B(l)ocklehurst intoxicated

The monthly Brontë Society report in Keighley News has just been published:

There’s still time for you and your family to join us at the museum and take part in some holiday activities.
We’ve got walks up to Penistone Hill every day at 2pm, and a Wild Wednesday drop-in workshop on April 11, where you can make your own ‘marvellous map’.
Speaking of maps … I spent last Friday doing a 14-mile moorland trek with local author Michael Stewart and local cartographer Chris Goddard on a recce for an ‘Emily walk’.
Michael has devised this as part of his Bronte Stones project – more on that next month.
The weather was incredibly wuthering – it was windy, boggy and exhausting. Very Emily Brontë!
My plan is to do the walk as part of our Emily birthday celebrations at the end of July.
It’s a tough but rewarding walk for the hardiest of walkers!
More details will be released nearer the time.
Back in the museum, we have our first late night Thursday of the year on April 19, now we’ve moved into our summer opening times.
And as it’s close to Charlotte’s birthday, some characters who knew her well – Tabby the housekeeper, and John Brown the sexton – will be in the Parsonage ready to share stories about Charlotte and her life at home.
Admission is free after 5.30pm to visitors who live in the BD22, BD21 and BD20 postcode areas or Thornton.
The evening after sees us introduce our writer in residence for 2018, Patience Agbabi.
Patience took part in last year’s Poetry at the Parsonage event, and we liked her so much, we invited her to play a part in Emily’s bicentenary year by becoming our writer in residence for the year.
She will join us at West Lane Baptist Centre, to read and perform, and tell us more about her plans for the residency.
Patience is an amazing performance poet, so we’re very excited about the evening and her plans for the rest of the year.
She’ll be at West Lane Baptist Centre on Saturday, April 28, 7.30pm.
The literature lovers amongst you are in for a treat this spring, as the week after Patience Agbabi, we welcome Fiona Mozley to Haworth.
Fiona will be discussing her Booker shortlisted novel Elmet, which has been described as an example of northern rural noir – sounds very Wuthering Heights!
Fiona will be at Hall Green Baptist Church on Saturday May 5 at 2.30pm.
We’ve been pretty busy this month with TV and radio recordings.
BBC’s Countryfile were filming in the museum last week.
W had Radio 4 in the library on Friday, recording an episode of ‘Beyond Belief’, focusing on the Brontës and theology. Very celebral stuff!
When we know the broadcast dates, we’ll put the info on our website. (Jim Seton)

Still locally, The Telegraph & Argus announces something that will take place at the upcoming Bradford Literary Festival:

The festival will also see the launch of the Brontë Stones project – a series of four sculpted stones creating a path from Thornton, where the literary sisters were born, to Haworth. (Chris Young)

The Oldham Evening Chronicle publishes the results of the PlotFest one-act playwriting competition:

The second prize went to Manchester’s Bob Pegg.
Researching for another project, he discovered that Charlotte Brontë and Karl Marx were both in Manchester on the same day in 1846.
His play – The Salutation - imagines a meeting between these two great minds, using historical facts as well as dramatic licence to explore how their conversation may have gone.

Fake (and very bad) essay writing on The Tab:

I gave them a fake essay title, "To what extent are women restricted by society in Victorian literature?", your lecturer couldn’t have come up with something better than that. I said the essay needed to cover Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. (...)
For starters, the standard of English was sub-par and grammatically all over the place – I’ve sent drunk texts more coherent than what they gave me. The opening sentence reads: “The Victorian era refers to the period when Queen Victoria ruled the British monarchy”. THAT MEANS NOTHING. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? At one point they call Oliver Twist 'Oliver Twists’ and call Jane Eyre character Mr Brocklehurst ‘Mr Blocklehurst’. (Dan Burns)

Art Daily talks about the Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant Dinner Service which included a Charlotte Brontë plate:

Honoring the likes of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, the ancient Greek poet Sappho, Egypt’s Cleopatra, English novelist Charlotte Brontë, and Bell’s sister Woolf, the plates are thought to have been used occasionally for dinner parties—with extreme care—at the Clark home. At the gallery, they are presented firmly as a work of feminist art. (...)
“From Omega to Charleston: The Art of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant 1910–1934” is on show at Piano Nobile Gallery, 129 Portland Road, London, February 16–April 28, 2018.  (Sarah Cascone)

