Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Today's episode concerns Tangentially, one of the most
Speaker 1: famous writers in the American canon. Is that, right, Ben? Yeah, Tangentially,
Speaker 1: it does. I'm know. By the way, it's a bit
Speaker 1: we do. We say each other's names or our own
Speaker 1: names are sometimes I did. It goes both ways. But
Speaker 1: the canon, Look, where did this term come from? This
Speaker 1: this canon people speak of, Uh, it always just confused me.
Speaker 1: It's always is flamming to me. Well, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it refers to a general rule, law, or principle. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the first meaning, But the second meaning is a
Speaker 1: collection or list of things that are accepted as genuine
Speaker 1: or as legit. We usually hear about it with books,
Speaker 1: but as super producer Casey Pegrum can tell us, there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a film canon to right, Casey, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. The American critic Andrew Sarah's kind of created
Speaker 1: his own canon of filmmakers, piggybacking off of the French
Speaker 1: of tour theory. Casey on the case indeed, but you know,
Speaker 1: so what the canon that the you shoot stuff out
Speaker 1: of that they took that name from the the other canon,
Speaker 1: like where the unrelated entirely? Um, help me out. That's interesting. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: the etymology for canon with C A N O N
Speaker 1: goes back to Greek canon for rule. Now, as far
Speaker 1: as cannon canon, I don't know what that one would be.
Speaker 1: I think it's really just just a homophone at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. That's disappointing. I've always liked to
Speaker 1: think of them being completely related, but that's how I
Speaker 1: usually feel about words that sound the same. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm an atomology junkie, but this one, I think is
Speaker 1: is gonna end up being a letdown. So I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna gonna suspend my disbelief and choose to believe that
Speaker 1: they're related. Um. But yeah, canonically speaking, uh, this author
Speaker 1: uh that is part of today's story is definitely up there.
Speaker 1: Uh is is one of the greats, one of the giants,
Speaker 1: and also an intensely problematic figure as a human person,
Speaker 1: as great artists and writers often are, Yes, and that
Speaker 1: man is ernest him. In way, you may recognize him
Speaker 1: as the author of numerous books you were forced to
Speaker 1: read in high school, such as the old man in
Speaker 1: the sea. Uh, farewell to arms son also rises. I
Speaker 1: am and was for a long time a fan of
Speaker 1: the collected poetry of Ernest hemmy Way, which is it's
Speaker 1: very different from his novels and his short stories. But
Speaker 1: I always recall one of my favorite poems. He wrote,
Speaker 1: if you have younger people listening with you in the audience,
Speaker 1: this might be time to fast forward a little bit.
Speaker 1: This is not this is Pg. Thirteen ish maybe, but
Speaker 1: here's the poem. I know monks masturbate at night, and
Speaker 1: pet cats screw and some girls bite, and yet what
Speaker 1: can I do to set things right? Ernest Hemmyway. Ernest
Speaker 1: Hemmy Way indeed also really quotable gentleman um a lot
Speaker 1: of quotes um involving inebriation, because he was also a
Speaker 1: famous drunk really like, always do sober what you said
Speaker 1: you do drunk? That will teach you to keep your
Speaker 1: mouth shut. Uh. And one along the lines of I'm
Speaker 1: remembering this one off the top of my head is
Speaker 1: a man is not truly a man and until he's
Speaker 1: drunk or something like that. Wow, that's a good one. Uh.
