Overheard at the Dinner Party

(WARNING: Not for the faint of heart. I go to some pretty gangsta dinner parties, it would seem.)

Man: No, seriously, it’s true. If you feed the ducks it causes mass duck rape. Too many of the males are kept alive and they’ll get desperately aggressive during mating season and you’ll see hordes of males ganging up to pursue a single female duck.

Woman 1: He’s right. The biologists confirm it, and I’ve seen it, too. It’s really sad – they’re terrorizing the poor females.

Man: Yes, and often the rape is so brutal that the female will get killed during the act.

Woman 2: Well, at least that female duck dies happy then.

Everyone: !!!!!!!

Woman 2: What??

——————————————

Woman medical student: I don’t think blood or vomit is the worst thing you can get on you while working. For me it’s the grease from the autopsies. That happened to me the other day.

Man: The grease?

Woman medical student: Yeah, this grease that you put on the body you’re cutting open, to keep it fresh.

Man: So we’re talking corpse grease here? Oh, Christ… And how exactly does this get on you anyway?

Woman medical student: Well, sometimes you just get it on you, if you’re unlucky. And I was the other day – I was late for class, so all the good bodies were taken and they gave me the fattest one.

The little skeptics

Minister (to a group of children at Christmas Eve mass): “…And do you know who the little baby in the manger was?”

Children: “Jesus!“

Minister: “Indeed! And I suppose you know who his mother was, too?”

Children: “Mary!“

Minister: “That’s right! How clever you are. And then I’m sure you know who his father was, too?”

Children: “Joseph!!“

Overheard in church yesterday. I seriously don’t think a single one of the children answered “God!”. It was hilarious.

Overheard at party

Guy: Tosca is such a treacherous bitch, revealing to Scarpia where Angelotti is hiding. Mario told her not to do it, and she goes and does it anyway!

Girl: Oh, come on! Are you telling me you wouldn’t have done that? When your boyfriend was being tortured and you believed it to be the only way to make it stop?

Guy: Yes! I never would have told Scarpia if I’d made a promise to my boyfriend not to. I would have been all “The flesh is weak, and my Mario is fighting for something bigger than him and me.” All noble like that.

Girl: Seriously? Huh. I would have spilled the beans all over the place the second I heard Mario scream. I would have done exactly what Tosca did in that situation. Well, except for the part where she kills Scarpia. I probably would have just gone ahead and slept with him.

Guy: Oh, me too, with the sleeping with Scarpia thing. I would have told Scarpia nothing, and then I would have slept with him.

(It was an awesome party.)

Overheard at the Public Library

I was having a bad day today. No particular reason, really – I actually had an oral exam today, thus completing a project management course I’ve been taking, and I even did quite well at it. But I was in a lousy mood  all the same, and then I got hit by a car. I’m alright, nothing happened, the driver was ok, too, and was really nice and apologetic about it, but still. Hit by a freakin’ car. That’s a bad day, right there.

Anyway, when I was hit by that car I was on my way to the public library, and I’m glad I went, because I had an experience that really brightened my day and basically made it worth it to have been hit by that car. It started when my eyes were caught by the cover of a book that the librarians had, for reasons beyond me, put on display. The book was this:

(VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED! RACY COVER ART AHOY!)

(NO, SERIOUSLY, IF YOU’RE NOT YET 18 OR JUST REALLY SENSITIVE, STOP SCROLLING.  THERE BE SEMI-VISIBLE NIPPLES AND STUFF.)

(OKAY, BUT I DID WARN YOU)

“Werewolf in a Thong”, the title reads, in Danish. Werewolf. In a thong.

This would have been enough to make my day, in and of itself. Clearly this cover is worthy of a Judge a Book entry, and I was delighted to see someone within the New Gothic Fiction Industry who seems to acknowledge that, yes, they’re basically just writing porn there. Vampire and werewolf porn, yes, but essentially porn. Like, “Yeah, we know that some readers appreciate the fact that we reference and imitate a certain literary genre that dates back to the 18th century. But we also realise that most of our readers are just waiting for that vampire to take off his shirt and get freaky”.

But then it got even better, because scarcely had I moved on from admiring this amazing piece of cover art, before I heard the following conversation behind me:

Five-or-six-year-old boy: “Mummy, what’s that?”
Mother: “Um, it’s… It’s a werewolf.”
Five-or-six-year-old boy: “Ah, ok. So, the body is human, and…” *voice trembling with delight* “Butt-cheeks!!”
Mother: “Yes. But we have to go pick up that book now, the library’s closing in ten minutes.” *starts to drag off boy*
Five-or-six-year-old boy: “But I want to look at butt-cheeks!!”
Mother: “No, we have to-”
Five-or-six-year-old: “Butt-cheeks!!!“
Mother: *sigh* “Ok, fine. Tell you what: I‘ll go loan my book. And you can stay here, and you can look at the butt-cheeks.”

