John Waters begins his upcoming collection of essays, Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder, bewildered by his own respectability. Once referred to as “the Prince of Puke”—and forever the champion of the underground, the fringe, and the midnight movie crowd—his mind was behind Divine eating dog feces in Pink Flamingos and her rosary bead anal penetration in Multiple Maniacs. Today, at the age of 72, Waters finds himself institutionally ordained, with two New York Times bestsellers and films hailed at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. (He’s also a regular college commencement speaker.) It is from this vantage point, reached through a gleeful compulsion to transgress, expose, shock, and repulse, that Waters bestows wisdom and cheeky advice underpinned by clever, sometimes unsettling, insight.