John Waters (#1): Waters With Water.

[UPDATE: 5/22/14. I had the chance to interview film director John Waters for Culture magazine, which used my piece as its February 2014 cover story. Here's my favorite exchange:

What's your favorite part of being a storyteller?

WATERS: The most fun is when you think it up. When you first get the idea and nobody knows it but you. And it's your secret. And you give birth to it and you keep rewriting and working on it. That's the fun of it: Getting an idea that you realize you're going to live with for the next two years, and developing it and working on it every day. It's like an affair. An affair that sometimes works.]

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Filmmaker provocateur John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Cry-Baby) at a reception, following his speech and the showing of two of his favorite short films (by Kenneth Anger) at the Aspen Shortfest in 2001. Author of the essay collections Shock Value and Crackpot.

Waters was introduced at the event by a friend who was also an actress in his movie Hairspray: singer Debbie Harry of Blondie.

[Originally posted 8/1/09]