I’m quoting from Kathleen McWilliam of The Hartford Courant‘s article. I added some photos. This looks like fun. Best, Christine
Hem Standing and typing when back bad after the plane crashes
An online auction hosted by Westport-based University Archives later this month will feature 288 items of historical significance including typewriters belonging to Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway. The items will be auctioned off online on February 26 and it is expected that the typewriters owned by Kerouac and Hemingway will be popular among buyers. There are also items belonging to Andrew Carnegie, George Gershwin, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Harry Houdini.
“I do think that the typewriters are particularly interesting, said John Reznikoff, President of the University Archives). They kind of speak to you when you’re looking at them. You know those literary icons used these to create their greatest works.”
Can you ever forgive me? The typewriter
Other items include Gordon Bryant’s portrait of F. Scott Fitzgerald signed by the author, a letter written and signed by astronaut Neil Armstrong and a same-day eyewitness account from the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890. Reznikoff, who was born in Hartford and raised in West Hartford until his family moved to Stamford, founded University Archives in 1979.
Hemingway’s typewriter. For the starting price of $16,000, bidders can purchase Hemingway’s circa 1950s “Royal” manual typewriter that he used to write his memoir A Moveable Feast. The typewriter is valued at between $50,000 and $100,000.
Hem’s view while writing in Idaho
The typewriter according to University Archives was given to Hemingway by fellow writer A.E. Hotchner. Hotchner, who lives in Westport – actually he just died a couple of weeks ago – met Hemingway in the spring of 1948 when he was assigned to write an article for Cosmopolitan Magazineon the future of literature. Hemingway returned the typewriter to Hotchner in 1960 and it remained one of the writer’s treasured possession. “I’ve been in the business 41 years and a lot of items come to me because of my reputation,” Reznikoff said. “For instance, the Hemingway typewriter came from an author A.E. Hotchner who was 103 and still very sharp. He called me up and said he needed to sell his last things. I’ve known him for 30 years and I’ve done appraisals for him, so he came to me.”
So for those of you out there who have an $50,000 to $100,000, go for it.
A.E. Hotchner, a well-traveled author, playwright and gadabout whose street smarts and famous pals led to a loving, but litigated, memoir of Ernest Hemingway, business adventures with Paul Newman and a book about his Depression-era childhood that became a Steven Soderbergh film, died Saturday at age 102.
He died at his home in Westport, Conn., according to his son, Timothy Hotchner, who did not immediately know the cause of death.
A. E. Hotchner, known to friends as “Ed” or “Hotch,“ was an impish St. Louis native and ex-marbles champ who read, wrote and hustled himself out of poverty and went on to publish more than a dozen books, befriend countless celebrities and see his play, “The White House,“ performed at the real White House for President Clinton.
He was a natural fit for Elaine’s, the former Manhattan nightspot for the famous and the near-famous, and contributed the text for “Everyone Comes to Elaine’s,“ an illustrated history. Hotchner’s other works included the novel “The Man Who Lived at the Ritz,“ bestselling biographies of Doris Day and Sophia Loren, and a musical, “Let ‘Em Rot!“ co-written with Cy Coleman.
The Moth presents, Moved: Stories of Safe Passage. The Players Club, New York. 03/16/2012. Stories by Tom Bodett, A.E. Hotchner, Pha Le, Sarah Ryan-Knox, Lizz Winstead. Host Jenny Allen.
In his 90s, he completed an upbeat book of essays on aging, “O.J. in the Morning, G&T at Night.” When he was 100, he wrote the detective novel “The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom.” At 101, he adapted Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” for the stage.
He was a memorable storyteller — sometimes too memorable. Hotchner wrote an article about Elaine’s for Vanity Fair that included an anecdote about director Roman Polanski making advances on a woman on the way to the funeral of his wife, Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1969 by Charles Manson’s followers. Polanski sued the magazine’s publisher, Conde Nast, for libel and in 2005 was awarded some $87,000, plus court costs, by a jury in London.
