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Make Trouble
From an icon of popular culture, here is inspiring advice for artists, graduates, and all who seek happiness and success on their own terms.
80 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2017
About the author
John Waters
101 books1,536 followersJohn Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, personality, visual artist and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films: Pink Flamingos and Hairspray. He is recognizable by his pencil-thin moustache.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 254 reviews
September 30, 2021
Great advice from a pop-culture renaissance man! One of the most satisfying things about reading is the fact that you can tap into the collective wisdom of so many people; people who may have a different perspective on life that helps you catch a glimpse of something you were missing. This book really did that for me!
June 21, 2017
"Go out into the world and fuck it up beautifully."
March 21, 2017
This illustrated speech that John gave to the graduating class at the Rhode Island School of Design is flat-out amazing. Everyone should be able to take something positive away from reading this. All the stars!!
April 20, 2017
ORIGINALLY POSTED: https://bibliomantics.com/2017/05/08/...
An illustrated version of his 2015 speech to the graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, my only fault with John Waters’ Make Trouble is that it wasn’t updated to reflect our current political landscape. Despite this shortcoming, Make Trouble is full of inspirational tidbits for recent graduates and adults of all ages. Because sometimes we all need to be reminded to fuck up the world beautifully.
An illustrated version of his 2015 speech to the graduates of the Rhode Island School of Design, my only fault with John Waters’ Make Trouble is that it wasn’t updated to reflect our current political landscape. Despite this shortcoming, Make Trouble is full of inspirational tidbits for recent graduates and adults of all ages. Because sometimes we all need to be reminded to fuck up the world beautifully.
March 23, 2017
Definitive proof that "filthy and perverted" are not only not diametric opposites of "kind and wise," but that they don't even fall on the same spectrum.
This funny, fierce speech was originally delivered to the graduates of Rhode Island School of Design, but I would cheerfully hand it, adorned with the biggest, tackiest bow I could find, to a high school grad, or even to my 8th grader as he finishes middle school this spring.
I have an ARC of this book, and I have kept it close at hand recently, as both comfort and goad. Just yesterday I received a finished copy, and I turned it around and immediately gifted it to one of the most disruptive writers I know.
Now let's go out there and fuck things up.
This funny, fierce speech was originally delivered to the graduates of Rhode Island School of Design, but I would cheerfully hand it, adorned with the biggest, tackiest bow I could find, to a high school grad, or even to my 8th grader as he finishes middle school this spring.
I have an ARC of this book, and I have kept it close at hand recently, as both comfort and goad. Just yesterday I received a finished copy, and I turned it around and immediately gifted it to one of the most disruptive writers I know.
Now let's go out there and fuck things up.
November 26, 2017
Very short and actually much more shallow than what I would expect from an off-the-wall visionary like John Waters. This would have been more awesome as a set of postcards or more practical as a set of coasters.
February 20, 2017
It's John Waters, It's a graduation speech, what more do you need to know?! Two Thumbs Up!
September 26, 2017
John Waters é uma das minhas pessoas favoritas na vida, então é claro que quando saiu a notícia de que um discurso dele para uma turma de graduação (o mau exemplo em pessoa falando para a juventude, a ironia não escapa nem a ele) eu sabia que precisava desse livro.
Waters continua tão debochado, anti-stablishment, pervertido e relevante quanto era há décadas atrás. Temos muito o que aprender com ele.
"Refuse to isolate yourself.
Separatism is for losers.
Gay is not enough anymore. It's a good start, but I don't want my memoirs to be in the gay section near true crime at the back of the bookstore next to the bathrooms. No! I want it up front with the best sellers."
Waters continua tão debochado, anti-stablishment, pervertido e relevante quanto era há décadas atrás. Temos muito o que aprender com ele.
"Refuse to isolate yourself.
Separatism is for losers.
Gay is not enough anymore. It's a good start, but I don't want my memoirs to be in the gay section near true crime at the back of the bookstore next to the bathrooms. No! I want it up front with the best sellers."
January 3, 2019
El discurso dado por John Waters a los licenciados en diseño de la Universidad de Rhode Island, una joya de irreverencia, absurdo y consejos para la vida realmente útiles. No sé si el formato ilustrado aporta demasiado, pero el contenido es tan bueno que vale muchísimo la pena.
