John Waters

Original New York City icon Kembra Pfahler has terrorized and tantalized audiences since her arrival in the Lower East Side in the early 1980s. Originally associated with Cinema of Transgression, Kembra supported her films with work at an independent porn studio. In the 1990s, she launched The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, a rock band associated with Kiss, Alice Cooper, and White Zombie. Nude and covered in paint, with blackened teeth and bouffant hair, Kembra developed a reputation for wild performance that reached far beyond the Lower East Side. Elements of Kabuki theater, surfing, bugs, and giant sharks from her legendary shows were later repurposed for performance art. Beginning in the early 2000s, Pfahler titillated gallery-goers with openings featuring dozens of painted women, butt-prints, and performances involving endurance and strength. With galleries including Real Fine Art, Deitch Projects, and The Hole, Kembra created a visual lexicon incorporating occult imagery, bondage, and challenging forms of femininity. Through teaching, activism, and performance art, Pfahler serves as a mentor to students, and in recent years, muse to designers including Rick Owens and Casey Cadwallader of Mugler. Collecting four decades of ephemera, performance documentation, road pictures, and more, the book celebrates Kembra Pfahler as counter-cultural star.

"Burroughs famously dubbed Waters the Pope of Trash. Female Trouble, we might say, is his Summa Trashologica."--Ed Halter, The Criterion Collection It all goes to hell when Baltimore bad girl Dawn Davenport doesn't get the cha-cha heels she's been demanding for Christmas. In this hilarious, irreverent, pyrotechnic melee of high-trash hijinks, Dawn ruins Christmas, skips town, and embarks on a wild ride that involves hitchhiking, robbery, murder, pregnancy--and, of course, modeling and glamour, too. The second installment of John Waters' classic Trash Trilogy, Female Trouble explodes conventional norms of good behavior (and art) and is all the proof you'll ever need that sometimes being bad can feel so, so very good.

A feel-good fable and an enduring critique of conformity told with true John Waters flair. Tracy Turnblad, a spunky, full-figured Baltimore teen, wants nothing more than to be a featured dancer on The Corny Collins Show. So when she gets chosen to be on the air, it seems like all her dreams are about to come true. But when she and some of the Black cast of the show try to integrate the segregated dancing, things take on a life of their own. A sweet, hopeful parable about the dangers of conformity and segregation, Hairspray is perhaps the one optimistic entry in John Waters' shocking and delightfully deranged oeuvre. Both a clear-eyed social critique and a celebration of the dizzying aesthetics of Baltimore in the early 1960s, this is another, softer side to the essential John Waters.

A very John Waters traveling show, replete with freaks, robbery, murder, sex, blasphemy, and savage shellfish--a lurid, surreal celebration of camp and trash. The Cavalcade of Perversion is a traveling show run by Lady Divine and a crew of her fellow degenerates. They have to drag suburban housewives into each vile, tasteless performance--only to rob them at gunpoint at the end of each show. When Divine gets bored of the routine and graduates to murdering the attendees one day, it sets her off on a rampage, hunting down her cheating lover, Mr. David, and unleashing a chain of frenzy, a truly blasphemous sex act, and a surreal violation by a giant lobster. Multiple Maniacs is John Waters' paean to the glories of trash. As Lady Divine chants as she marches proudly into downtown Baltimore at the end of the movie, "I'm a maniac A maniac that cannot be cured O Divine, I am Di-vine "

John Waters takes us back to the scene of his original crime against good taste. Watch as Babs Johnson fights to hold on to her title as “Filthiest Person Alive,“ fending off the craven attempts to dethrone her by her nemeses Connie and Raymond Marble. Read along as Waters takes us on a romp through his camp and filthy vision of Baltimore, from nefarious baby-stealing lesbians to scenes of unspeakable things done to unsuspecting chickens, to the film’s iconic and revolting coup de grace (no spoilers, but it is just as stomach-churning on the page more than fifty years later!). Pink Flamingos is John Waters at his provocative, disgusting, piety-puncturing best, with the hellish and hilarious trash masterpiece that first made him a household name.

On the verge of a suburban mental health crisis, frazzled and wildly unstable housewife Peggy (immortalised by Mink Stole on-screen) runs away from home with her maid and partner in crime, Grizelda (played with spectacular gumption by the sizzling Jean Hill), only to end up in Mortville, a shantytown filled with society’s rejects. Mortville is run by the evil Queen Carlotta, who parades through the cardboard streets taunting and terrorising her subjects. John Waters’ wild and visionary fable lampoons everything from the staid conservatism of the American dream to race and class relations. The New York Times ranked Desperate Living at “the highest peak atop [John Waters’] trash heap of a filmography.” High praise indeed!

