Aboug gigs, graveyards and signatures

The readers of BrontëBlog know for sure that Patty Smith is truly a Brontëite. And as BBC News reports it is more than just that:

Veteran rock singer Patti Smith is aiding flood victims in the Calder Valley by donating proceeds from a gig she is playing in Hebden Bridge.
Tickets for the US singer-songwriter's performance at the Trades Club on 8 September sold out within 90 minutes.
It is understood Smith arranged to play the gig after visiting Haworth, the West Yorkshire home town of the Brontë sisters, of whom she is a fan. (...)
Trades Club barman David Morcombe said it was a "bit of a coup" for the club. (...)
He said it was understood Smith decided to donate the proceeds of ticket sales to the flood relief fund after hearing about the damage suffered by the town.
He said: "She's playing to 190 people. We understand she hasn't played a gig as small as that for years.

Keighley News reports complaints about the state of the graves in  Haworth churchyard:

Grass is waist-high at the site, close to the tourist honeypot of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Bradford Council, which is responsible for its maintenance, this week blamed the weather conditions. A spokesman said: “Unfortunately, due to the warm, wet weather, the grass has had a rapid growth rate this season,” adding it was due to be cut imminently.
The complaint was raised by Thelma Shackleton, 68, who has been been visiting the graveyard – where her parents are buried – for 60 years. She said the grass had been allowed to grow so high that people looking for a particular grave would struggle to find the right place.
A spokesman for the parish church said as the graveyard had been closed to new burials for many years, responsibility for it lay with Bradford Council. (...)
Most members of the Brontë family are buried in a vault beneath the church. John Huxley, secretary of the parochial church council, said: “I do understand that Bradford has budgetary constraints.
“To clear a churchyard of that size is going to take a fair amount of money.”
The council spokesman said: “The grass in the churchyard is only scheduled to be cut six times – once a month from May to October – so the grass will be getting quite long as it is due for a cut again this week.” (Miran Rahman)

It's interesting to look at the comments in the previous article as the bad state of the cobbles at Church Street (the lane that leads to the Brontë Parsonage itself) raises some concerns.

The Erie Times-News is delighted that Wuthering Heights 2011 will be screened in Erie, PA before New York or L.A.:

It's not often that a film plays Erie before New York or Los Angeles. But that's the case for the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights," the final summer offering in the Film at the Erie Art Museum. (August 29)
How did Film curator John C. Lyons snare it?
"I hit it at the right time," he said. "Sometimes, you can get a filmmaker or producer who is kind of hungry to get it in front of people. We happened to get this one sealed up quite early, in the spring, before they had distribution in the states."
Lyons was interested in "Wuthering Heights" because it's directed by Andrea Arnold.

Allehanda (Sweden) has a lukewarm review of the film:

Det mest slående med denna film är ljudet. De klyschiga stråkarna är bortplockade och det är naturen som tar all plats i ljudrummet: surret från en mals vingslag, ormbunkar som rasslar i vinden, ett får som bräker långt borta.
Bilderna domineras också av landskapet, djuren, väderleken. Alltihop är filmat med en skakig handkamera som kommer nära, och resultatet är en storslaget sinnlig upplevelse. Tempot är dock långsamt, och tyvärr blottlägger det bristerna i själva berättelsen. Efter ett tag blir det långtråkigt med alla långa blickar och närbilder på kvistar som slår mot sovrumsfönster. (Karin Svensson) (Translation)

We have some homework for our readers. If someone visits the New Visitor Center in Walter Scott's Abbotsford: we would like a picture of Charlotte Brontë's signature at the visitors' books.

The public this week had their first glimpse of the purpose-built visitor centre that forms part of the near £15million transformation of Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford home.
The £4million architect-designed centre – which opened on Monday, is a short distance from the main house and free to enter – is part of a master plan developed by the Abbotsford Trust to create a world-class visitor attraction and centre of learning about Scott and his works. The centrepiece of the building is an exhibition about the world’s first best-selling author from his birth in Edinburgh in 1771, his family life, education and his successful literary career to his ruin during the financial crash of 1825-6 and his cultural legacy to Scotland and the world. (...)
Many objects are on display for the first time and include the design books and accounts for the construction of Scott’s beloved Abbotsford home and visitors’ books containing the signatures of notable figures including Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Oscar Wilde who came to Abbotsford after Scott’s death. (The Southern Reporter)

A new mythology is growing, the Mitford Sisters one. In The Telegraph:

The Mitford graves? I’d known, in a fuzzy sort of way, that the Mitfords had grown up nearby. But I wasn’t aware of their new status as the west Oxfordshire equivalent of the Brontë sisters. All I really remembered was a neighbour describing a strange, naughty group of girls, whom he hadn’t been allowed to play with because his parents didn’t want him learning (as they had from their governess) how to shoplift from Woolworths. (Robert Colvile)

Eamonnmallie posts about the turbines but not in Haworth... in the other Brontë country, in North Ireland:

Patrick Brontë preached at Drumballyroney Church (deconsecrated 1976) and taught in the local school in Glascar beside Glascar Presbyterian Church in South Down.
The first 100kW turbine to spear the local Brontë landscape was installed at a farm in the townland of Ballynaskeagh this summer without one voice in protest being raised.
The significance of this is the fact that the new spectacle on the horizon is the first presence, one and a half miles away as the crow flies, one spots on emerging from Glascar Presbyterian Church and the school, where Patrick Brontë taught.
The docile compliance of the country folk, who once elected Enoch Powell in South Down is in marked contrast to the angry voices in North Yorkshire over the growing intrusion of wind farms in Brontë country there.

