The Burrow Takes NYC: Burrow Reunion Tour!

To celebrate Lucy's natal day, Nora Megabus'd down to New York (after attending a wedding in Boston) to spend 48 hours on a whirlwind Burrow adventure through Lucy's hometown. We were pretty excited about it.

List of Burrow 48-hr Exploits, 

NYC Edition:

• SUNDAY:

1. Nora got in Sunday night and we had Chinese food at "Chelsea Chinese" (formerly "Grand Szechuan"), the best Chinese food in NYC (a bold claim, but Lucy stands by it). Soup dumpliiiings.

2. Then to drinks at "Little Branch" near Lucy's house-- a 1920's style underground bar with live jazz music and bartenders in suspenders.

3. After one delicious pricey cocktail, we headed home to do some intensely intellectual studies in the modern adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic literary triumph.

LOOK AT THE WALLPAPER BEHIND THAT SUBTEXT!

Then we were exhausted from how ridiculously beautiful that show is, so we had to sleep.

• MONDAY:

1. We started out with hot drinks and croissants at Joe's the Art of Coffee.

2. Nora needed a new winter coat, so we hit the space-port-style Uniqlo Flagship Store.

(This is not the coat she bought. But it is quite poofy.)

3. Lunch at "Pies & Thighs," a southern-food restaurant where we had fried-chicken biscuit sandwiches with honey butter and hot sauce, accompanied by hush puppies and brussel sprouts with bacon vinaigrette.

Then Pear-Ginger-Cherry pie. We left one bite, so as to remain ladylike.

4. We walked up Bedford Ave to peer into all the thrifty/crafty/twee little shops we couldn't afford.

5. Then we took a $8 tour of the Brooklyn Brewery! This was so much fun and beer for so little money! We had a great time.

We got to try 4 types of their beers, and tour their great facility in Williamsburg.

6. Then dinner at Nighthawk Cinema, where you can order FOOD at the MOVIES. Why aren't ALL movie theaters like this one!? WHY. It really alleviates the need to smuggle a ham and a bottle of wine into the theater in your jacket. Plus, it makes for a very time-saving evening!...

7. ...Which leaves us more time to devote to SHERLOCK. Episode 2.2. Swoonypants.

(Spoiler Alert) I'm so sorry I'm a crazy hallucinating bastard, John. I love you. So much. *makeouts*
...We mighta dreamt part of that.

• TUESDAY:

1. Got some cheapo bagels nearby and went to eat them in Christopher Park. Nora had some processing time with some of the sapphic statues.

Look, I KNOW you're worried that her feelings are breaching your emotional membrane, but you need to keep in mind that the equilibrium of your mutual emotivity is limited by you're BEING A STATUE.

2. Don't let it be said that we don't know how to entertain ourselves for free. Watching puppies in store windows: like a movie for broke people who can't even play in NYC for 24 hours without being completely decimated financially. But don't these puppies make it all seem okay?


3. We went to Purl Soho to oggle... oogle?... Ogle? Ogle! the fancy yarns and fabric goods. Look! Drool.

4. Nora needed a dose of some New York pizza, so we went to John's for a pie with Lucy's cousin and uncle. Muah. Delish.

For some information on how SERIOUSLY INTENSE New York pizza is, please see this treatise:
Preach, Jon Stewart!

6. Then, to balance out our little weekday-weekend, we finished up with a couple cupcakes from the new NYC Molly's Cupcakes! This place was our regular treat in Chicago. When their main source of revenue (Lucy) moved to NYC, they opened a place JUST FOR HER, a block from her new apartment. How's that for service?

CREME BRULEE CUPCAKE, mothafukaaaa!

7. Alas, after a reunion Burrow Blog, Nora was bound back to Chicago and away. Super fun New York Burrow adventures, out!

More photos of all of this nonsense on Flickr! 

xo,
TB

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Nine!

This entry marks almost one year of this blog! Sadly, The Burrow studio is parting locationally for the time being due to Lucy setting sail for her hometown of New York while Nora remains in beautiful Chicago. But our collaborations and adventures will continue, via long-distance art fun as well as frequent visits. The blog won't update as frequently, but keep us in your feed for our irregular posts of collaborative fun! Thanks so much for keeping up with our amazing year of art and nerdiness. We hope you've enjoyed our adventures and artwork, and thanks for all your support!

