A new documentary on Ernest Hemingway — powered by vast but little-known archives kept at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston — is shedding new light on the acclaimed novelist.”Hemingway,” by longtime collaborators Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, premiering on PBS on three consecutive nights starting April 5, takes a more nuanced look at the author and his longstanding reputation as an alcoholic, adventurer, outdoorsman and bullfight-loving misogynist who struggled with an internal turmoil that eventually led to his death by suicide at age 61.The truth about the man many consider America’s greatest 20th-century novelist — whose concise writing style made him an outsized celebrity who became a symbol of unrepentant American masculinity — is much more complex, Novick said.”We hope this film opens up opportunities to look at Hemingway in different ways,” said Novick, who has created several other documentaries with Burns including “The Vietnam War” and “Prohibition.” “There is a complexity beneath the surface.”That complexity would have been nearly impossible to detail without the largest-in-the-world Hemingway collection that ended up at the JFK Library, thanks to the widows of Hemingway and Kennedy.Although the two men never met, they admired each other and corresponded briefly. Hemingway was invited to Kennedy’s inauguration but couldn’t attend because of an illness, said Hilary Justice, the Hemingway scholar in residence at the library.When Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, was deciding what to do with her late husband’s effects, she asked Jackie Kennedy if they could be housed at the JFK Library.The archives contain Hemingway’s manuscripts — including “The Sun Also Rises” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” — personal correspondence and about 11,000 photographs.Much of the material used in the documentary has not been widely seen in public, if at all, Novick said.Burns had been to the JFK Library on multiple occasions for several functions but had no idea of the extent of the Hemingway archives until they started researching the film, which has been in the works for years.”The Hemingway collection was central to the process,” Burns said. “It helped us understand just what a disciplined writer he was.”Much of the documentary deals with Hemingway’s complicated relationship with the women in his life, from his mother and sisters to the nurse he fell in love with while recovering from wounds suffered in World War I to his four wives.”So much of what he did in life was about love: running to it, running from it and ruining it,” Burns said.While considered the archetype of American manhood, the truth about Hemingway’s masculinity was more complex, the filmmakers found.As a child, Hemingway’s mother treated him and one of his sisters as twins, often dressing them in identical outfits, sometimes as boys, sometimes as girls. He explored gender fluidity both in his books and in life, letting his hair grow as his wives cropped theirs short.”We wanted to push back against this idea that Hemingway didn’t like women,” Novick said.Novick’s favorite part of the collection were Hemingway’s manuscripts, many handwritten on store-bought notebooks. They show in great detail his thinking process as he wrote, rewrote, amended and edited his works through cross-outs, scribbles and notes in the margins.Hemingway, for example, wrote dozens of endings to “A Farewell to Arms” — as many as 47, according to one count.”You can trace how each work developed, from first draft to final manuscript,” she said.For Burns, the most striking thing about the collection are the pieces of shrapnel dug from Hemingway’s body after he was almost killed as a teenager while driving a Red Cross ambulance in World War I. Burns can’t help but think that such a profound near-death experience had a major impact on the rest of Hemingway’s life, and contributed to his death.”There’s a huge amount to be learned and new interpretations of his work and life in here,” she said.
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Day: April 4, 2021
Green-Wood Cemetery in New York – one of the oldest and largest American cemeteries – now has its own artist-in-resident. Anna Nelson tells us more in this report narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Vladimir Badikov
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NASA’s Ingenuity mini-helicopter has been dropped on the surface of Mars in preparation for its first flight, the U.S. space agency said.The ultra-light aircraft had been fixed to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on February 18.”Mars Helicopter touchdown confirmed!” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted Saturday.”Its 293 million mile (471 million kilometer) journey aboard @NASAPersevere ended with the final drop of 4 inches (10 centimeter) from the rover’s belly to the surface of Mars today. Next milestone? Survive the night.”Swing low, sweet helicopter…@NASAPersevere is slowly and carefully deploying the #MarsHelicopter, Ingenuity. The tech demo is currently unfolding from its stowed position and readying to safely touch down on the Martian surface. See upcoming milestones: https://t.co/TNCdXWcKWEpic.twitter.com/3AyaiHOH2k
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 30, 2021A photograph accompanying the tweet showed Perseverance had driven clear of the helicopter and its “airfield” after dropping to the surface.Ingenuity had been feeding off the Perseverance’s power system but will now have to use its own battery to run a vital heater to protect its unshielded electrical components from freezing and cracking during the bitter Martian night.”This heater keeps the interior at about 45° F (7° C) through the bitter cold of the Martian night, where temperatures can drop to as low as -130° F (-90° C),” Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter Project chief engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote in an update on Friday. “That comfortably protects key components such as the battery and some of the sensitive electronics from harm at very cold temperatures.”Over the next couple of days, the Ingenuity team will check that the helicopter’s solar panels are working properly and recharging its battery before testing its motors and sensors ahead of its first flight, Balaram said.Ingenuity is expected to make its first flight attempt no earlier than April 11, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted.Ingenuity will be attempting to fly in an atmosphere that is one percent the density of Earth’s, which makes achieving lift harder — but will be assisted by gravity that is one-third of our planet’s.The first flight will involve climbing at a rate of about three feet (one meter) per second to a height of 10 feet (three meters), hovering there for 30 seconds, then descending back to the surface.Ingenuity will be taking high-resolution photography as it flies.Up to five flights of gradual difficulty are planned over the month.The four-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft cost NASA around $85 million to develop and is considered a proof of concept that could revolutionize space exploration.Future aircraft could cover ground much quicker than rovers, and explore more rugged terrain.
