SISTER PAIGE WAS COMPLETELY CHARMED the other morning by a profile she heard on NPR of Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar. Three guesses as to who they are. And if you’re a Bollywood connoisseur, sorry, you’re disqualified. Get the scoop from Paige.
From the category archives:
Younger and Older Sisters
I LOVE THIS SONG BY RICHARD THOMPSON, called “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” after the bike model, and every time I hear it, I think of my red-haired sister, Marion. I don’t even know if she knows the song (or Richard Thompson, or his ex-wife, Linda Thompson, or their son, Teddy Thompson, glorious musicians all). Do you, Marion? But as Richard’s cult hit says…Red hair and black leather, my favorite color scheme…(Get all the lyrics…)
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WE ARE SAD TO LEARN OF THE DEATH OF LUCILLE CLIFTON, an American treasure, a prolific poet and author, and a recipient of just about every major poetry award or fellowship we can think of. Some months back TSP’s Sister Paige posted Clifton’s poem “sisters,” saying it “just made me want to cry, dance and sing.” Let’s cry, dance and sing today for the loss of Clifton, 73, by reading it aloud: [click to continue…]
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SISTERLY devotion is the theme to so much of what we write about here at TSP, and our Sister Marion says it’s perhaps never better illustrated than by the December 16th birthday girl, Jane Austen (1775), and the astonishing act of sisterhood performed by her sister after the death of the famous writer. Read Marion’s take.
CREEPY SISTER FICTION is not that hard to come by, TSP’s Sister Marion says. Sisters, after all, provide great territory for things to go seriously wrong, she points out, and watching them go there has that certain can’t-take-your-eyes-off-this quality. So it is with the masterful psychological thriller The Sister, by Poppy Adams, a debut novel written in the voice of older sister Ginny. Read more about it.
MARION’S SHE SAID, SHE SAID BLOG is one year old, and in its short life has taken on everything from the precious to the red hot between her older sister, Margaret, and herself. If you’ve been reading along you’ve learned that they don’t see most things the same way, and that on some topics—their mother, for instance—there is no seeing eye-to-eye. That behavior does not extend to their other parent. Read a love letter of sorts.
THIS SISTER CAN REALLY WIELD A NEEDLE AND ALSO THE LOVE, whether in her practice as a small-town country doctor in Canada or in her nature-inspired crafting—weblike crochet work, charming embroidery on thick, colorful felt, and all manner of sewing and knitting creations. Margie (short for Margaret) Oomen is the gentle genius behind the popular blog Resurrection Fern, and a force of nature herself online among the web’s most creative pairs of hands. Meet her in the TSP Galleries’ latest show.
THE SISTERS DIDN’T SO MUCH AS DROP THEIR WHISKS when TSP’s Marion reached them while they are out on book tour. It seems they can type with kitchen utensils in their mouths, she says, while packing and running off to the next interview, making her adore them even more than she already did after reading about their new cookbook entitled Bite Me. Meet the Bite Me girls.
SISTERS ARE A GREAT TOPIC, and it’s wonderful to have that confirmed by the arrival of Deborah Tannen’s new book, You Were Always Mom’s Favorite!, on the The New York Times bestseller list just this week. Read more from TSP’s Marion.
WHEN YOU START A SISTER NETWORK, you find new sisters—or they find you. That’s what happened recently when Mexican-born Kitty Castillo, a complete stranger, reached out from Sweden, where she lives today, to share her sister story—and some amazing vintage photos. “I thought that if you are interested in using the pictures It will be a surprise to all of my hermanas,” she wrote. Read Kitty’s tale, see more pics, and think about maybe sharing some of yours with TSP? [click to continue…]
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NOT ASKING YOUR SISTER is dumb. Marion should know, having learned that lesson when her daughter was 5, and told Marion that she wanted to be a boy. Actually, it was more specific than that. She told Marion she wanted a penis. Too bad Marion didn’t call her sister, Margaret. Here’s how it went instead.
TODAY MARKS THE 191st ANNIVERSARY OF Emily Bronte’s birth. She was the second eldest of three very talented sisters (but, of course, you already know that). She wrote poetry and fiction (and embroidered, remember?) and became best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights. Like her sisters, Emily adoped an androgynous name for publishing–Ellis Bell. She may have died far too young, but her sisterly legacy lives on and on. Happy birthday, Emily!
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WHEN TSP RECEIVED AN EMAIL from Shelley Kommers with the subject line “Sister Artwork,” we were startled: Had Shelley, known in the Etsy world as Oiseaux (meaning bird in French), seen us lurking in her shops and sites? Magic! Shelley attached two mixed-media pieces about sisters, including the one above, created as a representation of herself with her own sister, Carrie (look whose little arm is around whose bigger waist). No wonder Shelley defines “sister” as “someone you’re stuck with in the best way.” Today, on baby sister Carrie’s birthday, we celebrate big sister’s world rich in our latest TSP Galleries show.
First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: 
As the suffix of its name suggests, 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men. 
