Said John Waters.
He also talks about his famous old quote "If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them."
“It did catch on!” he laughs. He says he’s seen it everywhere. “At the Strand bookshop in New York, there’s an entire display of it! I don’t mind that they did it. Sort of I did. They censored it! They don’t say fuck!” The key letters are starred out. “That’s what infuriated me!” He mentions that a friend of his, the drag queen Lady Bunny, called him out on its veracity. “She said: ‘I thought he [Waters] liked criminals?’ I believe in my own words, but maybe I don’t always practise what I preach.” He laughs again, and offers up a sequel. “Basically, if they’re cute enough, who’s looking at the library?”It's funny advice, but did anyone ever follow it? And just as the person with a rough exterior might have a kind heart, that person with no books on the shelf may very well have a Kindle.
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31 comments:
Proud to say, I never liked John Waters or Divine. Jeez, why watch contrived, anti-social weirdness, when you can laugh your butt off with Gene Wilder in "Blazing Saddles" or Paul Newman in "Slapshot."
I just downloaded "Multiple Maniacs" because I get Waters confused with David Lynch, who made some good shows. It looks awful.
Before cellphones it was area codes and zip codes dictating or suggesting who was fuckable...or something.
It was the topic in Sex and the City or maybe Seinfeld or maybe both.
Like the comedians claiming they will flee the country because a NYC boy won President,the hard cover paper books only crowd are a puzzle to me. Why such big reactions to such small differences. God forbid someone puts a pea under their Mattresses.
The anarchy mobs are a big deal. They are the left overs from The Lawless One's 8 years of rigging the government to self destruct on command.
DJT needs to go slow on is return to real law enforcement. It may take 8 years.
I met John Waters in a bathroom at the Atlanta Airport about 10-12 years ago.
Walked in, up to a urinal, looked into left and there he was.
Me: "Fancy meetin YOU here".
Him: Well, nothing, he just busted up laughing. He was really neat.
Here's Waters on Mike Pence (conversion therapy, etc.), dangerous toys for Christmas and his new business idea.
But doesn't Waters' business idea sound like conversion therapy?
A friend went home with a guy for the first time. The garage door went up on a pure-white room - no shelves on the white walls, and even the floor was painted white. They walked over to the door into the kitchen, and he said, "Just a minute." He grabbed a broom and dustpan, and swept up her (invisible) footprints.
She said, "This is not going to work out. Take me home now, please."
What a Brave New Morality our book reading betters are creating. A new kind of "positive" anarchy indeed. So far, so good.
I love a lot of Waters' early films....FEMALE TROUBLE, DESPERATE LIVING, and POLYESTER especially. They're really not so much comedies as "social horror films". Waters' parents were well-heeled Catholic Republicans, and he basically made his films to horrify his parents. HAIRSPRAY pretends to be about integrating blacks, but it's really a metaphor for integrating gays. His last worthwhile film was SERIAL MOM, if only for Kathleen Turner's amazing performance.
He's still a funny guy, but with life in a 24 hour news cycle, his ability to shock has faded. Time has passed him by.
His books SHOCK VALUE (mostly about the b movies he loves) and CRACK POT (mostly a memoir about making his early movies) are a lot of fun. The movies themselves are something else. I was an usher at a movie house that showed PINK FLAMINGOS at a midnight show circa 1974 & I have never heard an audience make a sound like the sound that audience made at the final scene.
Why would you ever go home with someone before you even knew whether or not they read books?
Don't go home with strangers! That's insane. I'm amazed that people do that.
Don't hate me because I read the cliff notes 😉
"Him: Well, nothing, he just busted up laughing. He was really neat."
I can't resist.
Twenty years ago I went into a country club bar in Miami Lakes with my friend. My friend recognized the only other gent sitting at the bar, but said nothing to him or me about him. My friend ordered a double scotch, took a long drag from it and quietly told the bartender "That's the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it."
Harry Casey (K.C. sans the Sunshine Band) looked at my friend and broke up laughing.