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Nine-year-old Nadja Pivoff from Boston, Massachusetts, has been drawing since she could hold a pencil. It’s been especially important to her during the COVID lockdown, as Genia Dulot reports from Boston.
Camera: Genia Dulot
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A grand parade Saturday conveyed 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies in special capsules across Cairo to a new museum home where they can be displayed in greater splendor.The convoy transported 18 kings and four queens, mostly from the New Kingdom, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) to the southeast.FILE – The entrance to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo is pictured Oct. 1, 2019. The mummies of 18 ancient Egyptian kings and four queens were paraded through the streets of Cairo to the National Museum on April 3, 2021.Authorities shut down roads along the Nile for the elaborate ceremony, designed to drum up interest in Egypt’s rich collections of antiquities. Tourism has almost entirely stalled because of COVID-19 related restrictions.As the royal mummies arrived at the museum, which was officially inaugurated Saturday, cannons fired a 21-gun salute. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi stood by as the mummies filed past on vehicles bedecked with golden pharaonic motifs.The heads of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO and the World Tourism Organization were also present at the ceremony.Each mummy had been placed in a special capsule filled with nitrogen to ensure protection, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said. They were carried on vehicles designed to cradle them and provide stability.Workers prepare for the transfer of 22 mummies from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, in Cairo, Egypt, April 1, 2021.’Civilized’ display”We chose the Civilization Museum because we want, for the first time, to display the mummies in a civilized manner, an educated manner, and not for amusement as they were in the Egyptian Museum,” Hawass said.Archaeologists discovered the mummies in two batches at the complex of mortuary temples of Deir Al Bahari in Luxor and at the nearby Valley of the Kings beginning in 1871.The oldest is that of Seqenenre Tao, the last king of the 17th Dynasty, who reigned in the 16th century B.C. and is thought to have met a violent death.The parade also included the mummies of Ramses II, Seti I and Ahmose-Nefertari.Fustat, the home of the new museum, was the site of Egypt’s capital under the Umayyad dynasty after the Arab conquest.”By doing it like this, with great pomp and circumstance, the mummies are getting their due,” said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo. “These are the kings of Egypt, these are the pharaohs. And so, it is a way of showing respect.”
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North Atlantic right whales gave birth over the winter in greater numbers than scientists have seen since 2015, an encouraging sign for researchers who became alarmed three years ago when the critically endangered species produced no known offspring at all.Survey teams spotted 17 newborn right whale calves swimming with their mothers offshore between Florida and North Carolina from December through March. One of those calves soon died after being hit by a boat, a reminder of the high death rate for right whales that experts fear is outpacing births.The overall calf count equals the combined total for the previous three years. That includes the dismal 2018 calving season, when scientists saw zero right whale births for the first time in three decades. Still, researchers say greater numbers are needed in the coming years for North Atlantic right whales to rebound from an estimated population that’s dwindled to about 360.”What we are seeing is what we hope will be the beginning of an upward climb in calving that’s going to continue for the next few years,” said Clay George, a wildlife biologist who oversees right whale surveys for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “They need to be producing about two dozen calves per year for the population to stabilize and continue to grow again.”Warmer waters for reproducingRight whales migrate each winter to the warmer Atlantic waters off the Southeastern U.S. to give birth. Trained spotters fly over the coastline almost daily during the calving season, scanning the water for mothers with newborns.Survey flights over Georgia and Florida ended Wednesday, the last day of March, typically the season’s end. Spotters will monitor waters off the Carolinas through April 15, hoping to pick up any overlooked newborns as the whales head north to their feeding grounds.This season’s calf count matches the 17 births recorded in 2015. Right whale experts consider that number fairly average, considering the record is 39 births confirmed in 2009.FILE – This Georgia Department of Natural Resources photo shows a North Atlantic right whale mother and calf in waters near Cumberland Island, Ga., March 11, 2021.Scientists suspect a calving slump in recent years may have been caused by a shortage of zooplankton to feed right whales in the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy off Nova Scotia. They say the uptick in births this season could be a result of whales being healthier after shifting to waters with more abundant food sources.”It’s a somewhat hopeful sign that they are starting to adjust to this new regime where females are in good enough condition to give birth,” said Philip Hamilton, a right whale researcher at the New England Aquarium in Boston.Regardless, conservationists worry that right whales are dying — largely from manmade causes — at a faster rate than they can reproduce.Since 2017, scientists have confirmed 34 right whale deaths in waters off the U.S. and Canada — with the leading causes being entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with boats and ships. Considering additional whales were documented in the same period with serious injuries they were unlikely to survive, researchers fear the real death toll could be at least 49.That would exceed the 39 right whale births recorded since 2017.”If we reduced or eliminated the human-caused death rate, their birth rate would be fine,” Hamilton said. “The onus should not be on them to reproduce at a rate that can sustain the rate at which we kill them. The onus should be on us to stop killing.”New rulesThe federal government is expected to finalize new rules soon aimed at decreasing the number of right whales tangled up in fishing gear used to catch lobster and crabs in the Northeast. Proposals to reduce vertical fishing lines in the water and modify seasonal restricted areas have been met with heated debate. Fishermen say the proposed rules could put them out of businesses, while conservation groups insist they aren’t strict enough.Allison Garrett, a spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the agency is also considering adjustments to federal rules that since 2008 have imposed speed limits on larger vessels in certain Atlantic waters during seasonal periods when right whales are frequently seen. An agency report in January found mariners’ compliance with the speed rules have improved overall, but still lagged below 25% for large commercial vessels at four ports in the Southeast.
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