Patti, Receivership and Heather

Monica Cardinale informs us that the Patti Smith concert in Hebden Bridge took place last Saturday:

Patti Smith and Tony Shanahan played in the Yorkshire village of Hebden Bridge on Saturday evening. Earlier in the day Patti had visited Haworth (where the Brontë sisters lived) and the grave of Sylvia Plath in Heptonstall. She began the concert with a poem by Plath.

Picture Source. 

We also read under the I Love Haworth and the Brontës Facebook Group how the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton is apparently on receivership. Apparently LSL CCD Exeter is the Managing Agent of the property.

Female First interviews the writer Hilary Boyd:

Otherwise, I love the usual suspects: George Eliot, Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Henry Fielding, Flaubert, Rousseau, Zola, all the Russian 19 century writers. More recently, Ford Maddox Ford, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Marilynne Robinson (genius!), Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, V.S. Naipaul, Vikram Seth, Philip Roth… the list goes on. (Lucy Walton)

Le Magazine Littéraire talks about the mini documentaries series Post-Scriptum that will feature a piece devoted to the Charlotte Brontë manuscript Young men's magazine N°2, now on exhibition at the  Musée des lettres et manuscrits in Paris:

Intitulés Post Scriptum, ces mini documentaires de 3 minutes, présentés par le journaliste Philippe Chauveau, sont consacrés chacun à l’un des manuscrits de la collection du musée. Les brouillons de Victor Hugo, Balzac, Cocteau ou Charlotte Brontë seront donc à découvrir sur TV5 Monde où ils seront diffusés à partir du 15 septembre.
Les Parisiens pourront assister gratuitement aux projections des courts-métrages le samedi 15 et le dimanche 16 septembre au Musée des lettres et manuscrits, à l’occasion des Journées du Patrimoine. (Translation)

Surfsky News recommends Dellwood by Ginny Gillroy:

Recently ghost stories have fallen out of fashion, but Ms. Gilroy brings us an updated version that still feels like the ghost stories of the late 1800’s. Dellwood mansion is every bit as forboding as Wuthering Heights was in its day. It kept me turning the pages, one after the other.  (Matt Hughes)

Variety reviews the film Writers by John Boone:

Occupying some of the same territory trod by "Smart People" (2008), "Writers" concerns a family of would-be overachievers, in this case literary types at various stages of their artistic careers. The Brontës needn't be concerned: Bearded and bohemian, Bill Borgens (Kinnear) is an well-known novelist who's been in a bit of slump since his wife, Erica (Connelly), left him for another man; he can't stop hanging around her house, spying on her and her boyfriend, and getting chased off by their dog. (John Anderson)

Flickering Myth reviews Joe Wright's Anna Karenina:

At first glance, it’s a typical period drama along the lines of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre with its focus on social elites, lavish costumes, glamorous balls and landscapes, and whatever society dictates is proper behaviour. (Luke Graham)

The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article about heather:

The biggest obstacle to convincing gardeners to buy more heather is that they've either had a bad experience with it or know a gardener who has. The stuff dies! Paul and Jane insist it's because we've been brainwashed about full sun. Ignore that, plant in well-draining, acidic soil - next to azaleas, rhodies or blueberries, dwarf conifers, Japanese maples or witch hazels - and you'll be chasing Heathcliff over the moors in no time. If he's your type. (Virginia A. Smith)

Remember the Tony Blair years when Gordon Brown was systematically compared to the madwoman in the attic? Business Day (South Africa) attributes this role now to George Bush:

Not only does Obama have the advantage of incumbency, he does have, and more importantly is seen by enough voters to have a legitimate case that the Great Recession was not his doing. That is one reason the Republicans gave the younger George Bush the Jane-Eyre-madwoman-in-the-attic treatment during their convention. They did not want to remind anyone of the president on whose watch the American economy imploded. (Simon Barber)

Yahoo News! publishes a letter of support to the teachers strike in Chicago:

When I was in third grade, my school's librarian wouldn't allow me to check out anything without chapters. By fifth grade, my teacher gave me a copy of "Jane Eyre" to read, a book I loved so much, he told me I didn't have to return it. (Isa-Lee Wolf)

Mandy Nolan in The Byron Shire Newspaper (Australia) talks about the Fifty Shades of Grey hysteria:

I am so disappointed that women around the world are settling for such poorly written erotica. Treat yourself to Anais Nin, rent The Secretary on DVD, go invest in a collection of the Brontë sisters’ novels. Those bronchial waifs knew how to write a good love interest. The Brontës never created handsome industrial magnates. That’s just so predictable and I think it underestimates the true nature of female sexuality.
E L James has written a bland little porn-toon starring Barbie and Ken. White-bread characters engaging in white-bread bondage. It’s not erotic. It’s boring. I don’t know about you but once I read about someone’s eyes ‘drilling into me’ I start to giggle.
Fifty Shades missed one of the key elements of female sexuality: we like our men a little fucked-up. The Brontë sisters were onto it – their male leads, Rochester and Heathcliff, were pornographically deranged. I suggest James gives her bloke a hare lip or a hump or a gimpy leg. Or how about this – why not give him a really, really small penis? The big knob is just sooo predictable.

Premiere informs that Wuthering Heights 2011 still has no French distributor; some websites still talk about the new US trailer of the film: Los Angeles Times, Softpedia, Deadline Hollywood or Broadway World; Cristina (in Romanian) discusses the film; krónika (in Hungarian) announces the upcoming broadcast of Jane Eyre 2011 in the Hungarian channel M1; the film is reviewed on Film Flare, Amigas entre Livros (in Portuguese) and Malos tiempos para la crítica (in Spanish) ; The Fourth Musketeer reviews the upcoming The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, by Catherine Reef; The Briarfield Chronicles analyses the men in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley; the novel is reviewed on The Life & Random Thoughts of Indigo Montoya; Millie's Book Shelf compares Jane Eyre and Heathcliff; A Barron Brain talks about Wuthering Heights.