Speaker 1: Today's episode occurs in the shadow of Ernest Hemingway, because
Speaker 1: Ernest Hemingway, just like George Washington, is one of those
Speaker 1: semi mythical figures and we always think about them at
Speaker 1: a remove as a single entity in the world or
Speaker 1: the universe. But like George Washington, Ernest Hemingway had siblings,
Speaker 1: and today's story is about Ernest Hemingway's younger brother, Lester Hemingway,
Speaker 1: who you may not have heard of before. His name
Speaker 1: is pretty cool, but it's spelled in a confusing way, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I love this uh and it actually it's funny. I
Speaker 1: learned the pronunciation of this a long time ago because
Speaker 1: of a website at UK music website that's called Lester
Speaker 1: bangs Um as as in Lester Bangs the famous Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone writer um, famously dramatized and almost famous. But it
Speaker 1: was spelled uh, like the name of the town in England, Leicester,
Speaker 1: which looks like it should be pronounced Leicester. That's l
Speaker 1: e I c E s t e er. And such
Speaker 1: is the spelling of Ernest main ways baby brother, Lester,
Speaker 1: who is the subject of today's episode. Yep, that's true.
Speaker 1: So he is known historically for for three three things. First,
Speaker 1: he's known for being the younger and only brother of
Speaker 1: the novelist Ernist Hemmy Wayne check yep, and uh, he
Speaker 1: also looks a lot like him, So that's double that's
Speaker 1: double shadowy, right, you know. So he's living in he's
Speaker 1: he feels like he's always coming in seconds. Secondly, he
Speaker 1: one of his most well received books was a biography
Speaker 1: about his brother, then came out eight months after Ernest
Speaker 1: Hemmy Way passed away. Serious shadow living this guy. Uh,
Speaker 1: double check and I don't know, you know, Noel, Should
Speaker 1: we go ahead and spoil it? The third thing he's
Speaker 1: very well known for, and this is by far my favorite.
Speaker 1: Should we maybe soft spoil it? Yeah, let's spoil it that.
Speaker 1: This is a new thing we're trying to Uh. It
Speaker 1: involves a raft, and it involves declaring a sovereignty of
Speaker 1: one type or another. Um declaring one's own nation, as
Speaker 1: it were, which is the thing people do every nation
Speaker 1: that's around now, at some point somebody just declared it
Speaker 1: a nation. So it's not as crazy as it sounds.
Speaker 1: Let's say I think that was a good soft spoiled.
Speaker 1: Let's let's get to know Lester a little more and
Speaker 1: find out what led him to this this crazy ambitious scheme.
Speaker 1: He was born in nineteen fifteen, right, sixteen years younger
Speaker 1: than his super famous older brother Ernest Um. So they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been buddies exactly growing up. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: he would have probably been living in his shadow um
Speaker 1: for from as long as early as he can remember.
Speaker 1: With an older brother like that. Who I mean, I
Speaker 1: you know, I I know a bit about the history
Speaker 1: of Ernest Hemingway and his life. He was always sort
Speaker 1: of a brash, incorrigible youth, you know, and prone to
Speaker 1: adventure and misadventure. Right, It's true, and he definitely had
Speaker 1: wonder lust before Lester was even walking around on his
Speaker 1: little baby legs. Ernest was away in Europe. And now,
Speaker 1: I don't think that the Hemmingway kids had it hard
Speaker 1: in terms of material needs. They actually grew up in
Speaker 1: a pretty fancy suburb of Chicago at the time, a
Speaker 1: place called Oak Park. When Ernest returns from the Great
Speaker 1: War nineteen eighteen, he's recovering from these grievous wounds that
Speaker 1: he's received, like mortar mortar shell incidents. And I think
Speaker 1: he even caught a little little machine gun fire um
Speaker 1: around northern Italy. Yeah, and when he came back. He
Speaker 1: was the town veteran. He was a hero in his
Speaker 1: neighborhood at nineteen at nineteen, and his little brother Lester
Speaker 1: absolutely adored him. You know, the sun rose and set
Speaker 1: on Ernest hemmy way. Ernest was a little more casual
Speaker 1: about this. Lester called Ernest the Baron. But Ernest had
Speaker 1: a nickname for Lester. Yeah, yeah, it was clear that
Speaker 1: the love was not mutually exchanged. There. Ernest called his
Speaker 1: little brother Lester de Pester and then Um eventually shortened
Speaker 1: it to the name of my favorite John Languizambo movie,
Speaker 1: The Best. And it makes sense because you know, we
Speaker 1: do the math. He's three years old when his brother
Speaker 1: comes back at the age of nineteen, right, so of
Speaker 1: course he has this three year old following him around.