The New Zealand Herald gives voice to the fashion designer Kate Sylvester, whose new collection was inspired by Jane Eyre:

This season's collection, called All My Heart, continues Sylvester's literary love affair by drawing inspiration from one of her favourite books, Jane Eyre - although she rewrites the story and imagines what would have happened if Jane had run off to the South of France with Mr Rochester instead.
That means less of the dark gothicism of the novel, with a lighter, more romantic mood. Imagine Jane lounging on the deck of a whitewashed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean in a pair of silk pyjamas, or frolicking happily in the moors in an apple blossom print gown. Other interpretations of the Victoriana theme are given the Kate Sylvester once-over: lacework is inspired by wrought iron gates, a hunting suit comes in fiery red, much like Jane's temper, while Charlotte Brontë's influence is seen most literally in the collection through beautiful shirt collars embroidered with the famous line that names the collection: "All my heart is yours, sir".
Incidentally Sylvester, who first read Jane Eyre in her teens and has read it around four times, is distantly related by marriage to Brontë - her brother (?) Patrick Branwell Brontë's wife was a great-great aunt. (Zoe Walker)

We suppose they mean her father... unless someone has uncovered a secret marriage by Branwell.

DitmasPark Patch recommends Jane Eyre for summer reading:

For many of us, we've all "read" the classics, we just don't remember them after school lets out. If Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was one of those long-forgotten books, pick up a copy. To read the novel as an adult is a joy; Jane is a complicated, remarkable and very strong female character in a genre known to depict women as beautiful victims at best. (Caitlin Nolan)

And 50Plus does the same:

Jane Eyre begins with a young, orphaned girl who lives with her aunt and cousins who torment her daily. After finally standing up to them and being sent away to a religious boarding school for orphans, Jane becomes an excellent student and eventually accepts a governess job where she meets Mr. Rochester, an unconventional looking man whose rude demeanor immediately attracts her. The story of their rocky road to love is a classic novel passed down from generation to generation. (Lisa Lagace)

Associated Press runs a story about the American football player Chris Cooley:

Chris Cooley just finished "Catch-22'' and "To Kill a Mockingbird.'' He's currently plowing through a book about Steve Jobs and has "Wuthering Heights'' sitting at home for his bedtime reading. His pottery hobby has been well-known in the Washington Redskins community for years. (Joseph White)

The Prague Post describes the local park Divoká Šárka

Such a setting is fitting for the country's own Wuthering Heights type of legend. Divoká Šárka has a place of honor among the lexicon of Czech mythology, and its legend of "Wild Šárka" has been interpreted into both feminist and nationalist veins. (Fiona Gaze)

I'm a Reader, not a Writer interviews the writer Ray East:

Who are your favorite authors of all time?
Charles Dickens, the Brontë Sisters, Virginia Wolf, D.H. Lawrence, Maupassant, Jane Austen. I also read a lot of Asian writers like Amitava Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri, Rushdie. etc etc.

Katherine Silva, author of The Monstrum Chronicles compares her novel to:

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’d compare The Monstrum Chronicles more to a video game series rather than a book series. The Legacy of Kain series for Playstation is similar in atmosphere to the series I’m writing. On the Road by Jack Kerouac and The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson are probably the closest things to Night Time, Dotted Line. You Fancy Me Mad is kind of tough to compare. It has elements of Brontë’s Jane Eyre and mystery like Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries, and a dash of madness from Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane.

Jean Booknerd interviews the writer Ruth Frances Long:

If you could introduce Tom to any character from another book, who would it be and why?
Someone who might knock some sense into him. He can be a bit of a spoilt brat. Jane Eyre might sort him out.

Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) recommends Agnes Grey; The Bookshelf of Emily J. and Błękitny regał  (in Polish) review The Tenant of Wildfell Hall;  Journeys with Jana posts about Jane Eyre; fuchsinkind loves the Jane Eyre 2006 adaptation; The Experience Syndicate liked Jane Eyre 2011; Euro Crime reviews Death of a Schoolgirl and Spring Lake District Library and Audrey Finch review The Flight of Gemma Hardy; A tree grows in Delano is not a Wuthering Heights fan; La Bouteille à la Mer (in French) reviews The Professor; boktrollet reviews (in Swedish) A Breath of Eyre.

There's a new Jane Eyre blog in town: The Jane Eyre Project:

Two readers explore the world of Jane Eyre.We'll be reading Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, and we might tackle some nonfiction relating to Jane Eyre. Maybe some sequels, maybe some mashups and retellings. Definitely the film and tv versions. We're going to gush about Charlotte Brontë, hardcore.

Finally, our tweet of the day, courtesy of @MeltingClockWeb:

Currently in Haworth, home of my dream future business: 2nd-hand bookshop & Internet caf. It'll be called Wuthering Bytes NO ONE STEAL THAT.
I think there's a law in Haworth about business names and Brontë puns. They are semi-compulsory.