Guy: Yeah, man, that’s true. But you have to keep in mind that while you’re emotionally emasculated, he’s physically emasculated, and there’s a helluva difference.
–Knitting Factory
Overheard by: Patrick Taylor
Guy: Yeah, man, that’s true. But you have to keep in mind that while you’re emotionally emasculated, he’s physically emasculated, and there’s a helluva difference.
–Knitting Factory
Overheard by: Patrick Taylor
Teen boy: Yeah, I read the audio book.
–Barnes & Noble
Overheard by: Sarah
Chick: My life has really changed since moving to New York. Like, in L.A. I use to read Us Weekly, and now I read The New Yorker.
–Lower East Side
Overheard by: Aileen
UWS mom to hippie college son: Darling, I’ve decided we must get this book because it feels really quite wonderful. [Customers gawk.] I know it sounds weird, but the way a book feels means a lot, and this one feels good. Oh, and I like the cover.
–The Strand
Overheard by: losaida lois
Literary agent: God, I’m so sick of domestic violence memoirs. I just want to go beat the crap out of them.
–W 35th St
Lit professor: Reading Ulysses for the first time, like other life experiences we have for the first time, is not quite as pleasurable as we might have hoped it would be. However, unlike other life experiences we have for the first time, reading Ulysses lasts much, much longer.
–Eugene Lang College
Overheard by: amelia
Guy #1: … And ‘K’ on a triple-letter score makes 45.
Chick-who-doesn’t-give-blowjobs: What’s that? ‘Upchuck’? That’s not a word!
Guy #1: I’m afraid it is, dear.
Chick #2: Yup.
Guy #1: Go to dictionary dot com — look it up.
Chick-who-doesn’t-give-blowjobs: And what does this word mean?
Guy #2: Well, upchuck is what you would do if you saw smegma.
Guy #1: Last time she saw smegma I got 42 points!
Chick #2, on computer: I just looked up ‘upchuck.’ It means ‘vomit.’
Guy #2: Smegma, upchuck… Mike, I’m noticing a pattern in your choice of words.
Guy #1: I just try to think of words that will get Tina really upset.
Chick-who-doesn’t-give-blowjobs: Well, thank you very much. Are you proud that you’re a disgusting pig?
Guy #1: I would say I’m at peace with myself.
—Another Scrabble party, 34th & 2nd
Overheard by: Big Larry
Dude #1: Whoa, this year is double-oh-seven.
Dude #2: That’s so freaking cool.
Chick: I don’t get it. How is that cooler than last year being double-oh-six?
Dude #1: Because Alec Trevelyan was a dick.
Dude #2: … Did you ever know that you’re my hero?
–Carlyle Court, 25 Union Square West
Intellectual #1: So, what’s the problem?
Intellectual #2: She gets all pouty when she doesn’t get what she wants.
Intellectual #1: Ugh, that’s the worst. I hate that.
Intellectual #2: Well, pouty doesn’t really bother me so much as long as you can fuck it out of them, you know? I just don’t think I can be with a chick if I can’t fuck her and make her forget whatever it is she’s upset with me about.
–Bar 89, Mercer St
Overheard by: Fox
Guy #1: You know that Anton Webern’s Quartet for the End of Time was performed in a concentration camp? Crazy.
Guy #2: Yeah. He died real weird. I forget how. I think the Nazis shot him.
Total stranger: Actually he was shot by Allied soldiers. He was breaking curfew smoking a cigarette, and they mistook him for his brother-in-law, who was an alleged Nazi spy.
Guy #1: Oh, I see. Thanks.
Total stranger: Any other questions? I just ride this train all day waiting to answer questions on twentieth-century music composition. The next car has an expert on Chekhov, and the conductor studies philosophy.
Guy #1: So anyway, Slavic girls are pretty hot.
Guy #2: Yeah, for real.
–7 train
Woman: Oh, he looked so old and sick in that movie. Really horrible.
Man: You know he died, right?
Woman: Oh, they must have made the movie before that.
–NJ Transit train out of Penn Station
Overheard by: confabulation nation
Lady: What’s a buffalo?
Guy #1: It’s a black cow.
Guy #2: No. A cow is female and a buffalo is male.
–27th & Lex
Overheard by: confused desi
Girl: …and when he came back, it looked like he had herpes! Herpes everywhere!
Queer: And you still hit that?
Girl: Well, it looked like he did, but it was dark and I wasn’t sure.
–Spring & W Broadway
Passenger: There’s something wrong at the UN so I have to go in and fix it.
–F train, Carroll St
Overheard by: confused grad student