Fifteen years after the events of Pink Flamingos, Babs Johnson returns to Baltimore from a life spent largely in bus station lavatories, only to find that she once again has to fight for the right to claim the title of “World’s Filthiest Person.” Her nemesis Connie Marble’s sister, Vera Venninger, and her necrophiliac husband, Wilbur, are in her way. So begins a new battle of filth. This raucous, filthy - and essential! - volume in John Waters’ oeuvre never made it to the screen, so this is readers’ and his legions of fans’ one chance to see how this ghastly and irreverent saga meets its end!

This book may become to the reality of the past five years what Winston Smith's diary proposed it might become within the fictional world of 1984. It is intended, first of all, as a permanent record of events that only a few comprehended - in the depths of their meanings and significance - while they were happening; a book - as Winston said - 'For the future, for the unborn'. In that future it may be hard to persuade people that what happened from the spring of 2020 really did happen. Either the past will have been erased to such an extent that no one will know human liberty ever existed, or else a revolution of human consciousness will make it improbable that human beings could ever have so easily been duped into surrendering the rights and freedoms their ancestors had won in blood.A fake pandemic was the signal that one morning began the foreclosure on everything that had, until the evening before, been axiomatically central to the idea of liberal, democratic, constitutional republics. The most shocking thing was not so much that this started to happen, but that almost no one seemed to object to it happening; almost no one sought to cite or defend the rights and liberties being overturned. Liberals fell silent; leftists joined in the clamouring for more and more tyranny.In The Abolition of Reality, John Waters describes not just what happened but the meaning of what happened, in the course of what may well be judged by history - if there is a historiographical record of the times to come - as the most heinous crime of all time.About the AuthorJOHN WATERS (b. 1955) Having started his career in 1981 with the Irish Music journal Hot Press, John Waters was a columnist with The Irish Times between 1990 and 2014. His first book, Jiving at the Crossroads (1991) became a massive best-seller. He went on to write and publish nine other books, including An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Ireland (Duckworth, 1997), Was it for this? Why Ireland lost the plot (Transworld Ireland, 2012) and Give Us Back the Bad Roads (Currach Press, 2018). He has written a number of plays for stage and radio and contributed to the American magazine First Things and the British magazine The Spectator. Since September 2020, he has been publishing his work twice weekly on Substack, via his newsletter/website John Waters Unchained. The Abolition of Reality is his eleventh book.

Known for his outdoor photography of young people cavorting in the nude, McGinley s YEARBOOK ventures into the artist s studio, creating more intimate portraits almost character studies--of his models. The project was initiated in 2010, before the advent of Instagram, which is now the most important platform for sharing his work and connecting with fans. His subjects are often friends or part of his extended community of artists, creatives, and street kids exude candid awareness of the camera, creating powerful, alluring images that define a new-bohemian coterie. As a master chronicler of downtown New York City for two decades, McGinley captures the lives of the young and restless, earning acclaim as the voice of his generation and indelibly capturing the millennial zeitgeist. The book will feature brief interviews with many of the models discussing their lives and what they do. And cult film director John Waters will pen the foreword.

'It's just as deliciously witty and delightfully deviant as you'd expect from the man William Burroughs called the "Pope of Trash"' Independent 'Waters is undoubtedly among the greatest American comedians of all time' Far OutA hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All.Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She's smart, she's desperate, she's disturbed, and she's on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her "Liarmouth" - until one insane man makes her tell the truth.John Waters's first novel, Liarmouth, is a perfectly perverted "feel-bad romance," and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.

A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All. Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She's smart, she's desperate, she's disturbed, and she's on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth--until one insane man makes her tell the truth. Liarmouth, the first novel by John Waters, is a perfectly perverted "feel-bad romance," and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.

A hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All. Marsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She's smart, she's desperate, she's disturbed, and she's on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth--until one insane man makes her tell the truth. Liarmouth, the first novel by John Waters, is a perfectly perverted "feel-bad romance," and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.

