keep smiling, girls
keep him looking in that direction and i’ll keep signaling for help
keep walking
don’t look directly at it
they can smell fear
no that’s bears again
is he still there
i can’t look
Maria!
Maria, what are you doing–
stop
let her go
she’s going to let him talk to her so the rest of us can escape
almost there
almost
I don’t care if I lose the hand as long as the rest of me gets out
oh my, that’s interesting
i can’t remember the last time i heard something so interesting
it must have been the last time you told me something
looking at my hands helps me concentrate on how interesting this is
almost close enough
to throw myself down these stairs
then i’d at least be dead
is it good?
i’m sorry?
i said, is that an interesting book
oh my, yes
very interesting
why, just now
the heroine is being interrupted by someone incredibly rude
mm?
oh yes
that’s very newspaper, dear
oh, christ
we’ve lost her
he’s got her in a conversation
should we try to stop him?
no
all we can do is save ourselves
I must tell Mother to make these hoop skirts wider
men can still get close enough to talk to me
Tags: artwork, women in western art history
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The man in the straw boater with the cane is the spiritual forerunner to every man who’s ever plopped down next to a woman on transit or in a bar or a park and said “So…what are YOU reading? Is it any good?” and “So have you ever read Dave Eggers?”
I blame these paintings for encouraging men to think this is romantic. In my version of this, there would be no honey-colored, dappled light and soft edges.
The in-a-bar plopping is THE WORST UGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH HATE MDK MDK MDK
“So have you ever read Dave Eggers?”
PLEASE tell me that doesn’t happen.
(it happens, doesn’t it)
What’s odd is that when you engage them in a free and honest discussion of his failings as a writer, they make a cat butt face and stop wanting to talk to you! So strange!
I can see that happening.
I try to restrict my ineffectual flirting to OkCupid. When I’m out and about I just stick to furtive glances.
“…they make a cat butt face…”
BWAH HAHAHAHAHA! I can’t stop laughing over this and also, it’s going into The Perfect Phrase vault.
I just thumbs-upped that comment just for “cat butt face.”
Should I be glad I had to google Dave Eggers?
yes.
I did too. As soon as I saw the title of his book, it all became very clear.
Quite likely. I’m glad I have no wish to good him/it/them.
I still get “So, have you ever heard of Tao Lin?”
And then somewhere later in the conversation, after I have tried at least two polite ways to tell them to shove off: “…no way, you’re a LESBIAN? You don’t LOOK like a lesbian!”
…straight bars are the worst sometimes.
Gay bars have better karaoke. http://marysatlanta.com/
OMG NO. On what planet is Tao Lin a good bet to start talking about with a stranger??
You know that piece a few weeks back about punching a Monet? That’s how I feel about Dave Eggers. Let’s just say we had a bad encounter ten years ago and I can’t let it go. I don’t want to let it go.
“no that’s bears again” = PERFECT
I hope the two women in the last painting are actually a duo that take out men who engage them in unwanted conversation so that they will never bother another woman again.
“He’s almost close enough…just a little farther and I can strangle that terrible, chatty man…”
dat greyhound doe
I would just be paying 100% attention to the greyhound and 0% to the man
I am personally offended on behalf of my brindle greyhound, who is more fun to spend time with than 90% of possible conversational partners.
I hope they grab that greyhound and flee.
No grabbing necessary. I know dogs well enough to be confident that the greyhound would follow the ladies wherever they go. Dogs know women are superior. Even my simple-minded little male dog.
He refuses to let any man near me unless Mr. Rose is present. Even men he’s known for years as sources for expensive liver treats. “Nope. Mr. Rose is not here. So I’m in charge of My Rose. No Men! Keep away from My Rose!”
Women, though, all women are cool with him. So a woman could mug me and my otherwise fierce little guard dog would respond with, “Hi, strange lady! Be my friend. Do you have treats? Yeah, ignore that my human is screaming, and pet me already.”
I have a greyhound and no man. My life is perfect.
I am absolutely going to use the “the heroine has just been interrupted by someone terribly rude” line. I will teach it to my daughters. I will teach it to every woman I meet at a bus stop. I will sing it from the mountains. I will tattoo it on my ass. EVERYONE MUST KNOW THIS PERFECT SHUT-DOWN TO THE RUDENESS THAT IS INTERRUPTING A WOMAN PEACEFULLY READING IN BLISSFUL SOLITUDE.
I’m going to use this line and also add a little flourish at the end: look down at the book, look back up, and say, “Oh, and then she stabbed him.”
