Paige Smith Orloff invents sisterhood from scratch.
From the category archives:
SHIRLEY MACLAINE MAY be more famous these days for metaphysical musings than for movie stardom, but I can’t forget her indelible performances in some of my very favorite sister flicks. (Terms of Endearment? Steel Magnolias?) Today, for her 75th birthday, I want to toast Shirley MacLaine in a way I didn’t really have the chutzpah to do properly the one time I met her. Once upon a time, you see, I worked in Hollywood. [click to continue…]
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A FEW WEEKS BACK, I wrote a post here about my efforts to become part of what I affectionately think of as Crock Pot Nation–all those working sisters (and, to be fair, I’m sure some guys, too) who have embraced the homely slow cooker as a means of serving (healthy, homemade) dinner promptly without blowing a gasket. Apparently, I’m not alone, judging by the number of (excellent) responses I got, ranging from timesaving tips to recipes to rants. The popularity of slow cooking sent me, where else, back to Google, to see if there were any slow-cooker recipes that sisters seemed particularly eager to share, and lo and behold, I found a favorite: tortilla soup. [click to continue…]
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WRITER AND ARTIST Stephanie Tames has an amazing story about sisterhood on the downslope of life in today’s Washington Post. Humor and disappointment both factor into Sister Act, her remembrance of a shopping expedition with her two older sisters. Read it, laugh, and weep. For more about Stephanie and her artwork, visit her website. According to the Post, she’s working on a book–can’t wait to read it.
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A FEW WEEKS BACK, Margaret Roach and I started talking about dark movies–the depressing, emotionally draining, deeply resonant ones that aren’t always what you want to take on, but can be just the ticket for certain moods. Well, with apologies to T.S. Eliot, we’re about to enter the cruelest month, the hard, cold days of February. (Even the radio weatherman today said, “If you can just get through the next month, you’re home free.”) What time could be better for some dark and stormy cinema? [click to continue…]
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LEGENDARY ACTIVIST LAWYER William Kunstler is now the subject of a documentary, William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, premiering at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, which opened today in Park City, Utah. This is no ordinary biography, though. The film is directed and produced by two of Kunstler’s four daughters. Sisters Emily and Sarah Kunstler, who were teenagers when their father died, say that “Making this film has been a magical way of bringing him back to life.” [click to continue…]
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I MAY BE alone in having missed the Mamma Mia! phenomenon. Though I vaguely recall seeing the now-iconic poster in every city I visited over the last few years, and I knew the film came out last year, I guess I didn’t get just how big a deal the show–and the film–were. So when the H (that’s my husband) put it in our Netflix queue, my reaction was a subdued, “Oh yeah, I wanted to see that,” and I moved on to any number of the other myriad things that clutter up my (ever-diminishing) brain space. As it turns out, I was missing out.
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THE H (AS I refer to my darling husband) and I have a serious Netflix habit. We’re movie-lovers with limited local theatrical options, not to mention no cable TV, so we are dependent upon the mail to bring us our entertainment. For a few months now, one of the red envelopes we’ve had lurking around the house contained a film that the H rented on the advice of a movie-savvy friend, who swore it was the best movie he saw last year.
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I WAS ALL set to write a post alerting my movie-loving virtual sisters to two films opening this weekend, with sisterhood figuring prominently in the storytelling, when an unexpected email arrived. It came from another sisterhood (and brotherhood) of my life: my graduate-school alumni group. A fellow alumna was asking everyone on the alumni mailing list to support a movie she was involved in producing…a movie opening this weekend…a movie I was just sitting down to write about. [click to continue…]
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IS IT ALWAYS like this? Are there always movies about sisters in the theaters, or is just a fluke of this late-fall, pre-holiday movie season? Whatever the cause, there are three Sisflix to choose from in theaters now. Have you seen any or all?
The first to be released, The Secret Life of Bees, stars Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys and Queen Latifah in the adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name by Sue Monk Kidd. I’ll probably get some hate mail for this, but I tend to avoid Dakota Fanning movies. Preternaturally precocious child stars give me the heebie-jeebies nowadays. (Meaning, now that I’m a grown up. I loved them when I was a kid–just read what I have to say about The Goodbye Girl if you don’t believe me.) I also loved this book, which makes seeing the movie a scary proposition. Can anyone convince me that I should go? I love the other actresses, especially the super-gorgeous, super-talented Sophie Okonedo. [click to continue…]
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I FIND MYSELF DRAWN to art evoking sister imagery, like that of LISA CONGDON.
First time here? Here's the idea: The Sister Project 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 on our homepage 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: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
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.
TSP’s Galleries were created to show off that outpouring of art and craft, poetry and prose. Come see a show or two—no ticket required, no lines to get in—and suggest others whose work we ought to showcase.
As the suffix of its name suggests, TSP's Sisterpedia is the reference section, one we’re hoping you’ll help us grow to maturity by adding your knowledge in the comments. Turn us on to new facts and figures, whether for the branch of our ‘library’ called Sistory (history from a sister point of view, from the Muses of ancient Greece to 60s Girl Groups and beyond) or the one called Sibling Science (what makes sisters tick, genetically and behaviorally). Or just click around and have a good read. See you there.