Speaker 1: Lester at least creatively followed in earnest footsteps. He wanted
Speaker 1: to travel the world. He wanted to write, He wanted
Speaker 1: to be that rugged, Teddy Roosevelt esque outdoorsman. And like
Speaker 1: like his older brother, he had a ton of different
Speaker 1: jobs and different gigs, and he also wrote a few books.
Speaker 1: To boot Um. One of them, I guess popular is
Speaker 1: maybe not maybe a little bit strong because it's certainly
Speaker 1: not something that has been included in in the the
Speaker 1: aforementioned canon, but as a book called The Sound of
Speaker 1: the Trumpet, which was published in nineteen fifty three. But
Speaker 1: he was a published author, and you know, he wrote
Speaker 1: for men's magazines, and like he said, he was sort
Speaker 1: of a newspaperman, I mean, really was sort of a
Speaker 1: jack of all trades um, much like his brother. So
Speaker 1: he very much took a lot of cues from the
Speaker 1: story and and legacy of his older brother, which again
Speaker 1: was something that would would have been fully formed kind
Speaker 1: of by the time he came of age, right, and
Speaker 1: think about this, just to get a taste of the
Speaker 1: zeitgeist at the time. A review of his novel The
Speaker 1: Sound of the Trumpet ninety three in the New York
Speaker 1: Times declared the following. They said, Lester Hemingway was part
Speaker 1: of the first younger generation, shaped by the writings of
Speaker 1: his brother Ernest Hemingway. So there they're not calling him
Speaker 1: an impersonator or an imitator, but they're saying he's very
Speaker 1: influenced by his brother. But can you imagine how that
Speaker 1: would feel like to get that review where you're just
Speaker 1: lumped in with all the other wanna be Ernest Hemingway's like, no,
Speaker 1: damn it, He's my Ernest Hemingway. You know, I'm the
Speaker 1: first to be influenced by my brother Ernest Hemingway, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, not just one of a flock
Speaker 1: of of impersonators. I would I would think that would
Speaker 1: maybe have have stung a little bit. And why can't
Speaker 1: he be the first Lester Hemingway? You know, that's that's
Speaker 1: the question on the table. It makes you wonder how
Speaker 1: all those off brand sodas feel. If off brand sodas
Speaker 1: have feelings when they see like the mainstream stuff, if
Speaker 1: if toy story holds true, surely there's soda story and
Speaker 1: they have a secret life outside of our our waking hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm now, I'm just I'm lost thinking of those those
Speaker 1: soda the soda dynamics, right, So like is is fant
Speaker 1: like the orange sodas fantas slice? Right? Those are two
Speaker 1: orange sodas. What's the other? On sun Kissed? Sun Kissed?
Speaker 1: There's also squirt Squirt Okay, squirt feels like it's it's
Speaker 1: the lesser heavyway. Yeah, well, I don't know. To me,
Speaker 1: squirt is almost the more risque of the orange sodas.
Speaker 1: That's just me. The sound of that word and the
Speaker 1: way it feels um conjures imagery in my personal despicable
Speaker 1: gut or mind. But that's just me. How do you
Speaker 1: feel like Lacroix plays into this whole thing? Do you
Speaker 1: think Lacroix is even considered a soda? They even lent
Speaker 1: Lacroix into the room. Uh, you know, look, roy is
Speaker 1: kind of like nobody Nobody shoot me for saying this,
Speaker 1: but look, Roi is kind of like the Gwyneth Paltrow sodas,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It says it's good or
Speaker 1: the sorry the goop of sodas. Like, it says it's
Speaker 1: good for you, and it's better than drinking battery acid
Speaker 1: is better than drinking you know, dr pepper or something.