April 28, 2017
This book came to me when I needed it the most.
June 30, 2017
Essential reminders for anybody creative--go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully.
June 26, 2017
Quite often, I become a fan of an artist more than her/his main art, compelled by her/his general style, philosophy, humor and insight. For instance, I can take or leave most of Kandinsky’s stuff, but his philosophical statements on visual art and aesthetics are priceless. Likewise with Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Picasso, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Francois Truffaut, Henry Rollins, etc.
This is the nature of my appreciation for provocateur, lovable oddball, fetish-fetishist John Waters, a man who is, I think, an American treasure (a term I don’t use loosely). He’s a well-read Twain-/Mencken-like humorist, a puckish social commentator, a very self-aware critic and a living pop-culture legend with much to say and depth in even his shallowest statements and wisecracks. Despite his notorious fame as a filmmaker, I can’t help but prefer his writings and delightful interview answers. I understand the cult following for his movies, get why those movies are creative and profound, and I certainly have favorites (Polyester, Cecil B. Demented and the underrated – and ultra-quotable – A Dirty Shame), but I’m not an especial fan of the overall filmography.
Waters’ books are denser collections of his wit, his too-rare sexual honesty, his pearls of jizzdom. Part-memoir, part-essay, part-fiction and part-diary, they make me imagine their author grinning like a maniac (John Waters + maniac = redundant) while typing away in his madhouse, wearing nothing but underwear and his trademark mustache (which is every bit as iconic as David Lynch’s hairdo). My favorite books of his are Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, Role Models, Shock Value, Unwatchable and Art – A Sex Book, the last two titles being worthy art books up there with Madonna’s and Fabian Baron’s orgasmic Sex, Frank De Mulder’s Heaven, Richard Kern’s New York Girls, and anything by Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Fearlessly gay and astutely “fringe,” Waters, thankfully, is a rarity not only for his repudiation of political correctness but also for his deliberate apartness from typical, monolithic queer righteousness. As he told Roger Ebert back in 2010:
I don’t fit in with gay people either. I’m gaily incorrect. I kinda want gay people to be outlaws again. I don’t wanna get married but I certainly believe that people have the right to be married. I never fit in. There’s too many rules in the gay world too. So if I ever talk about my homosexuality, which I certainly do, I don’t do it in a very gaily correct way.
In the same individualistic spirit, in Carsick’s acknowledgements he defended Middle America against bigoted generalizations:
But more than anything, I’d like to praise the drivers who picked me up. If I ever hear another elitist jerk use the term fly-over people, I’ll punch him in the mouth. My drivers were brave and open-minded, and their down-to-earth kindness gave me new faith in how decent Americans can be. They are the only heroes in this book.
That passage reminds me of excellent advice he offers in Make Trouble, his cute, little latest book recently released by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Presenting the text of a 2015 graduation address he gave at the Rhode Island School of Design, it features the quaint illustrations of Eric Hanson, who also did the cover art for Role Models. Hanson’s images enhance the speech’s main points as well as capture the unpretentious eccentricity of Waters with a rather simple style that’s reminiscent of the likes of Ray Pettibon, Tomi Ungerer and Pittsburgh’s own t. jungle. John Waters himself is a sort of incarnate cartoon, an oddity that might’ve burst from the mind of Charles Addams or Edward Gorey. (And, on Make Trouble’s ninth page, there’s a drawing that depicts the imagery I mentioned earlier: Waters typing away in his boxer shorts.)
The book’s title comes from Waters’ central instruction to the graduating students: “It’s your turn to make trouble.” The point is for the current generation to “go out into the world and fuck it up beautifully,” to produce upsetting, attention-demanding results. “Make me nervous!” commands Waters. For me, the “make trouble”/make nervous thing is usually an overdone (essentially insubstantial) imploration, but coming from John Waters it’s slightly less boring and seems sincerer. To make him nervous would be quite a feat, in other words. Especially since he tends to talk about how what used to be shocking, avant-garde, “perverse” and non-conformist now dares speak its name and struts proudly in the daylight.
The question is what could possibly make trouble these days. Even John Waters is no longer the subversive force he once was. “Think about it: I didn’t change,” he writes. “Society did.” His non-hetero sexuality is certainly out of the closet, to such an extent that the standards of social/cultural coolness have flipped around: “And don’t heterosexual kids actually receive more prejudice in art school than the gay ones? Things are a-changing. It’s a confusing time.”
