John Waters, the man with the pencil-thin mustache, the auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, the original Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame. He comes to Cambridge now as Mr. Know-It-All. In a friendly chat with local author Alysia Abbott ([Fairyland](http://www.alysiaabbott.com/fairyland) ) he shares his wisdom about the strange ways of Hollywood; how to dress "disaster at the drycleaners"; how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself. Image: Book cover
John Waters’ books Role Models (2010) and Carsick (2014) were national bestsellers, and his spoken-word shows This Filthy World and A John Waters Christmas continue to be performed around the world. Indecent Exposure, a retrospective exhibition of Waters’s acclaimed artwork, was recently shown at the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. He is at work on a novel. Photo Credit: Greg Gorman
Alysia Abbott is the author of Fairyland, A Memoir of My Father, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and an ALA Stonewall Award winner and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. She grew up in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the only child of gay poet and writer, Steve Abbott.