“You will ‘fail’ often, by your own impossible standards, where ‘success' is never defined except as an abstract sense of bliss.”
— Omar Sakr on the path of the poet
source:
“Tweets to a Queer Arab Poet” by Omar Sakr
This Arab Is Queer: an anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab writers
edited by Elias Jahshan
2022. Saqi Books, London UK
John Waters says he has been invited to speak at all sorts of different events. In this excerpt from his memoir/self-help book, Mr. Know-It-All, Waters remembers one unusual event. He wondered aloud what might have happened in it were he to have made Wizard of Oz II:
At a Wizard of Oz celebration in Chicago, I described my dream sequel of Dorothy returning to Kansas, and when she can’t stop ranting about her trip to Oz, Auntie Em loses patience after months of telling Dorothy, ‘It was just a dream,’ and Uncle Henry puts his foot down and forces his defiant niece to see a psychiatrist, who gives her shock therapy, but even that doesn’t cure Dorothy of her yearning to return to the magical land.
Did no one tell John that he was describing the opening scenes of the Disney-studios sequel to Wizard, Return to Oz? That movie came out 40 years ago! Maybe John did hear about it, but then convinced himself the ideas were his own; I mean, who could believe Disney would put out a major motion picture in which innocent little Dorothy is strapped down for electro-shock therapy? There are good things about Return to Oz — the costumes are great! — but that opening sequence still gives me the willies.
The rest of the plot is all Waters:
She tries LSD, but these hallucinations are not the same as the poppies of Oz. Mushrooms, too, but there’s no great and powerful anything much less a wizard. Finally she sniffs poppers and it works! She’s back in Oz. The Scarecrow is old but still brilliant, the Tin Man is a yoga instructor, and the Cowardly Lion is now a drag queen named Roara. They give her the Wicked Witch’s magic broomstick and Dorothy flies back to Kansas, starts cross-dressing as Margaret Hamilton, and opens a gay bar called the Yellow Brick Load.
source:
Mr. Know-It-All: the tarnished wisdom of a filth elder
by John Waters
2019. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
When you meet a celebrity while traveling what do you do? John Waters sat next to one, but was circumspect. He didn’t fanboy gush or, well, the opposite of that. But then, Waters didn’t know which celebrity he was seated next to.
Seated in first class next to a gentleman who never made eye contact the entire coast-to-coast flight, I kept thinking, ‘I know this man, but who is he?!’ His signature suspenders and Brooks Brothers-type suit rang a bell, too, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out. When we landed and everybody started exiting the plane, other passengers who recognized me started laughing and one said, ‘I couldn’t believe you were sitting next to [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas that whole time!’ I thought, ‘You’re kidding me.’ But, of course, it was him. That lying bastard! ‘I believed Anita Hill!’ I wanted to yell.
Once he knew what chances he’d missed, John Waters thought about what he should have done:
During the flight I should have nonchalantly ordered a Coke, and when it was served, started picking at something imaginary on the can before turning to him and saying, ‘Excuse me, is that a pubic hair on my Coke?’
source:
Mr. Know-It-All: the tarnished wisdom of a filth elder
by John Waters
2019. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
