Catalog

Record Details

Catalog Search



Mr. know-it-all : the tarnished wisdom of a filth elder  Cover Image Book Book

Mr. know-it-all : the tarnished wisdom of a filth elder / John Waters.

Waters, John, 1946- (author.).

Summary:

Waters relates themes about which he is an expert, including: how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and how to cheat death itself. Through it all, Waters swears by one undeniable truth: "Whatever you might have heard, there is absolutely no downside to being famous. None at all." -- author's website.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780374214968
  • ISBN: 0374214964
  • Physical Description: x, 372 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
  • Edition: First edition.
  • Publisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [365]-370).
Formatted Contents Note:
Mr. know-it-all -- Bye bye, underground -- Accidentally commercial -- Going Hollywood -- Clawing my way higher -- Tepid applause -- Sliding back down -- Back in the gutter -- I got rhythm -- Act bad -- Gristle -- Delayed -- Overexposed -- Flashback -- One-track mind -- My brutalist dream house -- No vacation -- Betsy -- Run-on Andy -- My son, Bill -- Grim reaper.
Subject: Waters, John, 1946-
Motion picture producers and directors > United States > Biography.
Aging > Anecdotes.
Artists > United States > Biography.
Older gay men > United States > Biography.

Available copies

  • 1 of 1 copy available at Kenton County.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Covington Branch B W3293 2019 (Text) 33126022538379 Adult Biography Available -

  • Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2019 January #1

    Pink Flamingos directorial genius, New York Times best-selling author, and a budding novelist (stay tuned), Waters gives advice from nurturing extreme musical taste to building a house in which only you would dare live. His final word: "Whatever you might have heard, there is absolutely no downside to being famous.

    Copyright 2018 Library Journal.
  • Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2019 May

    Movie director/artist/lecture circuit speaker/all-around trash-talking raconteur Waters has aged, but he hasn't lost his power to provoke. Now in his 70s, Waters still dishes the dirt, outrages and offends, and snarks wonderfully. This collection of essays and musings (after his hitchhiking memoir Carsick) goes on a somewhat chronological path from well-polished tales of cult filmmaking and trashy indulgence to mainstream success, infamy to fame, reminiscences of a pre-AIDS sex and drugs era, even a fantasy of his death and burial. Interspersed are chapters calling for filth activism, gossiping about on-set behavior, serving up sex tips, throwing Hollywood bouquets and bombs, hectoring a malformed baby doll, and considering an acid trip. Some of the longer pieces read more like movie storyboards and get bogged down in excess—Waters even manages to make his own death into an extended zombie apocalypse movie. But the man in the Maybelline mustache will have readers laughing one minute and gagging the next, all while rejoicing that this "filth elder" still walks (or crawls) the earth. VERDICT For once and future Waters fans. [See Prepub Alert, 12/6/18; "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/1/19.]—Liz French, Library Journal

    Copyright 2019 Library Journal.

Additional Resources