Overheard in New York continues, day after day, to be brilliant. It's the best wikipedia I can think of to describe exactly what living as a New Yorker constantly jammed into close quarters with other New Yorkers is like, via the inane and insane and witty and alarming conversations happening on every subway and every corner as we speak. It should be required reading for anyone trying to write fiction or screenplays about New York, in particular. Or trying to govern it. It would be seriously foolish not to read it if you have any interest in how this city functions and the language it functions in. A few recent examples of the city's contributions to Michael Malice's sincerely malicious, yet just as sincerely humble and grateful, project (MM's heds omitted; you can go snicker or grimace at them on the site itself):

Man: Oh, man! Where have you been all my life?...Can I borrow your lighter?
Woman: Oh, thank goodness. I was like, "I'm flattered, but gay."

—57th & 5th


Girl #1: Oh my god there's too many people in this elevator! There's only supposed to be 10 people!
Girl #2: It's OK, I'm skinny. In my own reality I'm actually only half a person.

—Hotel Gansevoort, 9th Avenue


Black chick: Yeah, I broke my sister's knee with a baseball bat.
White chick: Wow, me and my sister had some bad fights but yours top all our fights. You must really hate each other.
Black chick: No, I did it out of love.
White chick: What do you mean?
Black chick: My sister's in the Army Reserve. They called her unit up to go to Iraq. I hit her on purpose so she wouldn't have to go. I had to hit her twice to make sure her knee was broken.

—Tillary Street, Downtown Brooklyn


There is a Buddha statue on the counter.

Teen girl #1: Wow, she has weird nipples.
Teen girl #2: I think it's a guy.
Teen boy: That's Gandhi. Duh.

—99 cent store, Hylan Boulevard


Dad on cell: So did they give me a credit?...What? It just says "from the New York Times" and not "from Jesse McKinley of the New York Times"?

—18th Street between 5th & 6th


Guy: You know how, like, with alcohol they require ID for proof of age? They should really do that with bikinis also.

—Great Lawn, Central Park


Guy: What book is that?
Girl: The new Harry Potter; it's the 6th of his 7 years at school.
Guy: 7? Shit. If that author was smart, she would have made high school 10 years.
Girl: Huh?
Guy: Yeah. And that bitch was homeless when she wrote those books.

—F train

August weeks like these make Melville mindsets inevitable. Recall:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.

No need to knock off hats, or kneecaps for that matter. Take to the spiteful/generous refuge of Overheard instead. Overheard, c'est nous. Someday, we'll all see ourselves quoted there. In fact, it brings the city together. There's a lot of profanity, true. We're good at that.

Update: Esteemed emdashes reader Julia S. reminds me that Overheard co-creators Malice and S. Morgan Friedman were on the Brian Lehrer show not long ago. Did WNYC turn into Howard Stern for an hour? Let's find out. Here's Malice: "If you're a girl who goes to NYU, and you're on your cell phone—I always walk in step right behind her, because I know it's going to be gold."

Bar Gossip [painting, Brent Morrison]