Awesome.

Three Guesses as to the Gender of the Professor

Professor: Now, we know for a fact that the flesh-and-blood writer of this story is a woman. But at what point in the story did you realize that the narrator is actually male?

Girl student: Well, for me it was something very specific. I mean, when the narrator talks about having had oral sex with a woman and describes the sensationof the roof her mouth as ”hard and warm”, I figure it would pretty much have to be a man.

Professor: Uh, yes. Yes, very good point. And that’s… that’s… that’s a darn good observation for a female writer to make, by the way…

- Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen

/marie

Best Bit of Conversation I’ve Overheard in a Long Time

Woman: …Yes, I suppose one would need a seperate student identification card for the School of Life, wouldn’t one?

- Registration Counter at the Royal Library of Copenhagen

Schubert: “Okay, for this I am SO sending the Erlkönig over tonight, beeyatch.”

Five-year-old boy pointing to drawing of dog, excitedly: …And this is Schubert!!

- Charlottenlund Fort Restaurant, Charlottenlund

overheard by

/marie

The University Radio – Behind the Mixing Console

I work at the literature programme at the University Radio and love every minute of it, and not just because the work is rewarding. What makes it so great is just as well the incredible editorial staff that are my co-workers, and the good times we spend together. Because they are delightful people and their presence, being students of Danish Literature or Comparative Literature like me, allows for such wonderfully nerdy and humourous conversations and exchanges, the likes of which I have yet to find anywhere.

Someone really ought to overhear these conversations and post them online, overheardinnewyork-style, but since most of our hanging-out takes place at our regular pub, and since our regular pub is this very classy place, the majority of our conversation is lost upon drunkenly deaf ears, amidst loud jazz music, thick cigar smoke, and shout-outs at bartenders to bring down more beer.

Therefore, I have taken it upon my shoulders to write down and share with you a couple of my favourite exchanges, all derived from rendez-vous with my fellow editorial staff-members. Enjoy! I have resisted to share the names of my co-workers’ name out of respect for their privacy.

Me: Well, my surname is rather uncommon, and it wouldn’t go well with another uncommon surname, I think.

Editorial Staff Guy #1: Right. So you’d better find yourself a husband with a really common surname then, huh? Man, that would be a cool criteria for choosing a life-parther…

Me: Yeah. Like romantic dada-ism.

Editorial Staff Guy #1: Totally.

 ————————————

Me: Where does your girlfriend live?

Editorial Staff Guy #2: Oh, she lives near Svanemøllen, you know that cosy Musician’s Quarter? She lives right next to that quarter. Where it’s really un-cosy.

Me: Yeah. Where everyone is always miserable. And no one is allowed to play any music there.

Editorial Staff Guy #2: Right! What they do there, is that they count things. It’s the Counting Quarter. Like: ”…780, 781, 782″ “What are you counting?” “…Dammit!!! …1, 2, 3, 4…”

————————————

Me: …and there she finds Bluebeard’s ex-wives hanging, all dead, and there’s blood all over the floor.

Editorial Staff Girl: God, that is so creepy! But what were there in the other six rooms then?

Me: I don’t know, actually.

Editorial Staff Girl: I bet there was cake in one of them. A whole room. With nothing but cake.

Me: Yeah!

Editorial Staff Girl: And then there was one with nothing but faux velvet.

Me: Ugh! *winces*

Editorial Staff Girl: Yes. That was when she should have known not to go any further.

 :D

And now, because I really don’t care as much about the privacy of my co-workers as I let on, here’s the most recent picture of the editorial staff, (that’s me with the fringe in the front row, looking selfconscious and oddly greasy-skinned). We’ve got that cosy, messy, camp-school look to us, I think, which seems very appropriate somehow.

/marie

What’s in a Name?

Girl #1: Yeah, I agree, names with the letter A in them are really pretty. Like ‘Amanda’.

Girl #2: Yeah, and you know, I’m so lucky, ’cause I’ve got three A’s in my name. Ka-tha-ri-na!

Girl #1: Wow, that’s strange - I always thought you spelled your name ‘Ka-the-rina’.

Girl #2: …Oh my God, you’re right!

- Holte, North of Copenhagen

Overheard by

/marie

“And over here you see a fresco showing Christ at this one time when he was standing around naked with a naked woman and a snake in a garden.”

High School teacher: And here you see the crucifixion of Christ.

Student: Um… Actually, I think that would be St. Peter. ‘Cause he’s hanging head down? That’s how St. Peter got crucified according to legends. Plus, his hair is gray. Christ only lived to be 33.

High school teacher: …no, I think this is Christ. I think this is just a painting showing Christ on the cross right before they turned Him around.

- Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence

Overheard by

/marie (who, remembering this, really doesn’t miss being in high school…)