Speaker 1: But it's still it's not amazing, you know, it's still
Speaker 1: kind of fills the soda roll well, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: have any sugar, and it's refreshing and delicious. I thought
Speaker 1: the carbonation was still bad for your t They do
Speaker 1: say that. They do say that it can be bad
Speaker 1: for your bone density as well. That's true, But I'm
Speaker 1: a carbonation junkie. So if I'm gonna that's that's what
Speaker 1: I derived pleasure from rather than the sugar. So we digress,
Speaker 1: though true, the moral of this digression is drink what
Speaker 1: you want. Uh. And also no no offense to Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker 1: Look up Goop and tell me what you think about it.
Speaker 1: That's her company. It's true that Lester was, however, um
Speaker 1: always referred to in addition to his brother. Whenever somebody
Speaker 1: mentioned him or his work, they also mentioned that he
Speaker 1: was ernest him and with his brother. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's certainly a phenomenon you see often with siblings
Speaker 1: of bluminaries in any field, you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really really hard to set yourself apart when you have
Speaker 1: a sibling that's already kind of gotten a head start
Speaker 1: first of all, and it's already just mega famous and
Speaker 1: associated with kind of an entire movement, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: Really interesting example is Billie Is, who's a singer, um
Speaker 1: my kid really likes her brother who is older than
Speaker 1: she is. Name's Phineas. He does all the production work
Speaker 1: for her records and plays in her live band. Plays bass,
Speaker 1: He plays bass, he plays guitar, really really great, really
Speaker 1: talented guy, but it's gonna be tough for him to
Speaker 1: be mentioned without his younger sister being mentioned in the
Speaker 1: same sentence. And and as the older brother. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: got to be tough for him too. But you know,
Speaker 1: money can make those wounds go away, I imagine, right.
Speaker 1: And you know, as an only child, I think I
Speaker 1: and and probably you don't have a very good comparison
Speaker 1: to how sibling relationships work in that regard. Now we
Speaker 1: just have to get jealous of our colleagues and peers.
Speaker 1: Is that what it is? Uh? So we're speculating a
Speaker 1: little bit when we guess about how Lester interacted with
Speaker 1: the world and how he received or navigated this relationship
Speaker 1: with his sibling. But do want to point out again
Speaker 1: his most famous, by far his most well received work
Speaker 1: was a biography that was actually about his brother, and
Speaker 1: it was called My Brother Ernest him Away, So he
Speaker 1: at least leaned into it, right, He kind of knew
Speaker 1: what hand he had been dealt. He knew, Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a singular voice of a generation,
Speaker 1: so I might as well. And he obviously revered his brother.
Speaker 1: There's nothing indicating in his story that he was somehow
Speaker 1: bitter or disliked his brother. He was he inspired by
Speaker 1: his brother and influenced by his brother, Um, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to honor his brother and apparently wrote quite a
Speaker 1: bang up biography about him. He was aware of the
Speaker 1: public perception because he was in an interview with the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Times he said, it's a tough act to follow,
Speaker 1: and we can already see kind of the head start
Speaker 1: pattern that you mentioned earlier, Nold. We can see that
Speaker 1: very early on in Lester's life he was writing for
Speaker 1: his high school newspaper, which is great and shout out
Speaker 1: to anyone in the high school working on your literary
Speaker 1: mag or your newspaper or your yearbook. But while he
Speaker 1: was doing that, his brother had already published Farewell to Arms,
Speaker 1: and it was already optioned for film, and it was
Speaker 1: being made into a movie starring Gary Cooper, massive star
Speaker 1: Gary Cooper at the time, and a huge head start
Speaker 1: for for Ernest Hemingway. Then, when Ernest had a stint
Speaker 1: in Spain as a correspondent UM during the Third Siege
Speaker 1: of Madrid, he was getting five hundred bucks for four
Speaker 1: hundred word um news reports. Uh. And that was in
Speaker 1: today's dollars about seven grand, which is is a big deal. Um.
