An Audio Guide to the Birth of Venus

Inspired by McSweeney.*

This is Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Do you think the pagan Venus is pretty? You're supposed to. She represents beauty's arrival in the world. But look how her arm hangs like her shoulder is broken. And her neck is really too long, don't you think? I really don't know what guys see in the little floozy. I think she's equal parts soft porn and Robert Tilton. Venus on the Half Shell, indeed.

Look at the old guy sitting on the bench in front of the BOV. The one with the sack lunch and catcher's mitt in his lap. He doesn't have an audio but looks blissful anyway. What's that all about?

With the snarly guard and roped-off viewing area, the only way to see Venus up close is to buy your very own BOV wrist watch at the gift shop. What, you think that is low class for an art museum? Where do you think the old guy got the catcher's mitt? It's you conservative types who first bitch about taxpayer art funding then look down your noses at bleached peanut husk renderings of The Thinker, for sale by the six-pack.

Let's go to the next painting. I have a headache.

*McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Audio Guide to the Greatest Masterpieces of All Time, Assembled in One Place