The best part of the speech involves the thought-policing/fanatical censorship so prevalent on college campuses these days, particularly in the form of “trigger warnings:
…a trigger warning – the amazing concept I’ve heard about in which you’re supposed to warn students if you’re going to talk about something that challenges their values. I thought that’s why you went to college. My whole life has been a trigger warning.
Waters’ intellectual/artistic honesty and respect for genuine liberty is cut from the same cloth as what Christopher Hitchens called George Orwell’s “power of facing,” an honest assessment and criticism of even one’s own ideology, group, tribe, whatever. Contrary to many Progressives’ (or, worse, SJWs’) isolating, silencing tactics against just about anything that offends or rebuts their idolatrous ideals and myopic opinions, Waters goes as far as to suggest reaching out to opponents in hopes of achieving some kind of common ground or affection: “Listen to your political enemies, especially the smart ones, and then figure out how to make them laugh.” And he debunks the popular “eat the rich” mentality: “Don’t hate all rich people. They’re not all awful. Believe me, I know some evil poor people, too. We need some rich people: who else is going to back our movies or buy our art?”
I must admit that the end of the book came to soon for me (ahem). I believe that the speech itself could’ve included some more junk in the trunk, but I’m biased toward long winds rather than economical breezes such as Make Trouble. Really, John Waters is always worth reading or listening to.
Come to think of it, the book could’ve had only one page printed with the following tidbit and still been worthy:
I’m also sorry to report there’s no such thing as karma. So many of my talented, great friends are dead and so many of the fools I’ve met and loathed are still alive. It’s not fair, and it never will be.
How’s that for troubled Waters?
This is the nature of my appreciation for provocateur, lovable oddball, fetish-fetishist John Waters, a man who is, I think, an American treasure (a term I don’t use loosely). He’s a well-read Twain-/Mencken-like humorist, a puckish social commentator, a very self-aware critic and a living pop-culture legend with much to say and depth in even his shallowest statements and wisecracks. Despite his notorious fame as a filmmaker, I can’t help but prefer his writings and delightful interview answers. I understand the cult following for his movies, get why those movies are creative and profound, and I certainly have favorites (Polyester, Cecil B. Demented and the underrated – and ultra-quotable – A Dirty Shame), but I’m not an especial fan of the overall filmography.
Waters’ books are denser collections of his wit, his too-rare sexual honesty, his pearls of jizzdom. Part-memoir, part-essay, part-fiction and part-diary, they make me imagine their author grinning like a maniac (John Waters + maniac = redundant) while typing away in his madhouse, wearing nothing but underwear and his trademark mustache (which is every bit as iconic as David Lynch’s hairdo). My favorite books of his are Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, Role Models, Shock Value, Unwatchable and Art – A Sex Book, the last two titles being worthy art books up there with Madonna’s and Fabian Baron’s orgasmic Sex, Frank De Mulder’s Heaven, Richard Kern’s New York Girls, and anything by Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Fearlessly gay and astutely “fringe,” Waters, thankfully, is a rarity not only for his repudiation of political correctness but also for his deliberate apartness from typical, monolithic queer righteousness. As he told Roger Ebert back in 2010:
I don’t fit in with gay people either. I’m gaily incorrect. I kinda want gay people to be outlaws again. I don’t wanna get married but I certainly believe that people have the right to be married. I never fit in. There’s too many rules in the gay world too. So if I ever talk about my homosexuality, which I certainly do, I don’t do it in a very gaily correct way.
In the same individualistic spirit, in Carsick’s acknowledgements he defended Middle America against bigoted generalizations:
But more than anything, I’d like to praise the drivers who picked me up. If I ever hear another elitist jerk use the term fly-over people, I’ll punch him in the mouth. My drivers were brave and open-minded, and their down-to-earth kindness gave me new faith in how decent Americans can be. They are the only heroes in this book.