The son of a furrier who went broke during the Depression, Aaron Edward Hotchner was born in 1917 in St. Louis, a city he would recall with deep affection despite times so dire he claimed to have eaten paper to fight hunger. Hotchner wrote about his youth in “King of the Hill,” published in 1972 and adapted 20 years later into a Soderbergh film of the same name.
aaron and Paul Newman
Clever and determined, Hotchner managed to land a scholarship to Washington University, where he and Tennessee Williams both worked on the school’s student magazine. Hotchner then joined the Air Force, a time he recalled good-naturedly in the memoir “The Day I Fired Alan Ladd, and Other World War II Adventures.” After the war, Hotchner settled in New York and became an editor at Cosmopolitan and worked on literary fiction.
One submission was J.D. Salinger’s “Needle on a Scratchy Phonograph Record,” a World War II story the author gave to Hotchner under the condition that nothing — not a comma — be altered. Hotchner, who had been friendly with Salinger, came through — almost. The actual story was printed intact in September 1948, but Cosmopolitan changed the title to “Blue Melody.”
Salinger never spoke to Hotchner again.
Around the same time, however, Hotchner lucked his way into literary history. Cosmopolitan wanted Hemingway to write an article about “The Future of Literature” and sent Hotchner to Cuba to track him down. So began a friendship that lasted until Hemingway’s suicide, in 1961. From Spain to Idaho, they hunted, drank and attended bullfights. They lived through Hemingway’s inspiring highs and fatal lows, chronicled by Hotchner in “Papa Hemingway,” which came out in 1966 and has been translated into more than 25 languages.
But the book has a troubled history. Hemingway’s widow, Mary Hemingway, sued unsuccessfully to stop publication, alleging that Hotchner had violated the privacy of her husband and herself. She was reportedly upset that he contradicted her contention that her husband had only accidentally shot himself. Critics, meanwhile, doubted the accuracy of the many long dialogues between Hotchner and Hemingway.
“Once you learn the rhythms of speech of a person, the actual words resonate with you,” Hotchner explained during a 2005 interview with the Associated Press. “I can hear him right now: ‘How do you like it now, gentlemen?’ Things he said. You’re sort of born with that, I guess, a kind of tape that runs through your head.”
Their relationship was also professional. Hotchner often served as his agent, helped edit his bullfighting book “The Dangerous Summer” and helped come up with the title for the posthumous release of Hemingway’s memoir about Paris, “A Moveable Feast.” In the 1950s and early `’60s, he adapted several Hemingway stories for television, including “The Battler,” which led to his first meeting with Paul Newman.
James Dean had agreed to star as the titular faded ex-boxer, but Newman took the role after Dean died in a car crash. Newman and Hotchner became friends, pranksters, fishing buddies, neighbors and business partners. When the actor wanted to sell his homemade salad dressing at some local shops, he called on “Hotch” to help out.
Aaron at home
“That was just a joke,“ Hotchner told the Associated Press in 2005. “It was something on the fly. ‘Let’s put up $40,000 and we’ll be businessmen.’“
Their caper turned into the multimillion-dollar Newman’s Own nonprofit empire of salad dressing, popcorn, lemonade and assorted recipes; all proceeds went to charity, notably the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for kids with life-threatening illnesses.
After Newman’s death in 2008, Hotchner wrote about his friend in “Paul and Me.“ Other projects in recent years included a collection of letters between himself and Hemingway and a reissue of his Hemingway memoir. In 2013, he was among the commentators seen in Shane Salerno’s documentary about Salinger.
Hotchner was married three times, most recently to actress Virginia Kiser, and was the father of three children. He had numerous animals over the years, including peacocks, pedigreed chickens, and an African parrot named Ernie.
Books of Ernest Hemingway are a matter of taste. Some love them, others not so much. But despite that, there’s a lot you could learn from Ernest Hemingway. In this article, there are tips from the writer that could help to improve your writing as well, even if your writing is code.
Study the greats
Before even starting programming, you should be curious about others who have already written some great code. Hemingway said: “[A writer] should have read everything so that he knows what he has to beat.” It doesn’t have to be all about competition. It’s more about the inspiration you could get from different approaches to writing code.
To study great examples of code, you don’t need to go under the hood of various projects.