Speaker 1: We had our boy, Lester Um kind of kickstarting his
Speaker 1: early newspaperman career as a junior reporter for the Chicago
Speaker 1: Daily News. Um. And again Ernest was there living the
Speaker 1: high life. It wasn't the high life, I mean exactly,
Speaker 1: though he was. He was in harm's way on the
Speaker 1: front lines during the Third Siege of Madrid. And so
Speaker 1: for anyone interested in the math, seven thousand dollars, as
Speaker 1: we said, adjusted for inflation for a four word dispatch
Speaker 1: works out to seventeen dollars and fifty cents per word.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's good work if you can get it.
Speaker 1: Lester also published a novel. We mentioned his his initial
Speaker 1: novel that was published in nineteen fifty three. Do you
Speaker 1: know what happened the year before? In nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: The Old Man in the Sea came out and uh.
Speaker 1: And the year after that, nineteen fifty four, the Swedish Academy,
Speaker 1: when they were awarding Earnest Hemingway the Nobel Prize in Literature,
Speaker 1: cited The Old Man in the Sea and Lester's over here, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I love my brother, but I also have a novel.
Speaker 1: I am speculating on that part. But it is a
Speaker 1: tough act. It's a tough act to follow. Did you
Speaker 1: read The Old Man in the Sea Bend? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: several times? Did you like it? It's a tough one
Speaker 1: for some folks. I know, like it's sort of like
Speaker 1: like it's considered this massive work, but it's also quite
Speaker 1: often said to be a little dull. It's one long metaphor,
Speaker 1: you know. And I I enjoyed it. I enjoyed um.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed this sort of abbreviated, blunt writing style of Hemingway,
Speaker 1: especially in comparison to longer, more elaborate writers. God saved
Speaker 1: me from Henry James the Turn of the screw Guy.
Speaker 1: That guy Uh engaged in something called phenomenology, which is
Speaker 1: this the experiential process of a character interacting with the world,
Speaker 1: learning great truths, and the audience or the readership going
Speaker 1: along with them. Henry James also had an interesting story
Speaker 1: with his siblings, but that's a story for another day.
Speaker 1: I did like Old Man to see uh. And you
Speaker 1: said for some people it felt like a slag, right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's just a thing that people often say about that book.
Speaker 1: I mean, it sort of gets a bit of a
Speaker 1: bad rap for almost being um overhyped. Perhaps, Oh yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: like a Catcher in the Rye, which I've I love
Speaker 1: Catcher in the Rye. I think that's an interesting story,
Speaker 1: and I like the internal monologue of the character or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I also read that at an age where maybe
Speaker 1: it uh connected with my rebellious spirit. I need to
Speaker 1: give Old Man on the Sea another shot. I was
Speaker 1: one of the ones that found it a little sloggy,
Speaker 1: but that was when it was assigned to me as
Speaker 1: a as a student. So maybe as I've gotten a
Speaker 1: little older and hopefully wiser, maybe it'll resonate with me
Speaker 1: a little more. And you know, nothing kills a great
Speaker 1: piece of art more quickly than hype. You've got to
Speaker 1: think about it, right, like if you go, if you
Speaker 1: go and just find a book in the wild and
Speaker 1: it's amazing, then you know that you have been amazed
Speaker 1: by it personally. But if everybody tells you to like it,
Speaker 1: often the contrarian in us will say, I don't see
Speaker 1: what all the fuss is about, you know, but bet
Speaker 1: as me, the Nobel Prize in literature is a huge
Speaker 1: deal everybody, But Bob Dylan is historically very excited about
Speaker 1: this kind of thing, and Lester soldiers on, and here
Speaker 1: we get to our soft spoiler. Uh. Well, just maybe
Speaker 1: just set this up with a quote from Lester in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post in nineteen sixty four. There's no law
Speaker 1: that says you can't start your own country. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: in the style of his brother, very blunt and direct
Speaker 1: and to the point. I can appreciate that about the man. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting, ben. Um. You'll recall, Um, we actually
Speaker 1: did a previous episode on something called the U. S.
