This post is sponsored by TropFest USA.

TropFest, the world's largest short film festival, is happening in Prospect Park on June 22nd

Tropfest, the world’s largest short film festival, is moving to Brooklyn on June 22nd. This fantastic fete in Prospect Park has all the things we love: big stars, free entry, and lots of movies. We’re so excited to have this show in our fair borough that we’re giving away two VIP passes to one lucky brokester!

This ain’t your grandmother’s giveaway. Tropfest is BIG — over 10,000 people showed up at last year’s US festival. With these passes you’ll get off the main lawn and into the VIP tent. You’ll be hanging out with just 250 people, among them festival host Liev Schreiber, the participating filmmakers, and the entire panel of celebrity judges. You also get reserved seating for the show and free food and drink!

Starting at 3 p.m. Chairlift, the DJs from Neon Indian, Bear in Heaven, Ghost Beach, and People Get Ready will be spinning and playing. At 6:30 there’s a black carpet event in the VIP tent with Liev Schreiber and the judges. Then at 8, Liev takes the stage and kicks off the main event: the screening of the short film competition.

Tropfest was started in the early 90s by filmmaker John Polson when he showed his own six-minute short at the Tropicana Cafe in Sydney, Australia. From these small roots the festival has grown into a worldwide event at venues in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, India, New Zealand, and, of course, Brooklyn (with even more places to be announced). Despite its immense popularity, the festival remains free for all to attend.

Interested? Of course you are! To enter just put in your e-mail address below. You can earn more entries by liking Tropfest on Facebook, tweeting about it, and getting friends involved. This contest ends soon so don’t miss out on this chance to experience Tropfest like a movie star.

Great place to go back to the future. via Facebook

You guys tired of all the free outdoor movies happening this summer? We know, it’s like, “Hey man, let us PAY for our entertainment, you’re making it too easy.” Well, bad news for those of you intent on paying: Habana Outpost‘s typically excellent Sunday summer movie schedule just landed on our inbox, and guess what? It’s a bunch of free excellent movies. (more…)

First line of Brooklyn trend story hilariously perfect [Fox Business]
Ray Kelly considering stopping,frisking mayoral campaign [Runnin' Scared]
This certainly looks bad for the Flea [DNA Info]
Hey, it’s a music video about stop and frisk [Capital]
What to consider before eating cicadas [The Atlantic]
BK apartment under construction for 10 years almost done [Curbed]
Seattle bookstore desperate to get rid of 500K book backstock [Mediabistro]
NY tabloid reaction to Weiner exposing mayoral plans [NYO]

Mount Eerie in 2011. Photo by Cody Swanson

You may have seen our previous announcements that we’re giving away two Northside music badges. You may have thought “I’d love those, but I’ll get to that next week.” Well, it’s next week. We’re drawing a winner tomorrow at noon so you better enter before it’s too late.

These badges will give you access to all the music events on a first-come, first-served basis and guaranteed entry to both outdoor shows at McCarren Park: The Walkmen on June 15 and Solange on June 16.

You must be an e-mail subscriber to win. It’s free and easy: fill in that little box to your right that says “JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST” and click subscribe. In the upcoming newsletter we’ll send out later today, click the link to enter. That’s all you have to do.

Keep an eye out for the newsletter every Thursday in your mailbox. After this contest is over, we’ll have many more giveaways and lots of useful info.

Conspiracy of Beards: they might be clean-shaven, but they do look shifty. via Facebook

1. Brooklyn Launchpad invites you to perform any kind of art you can think of, provided you can do it in 10 minutes or less (Friday)

2. Party starters Brooklyn Wildlife get out of the lofts and into Public Assembly for a wild night of partying, dancing and body paint. Woo! Body paint! (Friday)

3. Live From Outer Space is a comedy show at the Cobra Club, but we haven’t been to it so we can’t tell you if it’s actually beamed in from a secret comedy base on bars or something (Friday)

4. Satiate your bloodlust with 70s revenge flick Act of Vengeance. Contains the FDA suggested daily requirement of blood and assorted gore (Friday) (more…)

Despite the fact that it doesn’t get great numbers in traditional TV metrics like ratings, Girls still cleans up in categories like “buzzworthiness,” think pieces, awards and themed Craigslist apartment ads. Which means that in addition to the normal cash-ins like bus tours and bad parodies, the show is now joining the likes of Seinfeld and The Office with that touchstone of cultural acceptance, the porn parody. (more…)

Still alive! But… via Facebook

Last night, the Brooklyn Twittersphere was all aflutter after reports from Eater that The Levee was the latest Williamsburg institution to pack up and leave. Fortunately, that turned out not to be true, and we were spared 14,000 nostalgia pieces about “the old Williamsburg.” Still, the statement from The Levee’s owners left some room to worry. (more…)

With a cover like this, how could you NOT want it? (via bizweekdesign’s flickr)

In case you haven’t noticed, the city is filled with a lot of rich people, many of whom are perhaps far savvier businessmen and women than we oft-unemployed Me-Me-Me Millennials. And, as oft-unemployed Me-Me-Me Millennials, we welcome their financial advice (well, maybe not these guys’ advice), encouragement and any other well-intentioned helping hand. But isn’t there a better way to help us out than with a tongue-in-cheek free subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek, complete with snarky little notes to remind us of what economic wastes we all are? (more…)

Oh, and win Daily Show tickets

We’re getting there, but there’s still work to be done when it comes to rebuilding everything wrecked by Sandy. And that, of course, takes money. And while just donating money to charity can give you a nice feeling inside, sometimes it’s nice to get something back for giving. Like, say, Daily Show tickets. Starting tonight, you can bid on those, and other great items with the “Bid 4 BKLYN” auction that benefits a Sandy relief program in Coney Island, and there’s a launch party for the auction at Spike Hill tonight as well. (more…)

Raise your hand if you don’t want to run over a pedestrian!

Who’s the more rightfully aggrieved population in New York City, cyclists or pedestrians? The question will never be answered, and probably because it doesn’t have a correct answer. Well, outside of “blame drivers for everything.” But in an effort to bridge the gap and unite against the common enemy that is the car, Slate got a cyclist and a pedestrian to sit down and discuss ways in which they could be less annoyed at each other. They came up with 5 rules for each side to follow, here’s a couple we took an interest in. (more…)