That passage reminds me of excellent advice he offers in Make Trouble, his cute, little latest book recently released by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Presenting the text of a 2015 graduation address he gave at the Rhode Island School of Design, it features the quaint illustrations of Eric Hanson, who also did the cover art for Role Models. Hanson’s images enhance the speech’s main points as well as capture the unpretentious eccentricity of Waters with a rather simple style that’s reminiscent of the likes of Ray Pettibon, Tomi Ungerer and Pittsburgh’s own t. jungle. John Waters himself is a sort of incarnate cartoon, an oddity that might’ve burst from the mind of Charles Addams or Edward Gorey. (And, on Make Trouble’s ninth page, there’s a drawing that depicts the imagery I mentioned earlier: Waters typing away in his boxer shorts.)
The book’s title comes from Waters’ central instruction to the graduating students: “It’s your turn to make trouble.” The point is for the current generation to “go out into the world and fuck it up beautifully,” to produce upsetting, attention-demanding results. “Make me nervous!” commands Waters. For me, the “make trouble”/make nervous thing is usually an overdone (essentially insubstantial) imploration, but coming from John Waters it’s slightly less boring and seems sincerer. To make him nervous would be quite a feat, in other words. Especially since he tends to talk about how what used to be shocking, avant-garde, “perverse” and non-conformist now dares speak its name and struts proudly in the daylight.
The question is what could possibly make trouble these days. Even John Waters is no longer the subversive force he once was. “Think about it: I didn’t change,” he writes. “Society did.” His non-hetero sexuality is certainly out of the closet, to such an extent that the standards of social/cultural coolness have flipped around: “And don’t heterosexual kids actually receive more prejudice in art school than the gay ones? Things are a-changing. It’s a confusing time.”
The best part of the speech involves the thought-policing/fanatical censorship so prevalent on college campuses these days, particularly in the form of “trigger warnings:
…a trigger warning – the amazing concept I’ve heard about in which you’re supposed to warn students if you’re going to talk about something that challenges their values. I thought that’s why you went to college. My whole life has been a trigger warning.
Waters’ intellectual/artistic honesty and respect for genuine liberty is cut from the same cloth as what Christopher Hitchens called George Orwell’s “power of facing,” an honest assessment and criticism of even one’s own ideology, group, tribe, whatever. Contrary to many Progressives’ (or, worse, SJWs’) isolating, silencing tactics against just about anything that offends or rebuts their idolatrous ideals and myopic opinions, Waters goes as far as to suggest reaching out to opponents in hopes of achieving some kind of common ground or affection: “Listen to your political enemies, especially the smart ones, and then figure out how to make them laugh.” And he debunks the popular “eat the rich” mentality: “Don’t hate all rich people. They’re not all awful. Believe me, I know some evil poor people, too. We need some rich people: who else is going to back our movies or buy our art?”
I must admit that the end of the book came to soon for me (ahem). I believe that the speech itself could’ve included some more junk in the trunk, but I’m biased toward long winds rather than economical breezes such as Make Trouble. Really, John Waters is always worth reading or listening to.
Come to think of it, the book could’ve had only one page printed with the following tidbit and still been worthy:
I’m also sorry to report there’s no such thing as karma. So many of my talented, great friends are dead and so many of the fools I’ve met and loathed are still alive. It’s not fair, and it never will be.
How’s that for troubled Waters?
February 4, 2021
Got ten minutes? Then you have enough time to read this book. Apparently a university was insane enough to invite John Waters to address their graduating class, and this book is what he said to them. It's profane and funny and even a little shocking. He gives great advice to both the class and their parents about how to make a living doing what *you* want to do. Work hard for yourself, he says, because if you don't you'll be working for someone else. Good advice, I'd say.
September 30, 2021
I got given this in a mystery book box, and I don’t really know who the author is.
There’s a few things in here I don’t like - like the understanding and mocking of ‘trigger warnings’ is just inaccurate and unhelpful, and the ‘we need rich people’ line 🤮 - butttttt I also liked a lot of it. It’s a very short, playful book (of a speech) with some killer lines designed to challenge and inspire, and in that it was successful. Also, the little drawings are charming.
There’s a few things in here I don’t like - like the understanding and mocking of ‘trigger warnings’ is just inaccurate and unhelpful, and the ‘we need rich people’ line 🤮 - butttttt I also liked a lot of it. It’s a very short, playful book (of a speech) with some killer lines designed to challenge and inspire, and in that it was successful. Also, the little drawings are charming.
