Here’s one way to spend your snow day: Williamsburg-based photographer Henry Hargreaves took photos around the neighborhood and dropped some Star Wars characters into them; this one featuring Darth Vader is our favorite. Check out more images over on Gothamist.

1. R.J. Reynolds plans to turn Camel cigarette packs into an homage to Williamsburg for the month of January. According to a spokesperson: “We believe that [Williamsburg] represents a lot of the belief of the Camel brand. It helps illustrate the break-free attitude that Camel is about, breaking free to be your own person.” [via NYDN]
2. Natalie Portman and her friend Laura Moses have been shopping around a script for a raunchy comedy that’s being described as “a female-themed Superbad.” [via LAT]
3. “Working at the warp-speed of a 24/7 news operation, we now add the versatility of being able to develop ideas and investigations that require a different narrative pace suited to the medium of print. And for Newsweek, The Daily Beast is a thriving frontline of breaking news and commentary that will raise the profile of the magazine’s bylines and quicken the pace of a great magazine’s revival.” – Tina Brown on the Newsweek/Daily Beast merger
4. The new Muppet movie may involve Lady Gaga — or at least Eric Stonestreet, John Krasinski, and Ed Helms playing members of her entourage. [via Vulture]
5. Christie‘s is auctioning off one of the very first computers ever made by Apple — more specifically, it was built by Steve Wozniak in Steve Jobs‘ garage. It’s considered the first personal computer, and is expected to fetch between $159,800 and $239,700. [via Bits]

Bonus link: Oprah Invites Hundreds Of Lucky Fans To Be Buried With Her In Massive Tomb

The Domino Sugar Refinery on the East River waterfront in Williamsburg is a hulking testament to the neighborhood’s industrial past: built in  1884 and shuttered in 2003, the factory site (chock full of “abandoned offices, lunchrooms, science labs, locker rooms and loading bays; floor after floor of vats, boilers and furnaces”) was finally landmarked in 2007. Now, a $1.2 billion redevelopment project has been approved for an eight-month public review phase, aiming to rework the three main buildings as a mixed-use site with a riverside esplanade. After the jump, we discuss affordable housing, bureaucratic red tape, and the iconic Domino Sugar sign with lead architect Rafael Viñoly and team, pairing Domino’s projected future with documentary shots of the abandoned buildings by urban photographers Nathan Kensinger and Jake Dobkin.

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It has recently come to our attention that AllSaints, a British clothing company, has come out with a shirt design called the “Williamsburg.” International fame at last! We’re not sure how well the shirt fits its namesake — true, it’s a plaid button down, which fits, but no one we know in Williamsburg pays 120 dollars for plaid button downs. Nevertheless it inspired us to look at other sartorial items named after neighborhoods. Some make at least some amount of sense, while others left us scratching our heads, but you tell us — is your neighborhood represented fairly in clothing form?

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Today at Flavorpill, we looked at dead birds killed by our trash. We listened to A-TRAK remix the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We followed the Shepard Fairey drama. We met 50 visionaries. We had a Nintendo flashback. We realized that there’s a Republican rep for almost anything bad. We planned our fall foliage tour. We wondered when the strollers will descend on Williamsburg (and wished that Stephen Elliott had invited us  to his pasting party!). We were excited about a public-funded, crowdsourced animated feature film from Aardman and the Tate. And finally, we wished that Jonathan Ames had come over to our house to watch the fake Jonathan Ames on Bored to Death. What a good story that would be.

Remember when Williamsburg was just a collection of warehouses? Longtime Brooklyn dwellers Sam Brumbaugh and Bronwyn Keenan sure do. Brumbaugh, writer of Goodbye, Goodness, and Keenan, the Guggenheim’s Director of Special Events, recognize how far Brooklyn has come in its artistic development in the past decade, going so far as to dub it a “renaissance.” To commemorate the borough’s achievements and celebrate the museum’s 50th anniversary, they’ve co-produced a new concert series called “It Came From Brooklyn,” to take place in Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous rotunda. Read More »

Certain words should never appear in the same sentence. Like “Wall Street Journal reporter,” “hipster central,” and “skinny jeans.” But it’s too late for apologies now: The WSJ‘s Ray Smith went to the ‘burg. He pointed at some men in tight pants and used the phrase “skinny on skinny” copious times. And then he left. While this is no Hipster Grifter, rather dated, and kind of feels like a Daily Show segment gone flat, it did spark some interesting debate here at HQ.

After the jump find the video. We’ve also asked a few Flavorpill staffers for their sartorial take on the touchy topic; please add your own views on skinny man jeans in the comments. Read More »

Around the time we first launched Flavorwire we told you about a run-in we had with our Oscar award-winning neighbor Michel Gondry in Williamsburg. We haven’t seen him shooting any music videos around the hood since (perhaps we scared him off), but now 59 Orient Avenue, the house that was once Kate Winslet’s apartment in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — and eventually became a squatter’s paradise around this time last year — is for sale. Read More »

We just read that 18 visual artists received a boost in the form of $450,000 in grant money from the Michigan-based Kresge Foundation. As the Detroit Free Press reported, “Advocates say the fellowships could have a galvanizing effect on the local arts scene — boosting public perception of an overlooked community, inspiring artists to create more ambitious work and offering them an incentive to remain here rather than leave for New York or elsewhere.” Plus, next year the grants will recognize non-visual artists.

Does this spell a mass exodus from Brooklyn, the current unofficial borough-of-choice for struggling artists, toward a land free of gentrification and trust-funders? Let’s take a look at the evidence. Read More »

“I go into the bathroom and there’s graffiti everywhere! There’s no – I didn’t need toilet paper – but there’s no toilet paper because they don’t believe in using it. And I’m not making this up, I’m not exaggerating it. They don’t believe in toilet paper there! Because it hurts the environment.”

- Thanks for that razor-sharp cultural insight, Jay Mundy! Apparently the conservative talk-show host took his first trip to Williamsburg recently and between threatening to step on people’s dogs, thinking everyone was an alien, playing country music in his head, and confusing the words “hippies,” “yuppies” and “hipsters,” he also discovered the dirty little secret that people in le ‘burg don’t believe in paper products or washing their hands. Riiiight.

We couldn’t decide which was more ridiculous, his descriptions of local life or his assurance that he didn’t need the toilet paper. Either way, he wins our Keith Olbermann “Worst Person in the World” award for today.