• Studio Project of the Week: "The Double Tavern" screenprint! This great bar opened over the winter at the end of our block. We love it there, and are very fond of the bartender, Henry. We made this two-color screenprinted poster as an homage and thanks to Henry for all the great times and good drinks.

• Studio Event of the Week: The Defeat of the Dark Lord! As you may have guessed, we were pretty excited about the final Harry Potter release. We had a few friends over for costumed butterbeer and photoboothing before the movie. Here's a favorite Burrow Studio photobooth shot as "The Grey Lady" and "Ron."

The Burrow has never been Potterier!

Lots more photobooth shots on flickr!

• Studio Jam of the Week: "Lily," by Ministry of Magic

• Kitty Photo of the Week: Spot the kitty hiding in the messy closet!

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Eight

Happy Sunday!

Love,

The Burrow

• Studio Project of the Week: The Black Family Tapestry! As seen in this scene of Harry Potter.

• The Burrow Studio Makes The Black Family Tapestry from Lucy Knisley on Vimeo.

  The beginning sequence is our trial print of the negative image on an undyed piece of canvas. Then we use discharge paste on a piece of dyed fabric to print the image, which removes the dye where it's printed and then steamed with an iron. A cool, one-might-say MAGICAL process.
  
  More photos of the BFT here!
  
  
  • Studio Outing of the Week: Burrow Ink!
  
  
  
  To commemorate our year of studio time and mutual affection for HP,on the week of the last movie's release, and one of our last weekends together.By our fabulous, speedy and amazing tattoo artist, Kit Hall.
  
  
  • Studio Obsession of the Week: Kyle XY! Continuing on in our quest to catch up on every cancelled TV show of the last decade, we're getting out ABC Family dramedy on. Thanks, instant-watch. To illustrate the genius of this show, here is an old illustration of Lucy's.
  
  
  
  • Studio Jam of the Week: The Winner Takes it All, By Abba, as performed by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Did you guys see "The Trip?" This scene was our favorite in the whole movie.
  
  
  
  • Kitty Photos of the Week:
  Smooshface headscratches.
  
  Zzz, BFT.

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Seven!

We seem to be doing this in 2-week increments. We'll try to be better about that. And as the rockets red glare burns outside our apartment from our neighbors' (likely extremely dangerous and illegal) 4th of July fireworks, WE BLOG.

• (Incomplete) Studio Project of the Week: Just a little process shot, as they're not totally finished, but it should give you an idea of what we're making for ourselves. We stayed up all night in the print studio at Lillstreet Arts Center, using a complicated printing process that involved crazy chemicals, respirators, hair-dryers and (of course) sexy 4-AM print-table poses.

We should be totally done next week, so we'll post more photos of it then.

• Apocalyptic Weather of the Week: HAIL YES. Chicago got ping-pong-ball-sized lightening hail last thursday. We were having dinner with friends, when we looked outside and saw this:

Chicago Hail Storm 06/30/11 from Jack Wagner on Vimeo.

(Movie scavenged online. We were too busy stuffing our faces with pulled-pork sandwiches before the world ended to document it.)

But check out the damage to Nora's truck!

• Twinsie Project of the Week: FRIENDSHIP JEWELRY! Lucy made these lightning bolt necklaces for us!

Spoiler [alert] and [Speech] Bubble are our nicknames for one another.

Three guesses who's who.

• Studio Event of the Week: Pride Weekend! We went to Dyke March Chicago on Saturday, and The Chicago Pride Parade on Sunday. It was a gay old time.

The DMC, winding around the South Shore.

Noooo, of couuuurse we're not BLATANTLY CHECKING PEOPLE OUT. Not a chance.

• Studio Addition of the Week: Annie Koyama sent us these awesome HP lego figures, and they went to live in our typeset drawer! They fit in perfectly.

(More photos)

• Studio Outing of the Week: Jellies at the Shedd Aquarium!

If you live near Chicago, you should go see these!

(More Photos)

Except... I don't think you're ready for these jellies.

Which brings us to the...

• Studio Jam of The Week: Bootylicious, by Destiny's Child. The color thematics... THE COLOR THEMATICS. Anyway, ever since we decided to go to the Jellies exhibit, we've been singing this song around the house.

