Because bringing Joss Whedon ’87 to campus apparently wasn’t enough, Wesleyan’s capital campaign website reports that everyone’s favorite Dresden Doll, Amanda Palmer ’98, will also be making an appearance for a “concert and conversation” during Reunion & Commencement weekend. Fittingly, this May marks the 15th reunion of Palmer’s glory days living in the Eclectic basement and schmoozing it up with Momus. Curiously, however, Palmer has made no secret of how much she disliked being a student at Wesleyan. In fact, she once wrote a fantastic song about burning Wesleyan to ash. But everyone knows fundraising is boring without a little conflict, right?

Palmer has been in the public eye constantly this past year, mostly raising conversation and controversy regarding her radical business model and crowd-sourcing tactics, which was the topic of her recent TEDTalk. Last time she was at Wesleyan, in 2011, she gave a surprise “ninja gig” in the Eclectic dining room, performing everything from Dresden classics “Coin-Operated Boy” and “Leeds United” to a radical reimagining of  Rebecca Black’s “Friday” from the point of view of a truck stop hooker. Here’s video of that performance, via Will Feinstein ’13 at Aural Wes. Hope she includes it in her Reunion & Commencement set!