The David Schwartz Fashion Education Center of Parsons: The New School for Design, at 560 Seventh Avenue in New York. (Courtesy BeyondMyKen/Wikipedia)

Parsons the New School for Design announced today that it will open a new academic center on Rue Saint-Roch in Paris's First Arrondissement next fall that will eventually be able to support 300 to 500 students. The news was first reported in The New York Times.

David E. Van Zandt, the president of the New School, explained the school's decision to open a Paris outpost to The Times:

“Too many American universities have set up overseas where the money is — especially in the Middle East, which leaves them dependent on local government funding,” he said from New York. “We regard our Paris program as an investment.”

Parsons is also developing campuses in Shanghai and Mumbai. (Lucky students!) The Paris branch will be inaugurated on Nov. 29 at the Palais de Tokyo.

Watch out muses! This guy is looking for you.

Hey everyone! Are you looking to drop everything, pack up your whole life and move in with a complete stranger who is a "kind, senior, sympathetic, well-read, cultured, very polite, positive, not-bad-looking fellow with a good voice and a wide range of skills to keep him busy" and, rest assured, is "not at all fussy or difficult to live with?"

Well you're in luck! The gentleman in the hat pictured to the left is looking--no, demanding--that you COME BE HIS MUSE IN PARIS. Minimum stay? Two weeks. Maximum stay? Who knows? Maybe you'll get married! Maybe something much, much worse will happen! Here are some requirements, via the Craigslist ad (we are grateful to the Facebook page of photographer extraordinaire Rebecca Smeyne for calling our attention to this):

As my muse, your task will be to inspire me to draw, to write, to sing, act, and invent. These are all things I have done well in the past and which I continue to master today, but my work would be even more powerful and amazing with a muse to inspire me, and to share the rewards as they come in.

Now you might be asking yourself, for the love of God why? Well, here's how you'll be compensated by this interesting, hat-wearing lover of art.

ENTERTAINMENT: I can read you my (not to brag) extraordinary plays (doing all the voices) or parts of any of my nine books, or sing pleasantly enough to brighten your day.

COMPANIONSHIP: I'm a raconteur. An ex-seaman, I love telling tales. I've lived in 18 lands, and have endless tales to tell of the wonderful places I have been and seen.

SLEEP: You will sleep better here than you ever have before, and unwind from stresses that you may have faced elsewhere. (Suppressing audible shutter--ed.)

MASSAGE: I was taught Japanese massage by a Nisai and usually pass on this skill to my muse. (This is a strictly non-erotic Japanese technique for well-being.)

BEAUTY and SELF-APPRECIATION: Not to brag, but I'll take pictures of you that will reveal to you for the first time in your life just how beautiful you are.

So. There you have it! What are you waiting for, you fools? Go! Go and be this non-bragging man's muse in Paris! Let him photograph you and delicately massage you and read plays to you in a variety of different voices and somehow make you sleep better than you ever have in your life we hope in a totally organic way! Stop reading! Go now, ye muses!