It’s a cheery 59 degrees outside! Take your work out on the lawn, bask in the sun, read on the steps… squirm (?) on Low Plaza…

Free food tonight at 7. We’d add more, but the poster gets the message across just fine. 

Several New York blogs have picked up on an Obsessed TV interview with “Real Housewife of New York” Kelly Killoren Bensimon, and all seem to agree the best quote is about how she got into the School of General Studies:

“A friend of mine said you should really go to Columbia, they have an amazing journalism department there. And so I actually went to the school and I said to them, I said, ‘You know, if you take me, I, you know, you just gotta give me a chance, and if you take me, then I will be the best student, I will do whatever it is, whatever you need whenever you need it. I promise you, you know, I will not be a mistake.’ And this man, the dean, was like, ‘Who are you? Like, what? No, no, no. We have a process here. You have to fill out an application.’ And I was like, ‘No no no, It’s nice you have an application, I’ve already sent that in, but I want to go here, and I really really wanted to go there.’ And he let me in.”

Combined with the allegations against her for assaulting her boyfriend and stealing jewelry ideas, GS students everywhere haven’t been this embarrassed since the last time they had to…oh screw it, the Varsity Show beat those jokes into the ground.

But perhaps GS can claim Bensimon is simply dumber with age. In April 1996, she talked about balancing her studying, modeling, and charity work to the now-defunct Columbia Observer, saying “Columbia is like just one of my fingers. But being part of my body I treat it with the same respect that I do my work or charity or whatever I’m doing.” Then again, maybe not.

Unfortunately you won’t be able to see him walking a tightrope up in the sky today, but if you’re interested you will have a chance to meet stuntster and artist Philippe Petit tonight at St. John the Divine.

Petit is most famous for his tightrope walks between the towering tips of skyscrapers in the city. His multiple walks on a rope stretched between the tops of the World Trade Center towers in 1974 earned him international fame, and became the subject of a documentary called Man on Wire.

St. John will be showing the documentary tonight at 7 p.m. before opening a question and answer period with Petit himself. It is a benefit screening, so it’s not quite clear whether you have to pay $20, or whether that’s a suggested donation a la Met. But Petit might just be worth the money. Aside from what he calls “artistic crimes” like the tightrope walking, St. John reports that his activities as an Artist in Residence there have included “writing, drawing, close-up magic and street juggling, and the study of lock-picking, French wine, and 18th century timber framing.” He was once also seen bullfighting in Peru – the indisputable mark of a true Renaissance man.

If you can’t scrape together the money, you can find the documentary and Petit’s book of the same title online, or you can wait for what could be a truly once in a lifetime opportunity to see Petit again later this year. Gothamist reports that Petit is planning yet another tightrope walk for sometime this fall. Infinitely better than the movie, and free!

A roving gang of mustachioed bandits invaded campus yesterday. Before they were chased off by the NYPD Special Trimming Squad, though, they got a very special photo op. 

Salvador Dalí would be so proud.

Carved into the marble outside Butler Library:

Although COBOP leader applications are due today, as of yet no evidence has come to light implicating the freshman orientation program in this or any other acts of bicycle worship.