Over the last two nights, Gawker operative Stephen Kosloff braved the Gen Art film festival and related events. He brings you back this, the harrowing true account (and photographs) of what he saw.

The return of Sex and the City, the not-return of Matthew Perry. Strange movies and people win strange festival awards, and Slovenia finally gets some sunshine.

Remember that big protest that was scheduled for down by Wall Street today? It looks like the titans who control the economy also have connections with Mother Nature, since the heavy rain appears to have put a damper on things. Fortunately for activists, the weather report for tomorrow looks pretty good—bright skies, windy, 62 degrees—so they'll get another shot at it. [AP, previously]

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com] April 2 @ 9:30pm Spotted little Ginny at Corner Bistro grabbing a beer and a make out session with scruffy blond boy actor looking type.

The University of Maryland student union was going to play a film called Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge, a reasonably big-budget fuck flick based on those pirate movies from the Disney people but with fake tits and bad jokes instead of Johnny Depp and bad jokes. (And with explicit sex, obviously. It's probably shorter than those damn pirate movies too.)

Finally, news that detracts from the power of the internet to control each and every aspect of our lives. According to new research on consumer behavior, physically touching something—a dress, a purse, a computer—markedly increases the likelihood that we'll buy it as compared to, say, when we look at an image on a flickering screen. "When you touch something," warns the study's co-author, "you instantly feel more of a connection to it... that emotion can cause you to buy something you never would have bought if you hadn't touched it." So now we know why Tiffany is in trouble: It's not just the recession, but the fact that no one walks into the glass case-lined store for a pen and impulsively brushes their sticky fingers against a diamond necklace! [Time]

[Young lovers Penn Badgley and Blake Lively, stars of the show "Gossip Hills, 90210", celebrating that new Topshop store at The Box; image via INF]

Poor old Kelly Bensimon. The newest and worst Real Housewife of New York hasn't had much luck with fame. First she was arrested for twink assault, and now her modeling contract's been dropped by Saks.

Disappointingly for observers of the goings-on at the G-20 Summit, Carla Bruni Sarkozy wasn't present, so while the media feigned enthusiasm at the task of judging Michelle Obama's outfits alongside the other First Ladies', it really wasn't much of a competition. Thank goodness, then, that the Obamas are now in France with the Sarkozys, and are faced, as one serious-minded journalist sees it, with a challenge of equal weight: Our president will use the NATO Summit to lobby for more help for allied troops in Afghanistan, and his wife will try with all her might to usurp Carla as the most glamorous First Lady on the planet.

Today we have a squeaky clean TV host who does drugs, an actress having an affair, and a father of two celebrities who is trying to sabotage one of his kids.

Peter Madoff will finally be able to buy a loaf of bread this weekend. A judge agreed to partially lift the asset freeze on assets owned by the Bernie Madoff's brother this morning. He'll now have access to $10,000 a month to pay for things like his mortgage. Or he could always go out and blow it all on 4,000 loaves of bread, presumably. [Bloomberg]

• Andrew Sasson, the nightlife entrepreneur who used to live in NYC but now operates the Light Group from Las Vegas, has put his Hawaii mansion (left) on the market for $21 million. The 8,000-square-foot, eight-bedroom home comes with a pool and "party-friendly, tree-lined patio," just as you'd expect it would. [WSJ]
• Hotel developer Henry Kallan and his wife Emilia paid $2.995 million for a 38th-floor, three-bedroom co-op at 45 East 89th Street. [Cityfile]
• Architect Teresa Sapey has lowered the price of her two-bedroom apartment at the Plaza, which she picked up for $6.9 million in 2007 and put back on the market for $10 million just a few months later. It's now priced at $8.5 million. [Cityfile, Sotheby's]

Every unhappy family is dysfunctional in its own way: J. Lo is ambivalent about more Marc Anthony babies; MSNBC kids are jealous of their new sibling and Madonna's adoption was thwarted.

Alec Baldwin turns 51 today. Eddie Murphy is turning 48. Pop princess Leona Lewis is 24. Amanda Bynes is turning 23. 90210's Jennie Garth is 37. Mr. Las Vegas, Wayne Newton, is turning 67. Former ski champion Picabo Street is 38. Legendary actress Doris Day is turning 87. Actor David Hyde Pierce is 50. And Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach is 41. Weekend birthdays after the jump.

It was barely 18 months ago that Rupert Murdoch told the world he would soon stop charging for access to the Wall Street Journal's website. Now he says free content should be abolished.

Brittany Murphy clearly threw Craig Ferguson off last night on the Late Late Show: Why was an actress raised in New Jersey speaking in an Irish accent? And why was she acting so loopy?

• Madonna won't be leaving Malawi with a baby after all: A judge listed a residency requirement as the reason why he rejected her adoption petition, although there's still a possibility Madonna will appeal the ruling. [People, E!]
• These are tough times for Kelly Killoren Bensimon. The "Real Housewife," who was arrested a couple of weeks ago for allegedly beating up her boyfriend, now just lost her Saks modeling gig. [P6]
• Andre Balazs appears to have a new special someone in his life. He was spotted making out with beer heiress Daphne Guinness the other night. [P6]

• The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March, the highest since 1983, after a total of 663,000 jobs were eliminated. [NYP, BN]
• At the G-20 summit in London. world leaders agreed to pump $1 trillion into the world economy to help bail out developing countries. [NYT]
• Bank of America chief Ken Lewis says it may take a few quarters to pay bank the $45 billion it received in bailout money. Also: He says Countrywide and Merrill "will prove to be two of the best acquisitions we've ever made" [DB]
• Related: Another top Merrill banker is ditching the firm. [WSJ]
• It appears it's the end of the line for Daniel Zwirn's hedge fund. [DB]
• Hedge fund managers are paying more attention to customers after sustaining heavy losses. So they're, like, wearing ties to work and stuff. [BN]
• A Florida accountant became the first U.S citizen to be arrested as part of the investigation into Americans who hid assets with help from UBS. [AP]
• This can't bode well: American Airlines is in talks to raise cash from its credit card partner, Citigroup, by selling frequent flyer miles. [Reuters]
• It's not as fun being on top these days: The median salaries and bonuses for the CEOs of 200 big companies fell 8.5% to $2.24 million in '08. [WSJ]

Si Newhouse Jr. ordered more layoffs at Condé Nast last month; receptionists and online writers were promptly fired. But the magazine honcho apparently doesn't mind adding another Newhouse to the payroll.

Real-time is the future of everything, someone wrote three seconds ago. And therefore, Google will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Twitter! Welcome to the way acquisitions are done in Silicon Valley.