No one knows more about everything - especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling - than John Waters. The man in the pencil-thin mustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, the original Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame, is one of the world's great sophisticates, and in Mr. Know-It-All he serves it up raw: 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; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, 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."Studded with cameos of Waters's stars, from Divine and Mink Stole to Johnny Depp, Kathleen Turner, Patricia Hearst, and Tracey Ullman, and illustrated with unseen photos from Waters's personal collection, Mr. Know-It-All is Waters's most hypnotically readable, upsetting, revelatory book - another instant Waters classic.'Waters doesn't kowtow to the received wisdom, he flips it the bird . . . [Waters] has the ability to show humanity at its most ridiculous and make that funny rather than repellent' Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post'Carsick becomes a portrait not just of America's desolate freeway nodes - though they're brilliantly evoked - but of American fame itself' Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times Book Review

Reflecting the latest Royal College curricula in scope and format, Self-Assessment Questions for the MRCP Part 2 is a valuable tool for candidates hoping to succeed in the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians Part 2 examination. 270 best of five questions spread across two volumes mirror the format of the exam, whilst extensive answer sections include detailed explanations, tutorials, and further reading, providing deeper learning and understanding of the subject. The answers review the thought processes and techniques that underlie selection of the correct answer whilst tutorials focus on hot topics and emerging evidence. Written and reviewed by experts in their respective fields, this trustworthy revision companion covers the complete range of topics on the MRCP syllabus. Brought to you by the team behind the bestselling Clinical Medicine for MRCP PACES, this set constitutes a realistic and comprehensive preparation guide for candidates sitting the MRCP Part 2.

The newest essay collection from the New York Times bestselling author John Waters, reflecting on how to overcome newfound respectability and rebel in the autumn of your years. No one knows more about everything--especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling--than John Waters. The man in the pencil-thin mustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame, is one of the world's great sophisticates, and in Mr. Know-It-All he serves it up raw: 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; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, 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." Studded with cameos, from Divine and Mink Stole to Johnny Depp, Kathleen Turner, Patricia Hearst, and Tracey Ullman, and illustrated with unseen photos from the author's personal collection, Mr. Know-It-All is Waters' most hypnotically readable, upsetting, revelatory book--another instant Waters classic. Praise for John Waters "Waters doesn't kowtow to the received wisdom, he flips it the bird . . . Waters] has the ability to show humanity at its most ridiculous and make that funny rather than repellent." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "Carsick becomes a portrait not just of America's desolate freeway nodes--though they're brilliantly evoked--but of American fame itself." --Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times Book Review

No one knows more about everything - especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling - than John Waters. The man in the pencil-thin mustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, the original Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame, is one of the world's great sophisticates, and in Mr. Know-It-All he serves it up raw: 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; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, 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."Studded with cameos of Waters's stars, from Divine and Mink Stole to Johnny Depp, Kathleen Turner, Patricia Hearst, and Tracey Ullman, and illustrated with unseen photos from Waters's personal collection, Mr. Know-It-All is Waters's most hypnotically readable, upsetting, revelatory book - another instant Waters classic.'Waters doesn't kowtow to the received wisdom, he flips it the bird . . . [Waters] has the ability to show humanity at its most ridiculous and make that funny rather than repellent' Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post'Carsick becomes a portrait not just of America's desolate freeway nodes - though they're brilliantly evoked - but of American fame itself' Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times Book Review

No one knows more about everything--especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling--than John Waters. The man in the pencil-thin mustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame, is one of the world's great sophisticates, and in Mr. Know-It-All he serves it up raw: 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; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, 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." Studded with cameos, from Divine and Mink Stole to Johnny Depp, Kathleen Turner, Patricia Hearst, and Tracey Ullman, and illustrated with unseen photos from the author's personal collection, Mr. Know-It-All is Waters' most hypnotically readable, upsetting, revelatory book--another instant Waters classic. "Waters doesn't kowtow to the received wisdom, he flips it the bird . . . Waters] has the ability to show humanity at its most ridiculous and make that funny rather than repellent." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "Carsick becomes a portrait not just of America's desolate freeway nodes--though they're brilliantly evoked--but of American fame itself." --Lawrence Osborne, The New York Times Book Review

From an icon of popular culture, here is inspiring advice for artists, graduates, and all who seek happiness and success on their own terms. So what if you have talent? Then what? When John Waters delivered his gleefully subversive advice to the graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, the speech went viral, in part because it was so brilliantly on point about making a living as a creative person. Now we can all enjoy his sly wisdom in a manifesto that reminds us, no matter what field we choose, to embrace chaos, be nosy, and outrage our critics. Anyone embarking on a creative path, he tells us, would do well to realize that pragmatism and discipline are as important as talent and that rejection is nothing to fear. Waters advises young people to eavesdrop, listen to their enemies, and horrify us with new ideas. In other words, MAKE TROUBLE Illustrated with slightly demented line drawings by Eric Hanson, Make Trouble is a one-of-a-kind gift, the perfect playbook for gaming the system by making the system work for you.