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. 

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.  

‘Does that mean you’re on the cover?’ the little one asked, incredulously. No, it means the profile I wrote about blogger Andrew Sullivan fooled the editors (of Harvard Magazine, yet!) and that Andrew’s mug didn’t break the camera. Read it here.

Where would you rather have a meal in New York — Per Se or Torrisi? My foodie friend Carla Capalbo knows all, and after her review of Torrisi, I bet you forget all about Per Se.

Kate McGarrigle, just 63, died of cancer in January. If you knew the music she made with her sister Anna, you probably felt the sadness I did, for Kate was not just a exemplary singer, the way she sang and what she sang told you she was an extraordinary  person. (Her children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and her sister share some memories here.) At New York’s Town Hall, on Thursday, May 12, and Friday, May 13, there will be a celebration of her life — and what a celebration it will be: Martha and Rufus and Anna, Jimmy Fallon, Emmylou Harris, Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons), Teddy Thompson. All profits from these shows will go toward the creation of the Kate McGarrigle Sarcoma Research Fund in association with the Sarcoma Foundation of America (SFA). I would suggest that, if you can be there, the greater profits will be recorded on your soul. Need convincing? Here are Kate and Anna, with Linda Ronstadt, so long ago.    

….who started to watch the HBO "Mildred Pierce" mini-series and found it so painful that I had to bail after five minutes? Granted, I tasted only a sliver, but what I saw was so obvious, such a dumbed-down version of the original book and movie, that I machine-gunned the remote to the first thing that resembled a movie with genuine entertainment value. Which turned out to be "Scary Movie," as filthy and funny as I remembered it. You want "Mildred Pierce?" There’s only one. Come and get it.

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation celebrates its third birthday this week, and Sheila Weller’s page-turner has just passed its 110,000 retail sales mark. Ms. Weller is celebrating with a 2-for-1 offer: “Buy it on Amazon, then ‘Message’ me on Facebook with your receipt and your name/address, and I’ll send you a second copy, signed.” My first thought: how nice to come upon a savvy marketing idea in the mostly unimaginative book biz. My second thought was better, and all about you: what a smart, easy gift for birthdays, graduations and "just because."

Funny, real, compelling and funny again, “Win Win” is worth every effort you may need to make to find it. In the theater where I saw it, there was cheering along the way, and more at the end. In New York. Cheers. The less you know about the movie, the more you’ll love it, but, okay, here’s the preview. If you go and hate it, write me — I’ll buy your ticket. [Viewer’s aid: The conversation that starts the preview, with Mom and Daughter in bed. Daughter: ‘Where’s Dad?’ Mom: ‘Running.’ Daughter: ‘From what?’]

Roger Friedman reports: A week before the opening  of “The Book of Mormon,” the show is playing at 101% in previews. And opening night is the hottest ticket in town. And when did HeadButler.com encourage you to buy tickets? JANUARY 17.