• Studio Jam of LAST WEEK: DARREN CRISS! ARTIE! REBECCA BLACK! Kenny G? HANSON!??? Corey Feldman? Debbie Gibson!? WHAT IS GOING ON THIS VIDEO IS AMAZING.

• Studio Quotes of the Week: Guess the context.

"That movie was Thorrible.
It made me want to Thor up.
What's worse, it was so Thoring!
At least Natalie Portman looked Thorgeous.
I'm so Thorry we had to see that movie.
We're still going to be doing this at Thor in the Thorning, aren't we?
THEY'VE ISSUED A THORNADO WARNING."

• Cooking Adventures of the Week: Tea sandwiches, to celebrate Nora's birthday.

• Cat Photo of the Week: SLEEPY FRIENDS!

• Cat Video of the Week: Wild outdoor jungle cat! Linney went out into the backyard to go exploring. She didn't much care for it, as it turned out. Apologies for calling my cat an asshole.

Studio Log: Starweek Twenty-Six!

We've been busy the last couple of Sundays, so this is a big one!

• Studio Obsession of the Season: XENA.

We've been watching a lot of Xena... Warrior Princess.Have you heard, she was forged in the heat of battle?

Studio Event of the Season: GLEE LIVE. Nora's birthday presents from Lucy were two tickets to Glee Live (under the condition that one of the tickets would be for her). Of course, it was fantastic and ridiculous and we weren't even the oldest people there!* It was in a packed arena full of screaming nerds such as ourselves, being blown away by TV people and pyrotechnics and epic lighting and assorted types of home-made costumes.

*There were definitely some parents who were older than us. We checked.

We were right next to the teeny rear stage, where the actors would occasionally sneak-surprise us with a number about five feet from our heads. It was amazing. Look how close we were to Chris Colfer:

Our home-made T-shirts for the show, referencing this scene:

If you watch Glee, you'll know that the meaning behind these particular T-shirt phrases are coded for other actual attributes that fit us rather well. Hint: Nora's not actually Lebanese.

More Photos of the Fabulousness Here

And More Photos of our Fabulous Gleeference T-Shirts Here

• Studio Update of the Week: Here at Sowmoles! We have a "new" comic available for sale as a digital download and/or minicomic. It might look familiar to some of you... With one crucial (legal) difference.

We hope you and our good Brothers Warner like the change!

• Studio Project of the Week: Center for Cartoon Studies Pencil Cases! Designed by Lucy and printed by Nora this week.

• Studio Outing of EVERY Week: The Logan Square Farmer's Market! Every week we skip through the glorious hipster-filled morning market located in our neighborhood. Nora goes crazy buying plants for the garden and Lucy goes crazy buying food like this tiny ice-cream cone ("tea-and-cookies" flavored).

Last week we saw were trampled by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's camera crew, as Mr. Mayor wandered through the market shaking babies and kissing hands and preventing us from getting to the free samples of fancy jam. Somewhere there's probably a news feature where you can barely hear Rahm answering some constituent's question over Nora yelling "I JUST WANT SOME JAM, RAHM!" in the background. Please send a link if you find this video.

• Studio Improvement of the Week: Garden Overhaul! Nora has been toiling in the hot sun over our teeny backyard to transform it into a nice little garden space. Here's what she's done so far-- it's WORLDS away from the desert-cement of urban depression that it once was.

Lucy and Linney helped.

• Studio Drink of the Week: MOREjitos! Nora took about a metric ton of mint out of the back garden in preparation for planting a wider assortment of herbs. And since we had all this mint, plus we were on our way to see the latest Pirates spectacle at the $4 movie theater (which = RUM), there was only one thing we could do.

Smuggle mojitos into the movie in our water bottles!
Our recipe:(over ice)Muddled MintA Couple Muddled StrawberriesCoconut RumClub SodaTwo LimesOne half LemonHoney or Maple Syrup (to taste)

• Studio Jam of the Week: Vegetables! (Beach Boys Cover by Kayla Willi)

• kitty photo of the Week: Linney had to get some butthair shaved off because it was dreadlocking. Ripley HATES the new 'do. But when has Ripley really needed an excuse to chase Linney around the apartment?

The answer is NEVER.