Weekend Butler: Don’t-miss NYC art show (Pierre Bonnard). Meet me on Saturday night (Josh Ritter). Lin-Manuel Miranda raps (at the White House). Wisdom from Smarties. A one-skillet recipe.

PIERRE BONNARD: DON’T MISS THIS I wrote a play about Matisse and knew Bonnard was his friend, but in the mental ranking that art-lovers are prone to, I didn’t consider Bonnard as Matisse’s equal, not nearly. I’ve now visited this rare show of 22 Bonnard paintings three times, and I may...

Weekend Butler: Josh Ritter would like to gift you 2 tickets. Now will you read the Pulitzer-winning novel? Phrase of the week: “malignant narcissism.” How rich is King Charles? A one-pot dinner. And more.

THE PULITZER “Trust” just won the Pulitzer Prize, shared — for the first time in the history of these awards —with “Demon Copperhead.” The citation: “A riveting novel set in a bygone America that explores family, wealth and ambition through linked narratives rendered in different literary styles, a complex examination...

Weekend Butler: Personal histories: E. Jean Carroll and Josh Ritter. The surprisingly political Taylor Swift. Music you’ve never heard. A new way to cook salmon. And more….

PERSONAL HISTORY: IN DEFENSE OF E.J. CARROLL Trump’s lawyer has claimed there’s no way Trump could have raped E. Jean Carroll [photo, above] in a Bergdorf’s dressing room --- the store is crowded with people, even Trump wouldn’t have risked a woman screaming when she was attacked. But I recall the...

Josh Ritter: “Change of Time”

In my dream, we were in Jamaica, staying at a small hotel that was the Negril equivalent of the Bel Air --- so discreet that beach walkers could stroll past it without noticing it. One afternoon, we left this paradise and walked down the beach to a cluster of bars...

Weekend Edition: Spend the weekend without the news. ‘Squid Game.’ Liz Cheney. Josh Ritter, and more.

SPEND THE WEEKEND WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE NEWS Curtis Mayfield was soul music’s Prince of Optimism -- and he sometimes got depressed. When that happened, he went to the movies. Why? “Movies are dreams,” he said. “And dreams are what we live on.” This is a good weekend to avoid despair...

Josh Ritter: Fever Breaks

A Josh Ritter CD. Produced by Jason Isbell. With the 400 Unit as the recording band. If these names mean anything to you, this is terrific news. If these names are unfamiliar, you must be new to Butler. I’ve written about Josh Ritter here and here and here and here and here,...

Josh Ritter: The Gathering

In a parallel life, I’m in a band with Zach Hickman, Sam Kassirer, Josh Kaufman and Ray Rizzo. I’ve been voted one of the hundred best living songwriters. You hear my songs on college FM stations and at the end of popular TV shows. I’ve published a novel. I paint. Onstage, I...

Josh Ritter: Sermon on the Rocks

I’m one of Josh Ritter’s Top 10 fans, but you’d never know it from the way I react to his CDs when they’re first released. I resist them. Mightily. Instead of embracing the new, I fall in love all over again with the last CD he made. And then, six...

Josh Ritter: “If you want to see a miracle, watch me get down.”

New song. New CD coming. Counting the days. ...

Josh Ritter’s Acoustic Tour: Step right this way

Did you seriously think I wouldn't slip Josh Ritter into my novel? If so, silly you. Here's what I wrote: I set my iPhone for random music, inserted my ear buds, and listened as I walked. There was even some striding --- give me a crisp drummer and a bass player...

Josh Ritter: One of those nights….

It takes large stones to begin a show in a noisy, jammed New York club by coming out solo, dropping to your knees and howling like an Idaho wolf. Josh Ritter did that. He began his second song, also solo. Then, one by one, the other musicians stepped onstage and,...

Josh Ritter: The Beast In Its Tracks

I love silent days crafting sentences alone, but if you put a gun to my head and told me I’d have to trade my maid’s room for the stages of music clubs and universal critical praise and the adulation of America’s smartest audiences.... yeah, I guess I could stand being...

Josh Ritter: ‘I guess it adds up/ to joy in the end.’

Two years ago, on tour in Canada, Josh Ritter got a phone call from his wife. Marriage over. After 14 months. Okay, so at the lowest moments of our lives it’s music that gives us comfort. But what if you’re a musician whose life gets flattened --- whose music do...

Josh Ritter: ‘Bringing in the Darlings’

Josh, on his new, 6-song effort, recorded and mixed in 4 days: “I knew I wasn't making my next album here, but something smaller, and that smallness felt really good. I was listening to a lot of early Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, and the Everly Brothers, and the mood struck me...

Josh Ritter: The Cheat Sheet

Josh Ritter is a poster child for this site --- a great talent who produces real art and deserves to be better known. I’m a fool for his songwriting, his CDs and his performances, which is why I've written about him more often than I have about any other musician....

Josh Ritter: Not a CD, Not a Concert….A Book!

Josh Ritter has written a novel. Between concerts and writing songs and recording them --- in what you and I would call spare time. Bright’s Passage has terrific credentials: Random House/Dial Press, praise from a Poet Laureate. It’s not out until June 28th, but you can read Chapter One now....

Josh Ritter, Tarrytown, NY, 8/7

Josh Ritter will be at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Saturday, August 7th at 8 PM. It's a small (800 seats) old bandbox, an ideal venue for a singer/songwriter. If years past are a guide, the Josh/Tarrytown combo is a fine mini-expedition: a pleasant drive, a stroll along the Hudson,...

Josh Ritter: Reader Reviews

Four times a week, the daily newsletter reminds you what’s new on the site, and then, in Friday’s Weekend Edition, I free-associate and share bright thoughts you’ve sent me. (The signup is easy: look to the right, type in your e-mail address, hit ‘submit.’ ) Last Friday, subscribers got a...

Josh Ritter. NYC. 5/20. Coming?

The 5/20 show was sold out well before the CD was released. (Some tickets are available for the 5/19 show.) If you're one of the lucky and/or smart people with tickets for the 20th --- the night my wife and I are going --- and want to make some kind of Head...

Josh Ritter: So Runs the World Away

I’m one of those rabid fans who thinks Josh Ritter belongs in the same sentence as Springsteen, Simon, Dylan and Cohen --- but the first few times I played his new CD, So Runs the World Away, I was seriously unhappy. It was just too different from 2007’s The Historical Conquests of...