Tourist dad: Who’s that over there?
Tourist mom: That’s Yasser Arafat.
Tourist dad: Yasser Arafat? He sure is fat.
Tourist daughter: Kind of looks like Dad the time he put that towel over his head.
–Madame Tussaud’s, West 42nd Street
Overheard by: Celeste Pietrusza
Guy: Hey, is this the train that stops at that museum?
Girl: Which museum? The art museum?
Guy: No, the other one with all the bones and dead animals.
Girl: Ew. Why would you wanna go someplace like that?
–C train
Box office employee: Would you like to add a ticket for the 3D movie?
20-something girl: Is it for the movie and the exhibit in 3D?
Box office employee: No, just the movie is in 3D.
–King Tut Exhibit
Girl looking at garbage and dirt spilled on the sidewalk: Gross. You think it’s supposed to be art?
–Broadway & Houston
Literature professor: So anything that anybody ever painted was a Guido?
–NYU Silver Center
Plausibly mad septuagenarian clerk: When I was 16 Stravinsky bought my first painting. It was written up in the paper. A couple of days later, I was kidnapped.
–Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Center
Overheard by: Seth
Father to four-year-old son: Looking at art makes your legs tired.
–Metropolitan Museum Lobby
Philistine: I don’t like art in which you have to understand the motivation behind it.
–Outside the Guggenheim
Overheard by: Devoted Puppy
Professor-type man to group of teens looking at Greek sculptures: And if the sculpture’s back is up against the wall and you want to see it from behind, just get up against a wall and look at its ass as much as you can… yeah! It’s not dirty or wrong… Just look at its ass!
–Metropolitan Museum of Art
Guy on cell: OK, well, be safe. If you get raped make sure he wears a condom.
–Williamsburg
Overheard by: Daniel
Girl: Don’t let me talk to boys after I take blue pills.
–31st & 2nd
Girl #1: Sometimes he like to rape my ass.
Girl #2: Ew! Hee hee.
–outside The Brooklyn Museum
Overheard by: Josh Neufeld
Girl #1: Well, she was raped.
Girl #2: I wasn’t really raped.
–Vertigo, 26th & 3rd
Yuppie chick #1: Sweetie, you’re going to get raped dressed like that.
Yuppie chick #2: No. I have an umbrella.
–Delancey & Allen
Overheard by: Mitchell Linetti
Husband to wife: I can't tell if this is a circus or a zoo.
Random gay passerby: Oh my god! It's a zoo!
Wife to husband: Well, I guess that clears that up.
–The Armory Show, Pier 94
10-year-old white boy: Mom, you know what I'm wondering?
Mom: No, what?
10-year-old: What does “shish kanish” mean?
Mom, staring at him: What the hell are you talking about?
10-year-old: In that song by Shakira it says she makes a man wanna “shish kanish.”
Mom, shaking head: “Speak Spanish,” Cory. She made a man wanna speak Spanish. Shit, you ain't never gonna be a singer.
–Tenement Museum
Overheard by: Excuse me while I kiss this guy
Mother, about her hyperactive child: Looooong day. Long day, and too much ice cream.
Hyperactive child: No.
–King Tut Exhibit, Times Square
Overheard by: Sarah
Jersey teen on class trip: I wonder if they've got Billy Joel here.
Friend: Dude, isn't he some preacher in Texas?
–Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame Annex, Mercer St
Overheard by: stillrockn'rolltome
Guy: Oh my god, no art is worth this. I don’t care if I get to blow Picasso, I’m not waiting in this line.
–75th & Park
Overheard by: Long John