Also the blue-and-orange ladies in the second photo are CLEARLY a couple and they are so amused that this guy has not picked up on this extremely obvious fact.
just hanging out with her gal-pal!
Which one is the handmaiden and which is the feudal lord?
I’d say the one in blue is the feudal lord. That’s why she’s about to give the dude a smack down for eyeing her handmaiden.
Who is that girl in the reeds in the last one?
The Spirit of Karmic Beard-Yankings Yet to Come.
You have made me cackle loudly at my desk. Thank you. =D
A life-size mechanical doll who has just gained sentience, by the looks of her.
That would explain why she looks so creepy.
A Terrifying Child.
MARIA AIN’T GIVE A DAMN
Those red buckets contain the heads of the last two men who interrupted her.
I would cheerfully buy a big, glossy, expensive coffee table book of all the Art History things you ever write. And I’d buy some for all my lady friends. Just saying.
Ditto.
Seconded!
Please please please!
And how about that manspreading in number six? Holy Christ that guy. Dude, how much of that bench are you laying claim to?
Sixteenth-century lava balls.
He’s in the midst of reassuring her that his raging case of ‘French Pox’ is actually NBD.
‘What? Who told you it’s deadly? It’s totally treatable. You just need to file off the scrabs and rub holy wood on the area’
Or get a virgin to do it….
“La la la, I can’t hear you. My kerchief is too tight.”
Just practising for when the subway finally comes to this neighbourhood.
In #4, I can’t stop seeing the interrupting guy as Kristen Stewart in a fake mustache from the Jenny Lewis “One of the Guys” video:
Also, why, just now / the heroine is being interrupted by someone incredibly rude made me laugh out loud in my cavernous, nearly empty office. So much echo.
Mallory probably wasn’t planning on thinking about this when she put this together……oh, what the hell do I know, she probably was anyway.
The amount of tightly laced corsets in this post is making me wheezy.
How else do you think movin’ on up is accomplished?
Third lady is waaay past feigning interest and just slipping gently into a coma in self-defence.
I own a pair of shoes exactly like the ones in the second picture; they look adorable even on my enormous feet, and they feel like wearing baby doves, and they are Pikolinos if you want to buy some toooooo.
URGH book interrupting men!
What’re you reading? Is it good?
… You know when a book is so good you just need to know what happens next?
Yeah!
*pointed look* *goes back to reading*
Is that the same guy in the first two pictures? Is there no escape?
He realized nobody wanted to hear him play the mandolin. So he switched to guitar.
He’s dead now, if that’s any consolation.
Whereas Peter Buck went the other way.
He’s also annoyed some women anyway, if the Athens lore is true. He certainly annoyed some flight attendants.
Art is beautiful, it comes from the heart! This can translate so many different things to different people.
Wait a… Did a bot just mansplain art to us?
I think so. *nods*
I sincerly hope the ladies in the first one found assistance:
“You mean he was playing a mandolin at you? The dastard!”.
Look at that dude on the red bench! LOOK HOW LONG MEN HAVE BEEN SITTING DOWN IN PUBLIC AND TAKING UP TOO MUCH SPACE WITH THEIR MANSPREADING.
why, just now
the heroine is being interrupted by someone incredibly rude
That is an EXCELLENT tactic, thank you
Dude, her friends in the penultimate one have a perfectly serviceable pruning hook or possibly sickle *right there*. They should help a sister out.
I think a lot of people are forgetting women used to be expected to feign indifference even if they would have liked nothing more than to ride that dick. Because “good women” were not supposed to take an active interest in men except for as providers. They definitely were not supposed to be interested in something as “dirty” as sex.
I know my indifference is seldom feigned when it comes to overly persistent troubadours.
Thats because thankfully in this day and age it isn’t considered “shameful” for women to show interest in men. We don’t need to feign indifference anymore so we only act indifferent when we actually are.
Um, either that or men told each other women were all about ‘feigning indifference’ because then they could keep using the ‘no really means yes’ excuse.
that’s very newspaper dear
she’s the crone version of
the heroine is being interrupted by someone incredibly rude and I love them both.
I have huge white walls in my living room and bedroom and I want to get framed prints of everything on these “Women & Men & Art History” — hang them, with the captions as provided by Mallory … I shall never tire of them.
I will call these walls “The Women”.
I just want to devote a wall to that one woman on the balcony with her samovar and her melon and her cat.
Number 6: early example of manspreading
“oh my, that’s interesting
i can’t remember the last time i heard something so interesting
it must have been the last time you told me something
looking at my hands helps me concentrate on how interesting this is…”
BWAHAHAHA!!!!
is he still there?
I can’t look.
Perfection.
you have just made my day!!!!