Many books analyze the best examples and tell stories about how people came up with them. Arnas Stuopelis, chairman of the Board of web hosting provider Hostinger, said: “One of the Hostinger values is learn and be curious. We have a bookshelf in the middle of our office and suggest people ordering any book they want. It doesn’t always have to be work-related. But if it motivates a person, it’s a valuable investment.”
Block out negative thoughts
Randall Degges has a blog, “Random Thoughts of a Happy Programmer.“ In it, he writes:
“If you’re a programmer and stay up-to-date with community happenings via Hacker News, you’ll almost certainly notice a trend: there are lots of popular articles focusing on the negatives (mean rants, public shaming, outrage about various issues, etc.).” All those little details lead to feeling blue.
It could be intimidating to work on a project when you are in a negative state of mind.
Then remember Hemingway. He said: “Once you are into the novel, it is as cowardly to worry about whether you could go on to the next day as to worry about having to go into inevitable action. You have to go on. So there is no sense to worry… As soon as you start to think about it stop it. Think about something else.” Questioning your abilities won’t do any good. Be easy on yourself, remain consistent, and continue what you started.
Be brief
Hemingway didn’t respect writers who, as he put it, “never learned how to say no to a typewriter.” But the same goes for a keyboard. When you could write part of the code more shortly, do that. There are no advantages to having more lines. It’s the opposite — the more lines you have, the bigger the chance to make a mistake in one of them. So remember to be brief.
Practice empathy
Hemingway advises: ”As a writer, you should not judge. You should understand… Listen now. When people talk, listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen.” As for developers, it’s quite stereotypical to see them as someone who is only logical and numbers-based.
But the truth is that the developer has to be empathetic first. Kent Beck, the American software engineer and the creator of extreme programming, said: “The craft of programming begins with empathy, not formatting or languages or tools or algorithms or data structures.” When writing code, remember that you do it for people. Keep them and their needs in mind without judging.
Always stop when you’re going good
This one is probably the most known Hemingway’s tip: “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what would happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel, you would never be stuck.” But it works not only with novels. BBC summarizes it this way: “not finishing a task could be beneficial.”
BBC quotes Manalo, who researched this topic: “We need to have belief in ourselves — some kind of expectation that we could do something. And when we’re closer to finishing something that we had previously failed to achieve, then that optimism increases.” When you stop working at a peak, you would feel more comfortable to get back to work the other day.
Never think about the story
It isn’t easy to not think about work when you are not working. But it’s crucial. Hemingway wasn’t any different. So, he had to create a distraction for himself: “It was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again.”
As for developers, Joe Petrakovich suggests a more suitable way to disconnect from work.
He calls it Personal Standup. He creates a todo.md markdown file and writes his tasks for ## TODAY. Joe suggests: “As you work, be sure to mark items as DONE. Don’t delete them though. They stay as visual aids, so we know what we’ve accomplished.” If he hasn’t done the task by the evening, he moves it to ## TOMORROW, so ## TODAY would be all done. The list of done tasks makes it easier to wrap up the day and don’t bring work home.
Exercise
As a writer, Hemingway used to be at the typewriter for extended periods of time. So, he said: “It was necessary to get exercise, to be tired in the body, and it was very good to make love with whom you loved. That was better than anything.” There is a good chance that you, like Hemingway, spend quite a lot of time sitting, but this time, in front of your keyboard.
Sitting for long periods of time has a significant effect on posture. A person starts to extend a neck, brings face closer to the keyboard. Then hunches shoulders forward and slumps in the chair. Simple Programmer warns: “When we sit down, certain parts of our bodies shut down. Our muscular and cellular systems were put to sleep, causing our chances of things like diabetes to increase.“ Regular exercise could help to avoid all of that and more.
As a programmer, you could seek inspiration from various places and people. Ernest Hemingway sat in front of his typewriter. But his tips are usable even for those in front of the keyboards.
To get even better at programming, you should learn from the best and study their work. Believe in your capability and ignore negative thoughts. When writing code, be brief and learn how to say no to the keyboard. Be empathetic and try to understand the people who would use your work.
When working, try to stop at the time you feel the best. This way, it would be easier to get back to work the next day. But once you are done with this day, do your best to rest without thinking about what’s left to do. And one way that could help to do that is exercise, which is beneficial for you on many levels.