I think he probaby said that before Kindle, before e-books, before about 2007 - and who is so young anyway they weren't reading before 2007?
Of course this is very libertine, but we can extend that to something less - or something more, like marriage.
It's not just whether they read, but what they read. Years ago, I got into a relationship with a really cute woman. Turned out she loved Danielle Steele novels. I had not heard of DS, tried reading one of the novels and that pretty much killed things.
I envy youngsters who can use computer dating apps to weed out stuff like this.
I buy only electronic books anymore, myself.
A physical library is much more like an encumbrance, most of the time.
Enh, Ann, I have at least several hundred books on my shelf, and also have a Kindle.
It depends on the books. No books is better than bad books.
Althouse said:
And just as the person with a rough exterior might have a kind heart, that person with no books on the shelf may very well have a Kindle.
Though to the sort of people who'd adopt the original statement, that might be almost as bad as having no books. Or worse than having no books. The soulless electronic device that is killing the smell of pulp, the crack of a binding, and blar blar blar.
The same type who think it's gauche to have a music collection on CD, or (shudder) mp3s instead of warm and fuzzy vinyl.
The library never has the books I'm looking for. I assume this means that no one likes the books I like. The upside is that I get incredible deals on used books. No demand.
Except Spengler's unabridged Decline of the West. $80. Ouch.
The question of course is which books you do see.
A set of the Loeb classics would be a good sign, generally.
Never yet seen in a womans library is Morisons "United States Naval Operations in WWII"
If you see THAT on a womans shelves, you had better check, she is likely to be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
My wife-to-be had a garageful of books, including a complete set of Dickens and Bradbury and Bruce Catton's "A Stillness at Appomattox".
I had to marry her of course.
Books on the shelf isn't about "hey this person reads" so much as "this person reads these particular books, and wants to show you that". Or maybe "this person keeps their books here."
But more importantly, "if you open the thick books you will discover that is where this person hides their hooch."
I never read a book by Danielle Steele, but I knew several attractive, sensitive women who did. I don't know the dynamics but there's something to Danielle Steele that appeals to good looking women. Good looking women inhabit their own world, and their culture is very different than ours. I'm not judgmental .......i think this might be a muted slam on Donald Trump. Never elect a president who doesn't read books and prefers to watch television.........My personal view is that good taste in literature has very little to do with intelligence, kindness, or character. Some people can whistle Mozart, and some people read Joyce for fun......Eisenhower famously read Zane Grey novels for relaxation. He also took apart and put back together, piece by piece, an Army tank on weekends. The tank was said to run better after he had disassembled and reassembled it. Which is a better gauge of Ike's acumen and character---the Zane Grey novels or the lego tank hobby?
buwaya -
Re Morison's magnum opus, I recently struck the jackpot. Helped a friend clear out the apartment of a just-deceased University of Chicago history professor. My reward for helping was that I could have any books I found there. His apartment was wall-to-wall (literally) books. But the ones I took home with me were: Morison's entire series. Yowza.
Eisenhower famously read Zane Grey novels for relaxation.
Hitler loved reading Karl May westerns.
Stalin loved American movies. Especially musicals.
He also took apart and put back together, piece by piece, an Army tank on weekends. The tank was said to run better after he had disassembled and reassembled it.
Yeah, but I bet it was still under-armored and under-gunned.
Tank joke. It is to laugh.
I don't like John Waters' films, but I love his commentary in documentaries or other shows with commentary. Martin Scorsese is similar in that regard, but not as witty.
"If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them." So, no sex with Marcel Proust, then.
buwaya -
C Vann Woodward - The Battle of Leyte Gulf. Incredible story meets great writer.
On the topic
What would be funny these days is anarchists converting and sincerely trying to be massively traditional. And whenever they succeed they get beaten up down at abortion clinics or lose their job for telling the truth about whose stealing from the company or for being a Trump supporter. Whereas whenever they revert and smoke dope with a friend or sell crack cocaine or drop a rock on a policeman, society rallies around them.
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