Prof. Charles Sarvan explores 'The Origin of Others' in Groundviews:

In a fundamental, biological, sense there is “Me” and everyone else is the “Other”, but this does not throw most of us into some kind of existential despair because we build what I would call bridging relationships: with parents, relations, friends, and through romantic and/or sexual love.
In the mid-19th century novel, Wuthering Heights, Catherine asserts of Heathcliff that he is more her than she is. 

dvids reminds us how

The Brontë sisters who some consider the greatest novelists of our time, first published their works under male pseudonyms to have their stories better heard. (Senior Airman Jessica Smith)

The Washington Post reviews The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison:

Central as they are to Jamison's project, the biographical portions don't progress under their own narrative power (or even, often, chronologically), instead resurfacing whenever they can hold a useful mirror to the central memoir. This can be confusing or even frustrating, as when Jean Rhys begins what will become her book "Wide Sargasso Sea" on Page 243, then pops up almost 200 pages later still at work on the same novel.

Vogue Australia and the dark (and gothic) side of fashion:

What’s exciting now is maintaining a veneer of seeming sweetness, while hinting at a darker side. It is Emily Brontë’s Catherine hiding a wild passion foran ill-matched man, wandering romance-stricken in a cotton nightdress. (Alice Birrell)

Vice has an article about the Tokyo Fashion Week:

Most romantic show: Liroto
This is the first collection from Naoki Tomizuka, who was a longtime pattern-maker at Comme des Garçons — so you know it’s going to be beautiful. And it was. There were ruffles, hats tied on with ribbons, lace shoes and models reading books. Very Brontë.

The Huffington Post (France) recommends Jane Eyre:

La vie de Jane Eyre n'a rien d'enviable, et on serait facilement tenté de fermer ce livre si sa protagoniste n'était pas dotée de la force morale et du courage qui lui valurent sa notoriété. Une enfance douloureuse, marquée par la perte des parents, l'éducation à la dure délivrée par sa tante et les années de pensionnat. Une vie adulte tout aussi malheureuse, dédiée au noble M. Rochester dont elle est la gouvernante et dont l'amour lui est interdit. C'est un vrai parcours du combattant que celui de Jane Eyre qui affronte les épreuves la tête haute, consciente de sa condition, et accusant les coups sans faire de vague. Loin d'être naïve, sa patience est exemplaire et l'intelligence, la sagesse dont elle fait preuve dans l'adversité sont autant de qualités inspirantes. (Translation)

and acasă (Romania) does the same with Wuthering Heights:

Desi cartea a fost scrisa si publicata in anul 1847, a ramas in timp unul dintre titlurile marcante ale literaturii universale. La rascruce de vanturi urmareste povestea a doi tineri, Heathcliff si Catherine, care au impotriva lor pe toata lumea. Domnul Earnshaw, tatal lui Catherine, este un personaj foarte bogat, detinand terenuri si o avere considerabila. Acesta aduce acasa la un moment dat un copil, pe Heathcliff, si are grija de el o perioada indelungata de timp. Dupa moartea domnului Earnshaw, fratele lui Catherine, cel care mosteneste intreaga avere se poarta foarte urat cu Heathcliff. In cele din urma, Heathcliff decide sa plece de acasa, reusind sa-si construiasca propria avere. Ce se intampla mai departe cu cele doua personaje principale pot descoperi cititorii, iar suspansul si actiunea interesanta, cu siguranta, ii va tine cu sufletul la gura! (Translation)

VeronaSera (Italy) presents Georgiana, a novel by Deborah Begali:

Il romanzo si ispira ai classici d’amore regency, omaggia il lavoro di Jane Austen, delle sorelle Brontë e, in generale, delle tante pietre miliari della letteratura inglese ottocentesca. (Translation)

The Stand News (Hong Kong) mentions the Brontës. Mikey F. (in Spanish) vlogs the reasons why he hates Charlotte Brontë. Finally, the Thornton Brontë Bell Chapel Action Group announces:

This sunday our annual Easter sunrise service at 6.30am. All welcome.