Speaker 1: Guano Islands Act of eighteen fifty six, where you will
Speaker 1: recall it was a precedent allowing US citizens to quote
Speaker 1: take possession on behalf of the US government of any
Speaker 1: unoccupied island, rock or key on which a deposit of
Speaker 1: guana was found. And um, you remember that kind of
Speaker 1: created a bit of a of a guano boom. Uh.
Speaker 1: And guano, of course, as you know, is um is poop,
Speaker 1: bird poop. In particular. Uh, this was would have been
Speaker 1: was it seagulls or what was the what was the
Speaker 1: offending pooper? Uh. Let's see in our earlier episode when
Speaker 1: US farmers went mad for bird poop. I want to
Speaker 1: say sea birds of some sort. It would have had
Speaker 1: to be if it was an island or a key
Speaker 1: or a rock. I also think of guano pop specifically,
Speaker 1: but that's but it was much more of a catch
Speaker 1: all term in those days. But yes, so that was
Speaker 1: the precedent, and Hemingway Um decided to really take this
Speaker 1: and run with it, or shall we say row with it,
Speaker 1: paddle with it with it, whatever you got. Um he
Speaker 1: figured that he could apply this to um a mobile, island, rock,
Speaker 1: or a key. Right. This is interesting and listeners you
Speaker 1: will see why this is a little bit of a reach.
Speaker 1: The US Wanda Islands Act already is is a egregious
Speaker 1: geopolitical reach. Check out that episode if you haven't heard
Speaker 1: it yet. Here's what he did. Lester took an eight
Speaker 1: by thirty foot bamboo raft. Uh he he anchored it
Speaker 1: to an old Ford engine block in fifty ft of water,
Speaker 1: about eight miles southwest of Jamaica. This was a shallow
Speaker 1: ocean bank, but technically it's an international waters It's beyond
Speaker 1: the three mile limit of Jamaica's ocean possessions, right, And
Speaker 1: it's anomalous because once you're that far out. The seafloor
Speaker 1: is usually gonna be hundreds or even a thousand feet deep.
Speaker 1: The country, the raft is the country, by the way,
Speaker 1: the raft is the country. It's all the Republic of
Speaker 1: New Atlantis. And he on top of this raft. He
Speaker 1: has iron pipes, stones, bamboo, stainless steel as the structure.
Speaker 1: And he made this raft, this artificial island, this would
Speaker 1: be country, using all of the funds from his biography,
Speaker 1: my brother er his Timmy way. And he also he said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're starting this country small, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: expand it in the future, will build a bigger raft.
Speaker 1: Well that we'll stick some rafts together. Right, Uh, this
Speaker 1: is interesting to me. So, like, I mean, did he
Speaker 1: have some kind of dinghy that he would use to
Speaker 1: get to dry land? You know, I mean, what's the
Speaker 1: logistics of this whole setup? Right? You would think he
Speaker 1: needs an away boat of some sorts. Right, So he
Speaker 1: got this set up. It's clearly not super sustainable, right,
Speaker 1: we need a source of fresh water and so on.
