John Waters may be a genius. He is the director of dozens of films, the author of nine books, a comedian whose tours sell out, and an artist with exhibitions in museums and fine art galleries. Wednesday night, I went for the 12th year in a row to his Christmas stand up act at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. A satire on the commercialization of Christmas, among other things, it was all new and fresh material and was brilliant.

John’s latest book Mr. Know-It-All was just published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.