About Celebrities

Worker on phone: Good afternoon, Ms. Swank. We’d like to congratulate you on your recent Academy Award, and ask you to stop by and pick up your copy of Natural Healing.

–The Strand

HS girl: Do you listen to 50 Cent? Oh, my god, he is so good!
HS guy: Do you know what they say when you are listening to 50 Cent?
HS girl: What do they say?
HS guy: What are you listening to when you have two quarters next to your ear?
HS girl: Ha, ha…I don’t get it.

–Q46 bus

Overheard by: Ting

Tourist woman: I had no idea the Guggenheim Museum was so cheesy looking. What’s it made out of? Is that papier mache or something?
Tourist man: Well, I remember reading somewhere that Frank Lloyd Wright really was a nut.

–5th Ave. & 88th St.

Overheard by: Galen Chistopher

Martha Stewart is on a tabloid cover.

Hipster: Did you know she’s now on that Forbes list?
Sunglasses at night girl: The one with rich people?
Hipster: Yes.
Sunglasses at night girl: She’s not even a movie star.

–Key Foods, Williamsburg

Office worker #1: Fred Wertheimer? He’s the husband of the fabulous Linda Wertheimer…
Office worker #2: Who is that?
Office worker #1: She is a really famous radio person on NPR.
Office worker #2: What is NPR?

–Midtown office

Lady: You know, I heard him sing in the back room and he was like a young Clay Aiken.

–Macy’s

Guy: There’s nothing sadder than seeing an old gay woman.

–Church Street between Vesey and Barclay

Foreign art student: …so then, we are in the shower room, and you know, we start, how do you say…masturbate, and then he leaves, and I am like, “Oh my god, I really want to talk to him too!”.

–MoMA

Girl on cell: I knew it was over when I grabbed his shirt and he told me I was pulling his hair.

–Bleecker & W. 11th

Overheard by: Alaska

Guy: Yeah, but the guy’s the Michael Jackson of dishwashing…

–Houston Street & Avenue B

Overheard by: Andrew Williams

Guy: I saw that movie Hide and Seek. It sucked.
Girl: I don’t know that one. Who’s in it?
Guy: Ummm…that guy from Meet the Fockers.
Girl: …Ben Stiller?
Guy: Who?
Girl: Are you talking about Ben Stiller?
Guy: No, no, the old guy.
Girl: Robert DeNiro?!
Guy: Yeah, him.
Girl: You call Robert DeNiro “that guy from Meet the Fockers“?!

–1 train

Overheard by: Brian J. Heck

Scary Punk Teenage Girl: Have you heard of this play Medea?
Not-so-scary Punk Teenage Guy: Yeah, that’s a good play. Have you heard of Arthur Miller?
Scary Punk Teenage Girl: Who?
Not-so-scary Punk Teenage Guy: Arthur Miller. He wrote Death of a Salesman.
Scary Punk Teenage Girl: No.
Not-so-scary Punk Teenage Guy: Oh, he died last week. He was 89.
Scary Punk Teenage Girl: Wow, that’s terrible. I didn’t even know that and I deliver newspapers.

–They Might Be Giants in-store, Border’s, Columbus Circle

Overheard by: Monica

Suit #1: Have you heard of that guy, Usher?
Suit #2: No, should I have?
Suit #1: You know, he’s one of those guys with the underwear hanging out of the back of their pants.
Suit #2: You know what? If someone doesn’t know what size pants to wear, then I don’t need to know them.

–Penn Station

Overheard by: marissa