my misunderstanding?
 
Many thanks.
Jesse Kornbluth
HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com  

The Paul Simon concert in Toronto. A young woman called out for "Duncan." She shouted that it was the first song she'd learned to play on guitar and sing. Paul invited her onstage. And then....please click.

If I got all my income from HeadButler.com, my family would live in the park. Could the site be a serious moneymaker? Maybe. I could slather the screens with ads for penis extenders. I could review porn. I could get you bargain prices on shit that's not worth owning. But I don't. 'Admire a large village, cultivate a small one,' Virgil says, and that's my motto. Not that you're entitled to know this, but when people ask, 'Do you make money?' I respond, 'Butler pays the maid.' Okay, a little more. But nothing that would make you quit your day job to take the site over from me.

So I get pissed off when someone writes to suggest that I put no BUY links in my reviews. He writes: 'Makes me think you’re getting a kickback and I have you on a higher pedestal than that.'

Let's clear this up, once and for all.

Kickback? It's called a COMMISSION, and it's not huge. You click on a BUY link on Butler, buy the thing from Amazon.com, and I get a commission that varies between 7% and 8.5%. [Put a selection in your shopping cart, let 24 hours elapse, and I get nothing. Cool move, Amazon.]

Yes, I could put links to BN.com, so those of you with Nooks can make your purchases effortless. But go back to paragraph one: Butler is not my sole activity. Servicing Barnes & Noble customers is a chore I don't need. Just type BN.com into your browser, type in the name of the book you want to buy, and you're there. Five seconds work for you would be a pain in the ass for me.

There are two alternatives to my modest effort at commerce. Twice a year, like many other bloggers, I could put out a "tip jar" and you could send me some green love via Paypal. Or Butler could become subscription-only. Would you pay $25 a year? If these ideas appeal to you --- they don't thrill me --- please write me.

Make of this what you want. Here's my takeaway: There's always more money, you only have one name. Mine is pretty clean, considering how filthy the media business has become. So don't, please, use 'kickback' if we're ever in a room together, because I will be tempted to bloody your fucking face. 

I have seen Movits, and you didn't, and boy, did you miss a great one. These are Swedes who used to rap, but then heard ‘30s swing and combined the two. The leader is the Philip Seymour Hoffman of Scandinavian music, the sax player thinks he’s backing Springsteen, the mixmaster is a paler blonde than Anita Ekberg. The show flies by --- these guys could auction tobacco if music fails them. I understand not a word of Swedish, but it didn’t hardly matter, because Movits makes exciting music, like nothing you’ve ever heard or seen. A legendary show. Console yourself with the CD.

I want to see Jerusalem. And The Normal Heart. I’m on my way to both plays --- as soon as I recover from the vast, unsettling, brutal and beautiful Alexander McQueen retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fashion? Oh, it’s so much more. Sculpture, obviously; these clothes start with a passionate concern with fit and form, and then come materials never used in fashion. But also theater: a breeze blows a dress made of silk parachute cloth. After a while, a line of Yeats lodged in my head --- “A terrible beauty is born” --- and that, plus the sadness of McQueen’s suicide, had me near tears for the rest of the show. “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” is at the Met until July 31. Go early in the day, if possible – this show will be mobbed. Here are some more videos. And, if you can’t get to New York, here’s a fine book about this show. 

Anne Hathaway stars in the film adaptation of One Day, the insanely popular novel about friends who resist becoming lovers. The movie opens in mid-August. Already, English fans of the book have their doubts that it can measure up to the novel. Watch the trailer, read the book, have a semi-informed opinion. 

Pants? Not quite banished. But skirts and dresses are ascendant. As is the golden glow of a healthy tan.  And that is why God made Sally Hansen Airbrush Leg Spray.

When we last left Lori Lieberman, a LA-based singer-songwriter of Mack truck intensity and crystalline delivery, I had become a big fan of her CD, Gun Metal Sky, and was off to see her in a rare New York appearance. Now she’s recorded an even more personal CD, Bend Like Steel. Here's a song. And here’s the ticket information about her return to New York: Joe’s Pub, Sunday, May 1, at 7:30. I'll be the guy at the bar, looking very impressed.