September 4, 2022
John Waters is a longtime personal hero -- since childhood! -- and this is a charmer. Lots of great advice and Hanson's design and illustrations are a great accompaniment. I wish this had been out way back when for me to gift my fellow MFA graduates.
April 11, 2017
the latest in the recent graduation-speech-cum-gift-book trend (see also: george saunders, neil gaiman, mary karr, david foster wallace, and j.k. rowling), john waters's make trouble is, perhaps not unexpectedly, the most irreverent of the bunch. the acclaimed filmmaker and "filth elder" offers succinct encouragement and the usual commencement platitudes. admittedly, there is something charming about such books (certainly not their crass commercialist appeal, however): distilling a speaker's lifelong ethos into a digestible format aimed at disabusing and emboldening in equal measure.
today may be the end of your juvenile delinquency, but it should also be the first day of your new adult disobedience.
go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully.
June 21, 2017
John Waters meets expectations with his short, hand illustrated graduation address. There’s the naughty, raunchy side which I would expect from Waters. But there’s also the expected advice for graduates - advice to change things, culminating with “make me nervous.” There’s also advice that’s a bit surprising – don’t hate the rich, because they are the ones who pay for art. And his closing seems to be pointedly calling out the protest-to-be-seen mentality, “It’s your turn to make trouble. But this time in the real world. And this time from the inside.” An interesting use of a few minutes of reading time.
March 30, 2017
This book is basically a rehash of the commencement speech he gave at Rhode Island School of Design in 2015. Considering the current political climate, Waters has missed a prime opportunity. While his manifesto for resistance and progress has some great ideas, he could have elaborated on many of his ideas.
June 5, 2017
I needed this book about 11 years ago but better late than never. If you want to know why legions of weirdos, myself include, adore John Waters, read this book. If you already love JW, make sure you add this book to your library.
If you are new to the JW pantheon, pick this book up. It's truly inspirational and funny. ❤️
If you are new to the JW pantheon, pick this book up. It's truly inspirational and funny. ❤️
December 3, 2019
Short but powerful, this commencement address is funny, insightful, and inspiring. And yes, I, too, am shocked that John Waters wrote something that almost qualifies as sentimental. Highly recommended.
August 18, 2020
This is very short, just an illustrated version of a commencement speech Waters made in 2015, but it contains several gems and is well worth the very quick read. Go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully.
February 14, 2017
Fun, quick read. Great graduation gift.
March 21, 2017
Awesome!
June 27, 2017
"Go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully." Superb advice from a "filth elder." I love the illustrations too.
July 6, 2017
"Go out in the world and fuck it up beautifully."
November 15, 2023
John Waters is a big inspiration to me. His films are pretty much the opposite of what even art house film critics would consider tasteful but he's carved a place for himself and others in such an arrogant and pretentious art form. In 2016, he was asked to speak to the graduating class of the Rhode Island School of Design and this book is his speech. On every page, there are doodles that align with what he's speaking about. While these words were spoken at a college graduation, I find myself feeling more creative now than I did when it was time for me to graduate from college. What's even funnier is this speech was made a year after I graduated from college so if I heard this then, I would have probably made a couple of movies by now. This is necessary for those of us within the margins who make art that is not necessarily what people expect from us. While Waters is a white gay man and I'm a Black woman, I still think that I can find some common ground.
September 6, 2026
miwjwsamg (man i wish john waters spoke at MYYYY graduation) !!! a little bit bummed that someone tore three pages out of the middle of this book, but still a fun little read and some good points being made about life and post grad. feeling inspired to be dirty and raunchy and to create something- don’t ask me what it is yet
“you must participate in the creative world you want to become part of!!!”
“you must participate in the creative world you want to become part of!!!”
April 21, 2021
Thanks to my sister for gifting this book to me.
Wisely crafted and illustrated perfectly
“You must participate in the creative world you want to become a part of” JW ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Wisely crafted and illustrated perfectly
“You must participate in the creative world you want to become a part of” JW ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
October 22, 2024
john water: a
eu: ✨✨😖💗💗💞💞💞‼️🤝🏻🤲🏻✨✨
eu: ✨✨😖💗💗💞💞💞‼️🤝🏻🤲🏻✨✨
December 28, 2024
go out into the world and fuck it up beautifully!!!!!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 254 reviews