Speaker 1: But he had the money to play with. If we
Speaker 1: look at the how successful his biography is of his brother,
Speaker 1: was he made a ton of scratch. We don't have
Speaker 1: a exact figure, but um, he definitely you know that
Speaker 1: would have been a h the equivalent of a best
Speaker 1: selling you know, New York Times bestseller, you know, back
Speaker 1: in those days. For sure. Yeah, we know Playboy magazine
Speaker 1: paid him grand to serialize it, to publish it in
Speaker 1: the magazine over subsequent issues, and that works out to
Speaker 1: what a hundred and sixty dollars today? Yikes? Well no,
Speaker 1: not yikes, Wow, amazingly that's great, good for Lester And honestly,
Speaker 1: what a bold move, what an odd and interesting thing
Speaker 1: to do. And and we talked about what his his
Speaker 1: aim was, Ben, not yet. Yeah, he had a very
Speaker 1: specific goal in mind, which was to start a marine
Speaker 1: research society that would be funded with the money that
Speaker 1: he made from up selling stamps, new Atlantis stamps. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need a little bit of a little bit of
Speaker 1: help with this one, Ben, Stamps like shares like what
Speaker 1: are we talking here? Yeah, for the philatelist market, uh,
Speaker 1: the stamp collectors. So was it really that big of
Speaker 1: a deal back in those days that you could hope
Speaker 1: to make that kind of money enough to finance a
Speaker 1: whole aquatic research institution just from selling postage? Stamps. That's
Speaker 1: I think that was more visibility thing. If I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: The Marine Research Society is probably mostly my brother Ernest
Speaker 1: having way money going into there. I just I don't
Speaker 1: how many stamps would you have to sell. It's strange
Speaker 1: because it seems more and more like a publicity stunt
Speaker 1: right the further we get into this. But yeah, he
Speaker 1: was trying to make a go of it selling stamps.
Speaker 1: He also was on good terms with the closest acknowledged government,
Speaker 1: the Jamaican government. They actually really liked the dude. Uh,
Speaker 1: spokesperson for the Jamaic can Embassy said in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, Lester is a decent, well meaning soul,
Speaker 1: and this project is it's good. You know, it's also
Speaker 1: an international waters and historians argue that one of the
Speaker 1: reasons Jamaica was okay with this, with this new country
Speaker 1: popping up to their southwest, it was entirely because they
Speaker 1: felt like he was he really was building this as
Speaker 1: a stunt for environmentalism. He wanted to protect marine wildlife
Speaker 1: and he also, weirdly enough, did you see this, He
Speaker 1: outlawed gambling in his new nation, and that that made
Speaker 1: Jamaica really happy. Interesting, So maybe it was maybe they
Speaker 1: were worried it would be like a gambling haven. Maybe
Speaker 1: they were gambling problems or you know, I mean, we
Speaker 1: know gambling can be a really toxic situation, especially in uh,
Speaker 1: potentially poverty stricken places that are kind of commodified by
Speaker 1: tourism and casinos sneaking in and folks that grew up
Speaker 1: there and lived there developed and gambling problems that actually
Speaker 1: happens in a lot of those uh Native American casino situations.
Speaker 1: That can be a real, real problem. So I can
Speaker 1: see how that could be the case. Just speculating here.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing he again used that very obscure
Speaker 1: at the time, but because again this is from eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty six, the U S Guano Islands act Um, allowing
Speaker 1: to take control of any island, rock or key on
Speaker 1: behalf of the US government if it's unoccupied and contains
Speaker 1: guano deposits. So where where is the poop? Ben? Where's
Speaker 1: the guano deposits? So this is interesting because everyone who
Speaker 1: remembers the previous episode, you'll recall the language in the
Speaker 1: Guando act is tricky. Something is you can lay claim
Speaker 1: to something with Guando on it, and you can then
Speaker 1: legally consider that land as quote appertaining to the United States. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was a term that we had to kind of
Speaker 1: really unpack. Yeah, So what's interesting there is that if
Speaker 1: Lester claimed the whole island or the whole raft under
Speaker 1: the Guano Act, then it would not be its own country.
Speaker 1: It would be in this realm of quasi belonging to
Speaker 1: the United States. Therefore, he couldn't make it his own country.
Speaker 1: So what he did was he divided the island in half.
Speaker 1: He claimed the quote unquote unoccupied half of his island
Speaker 1: on behalf of the US. And he said, that's the
Speaker 1: Guando Act. We're just gonna I guess we're just gonna
Speaker 1: let birds poop on this part of the raft and boom,
Speaker 1: we've got guano. And he said the other half is
Speaker 1: New Atlantic. So so really half US, half its own country,
Speaker 1: half bird toilet half bird toilet. But that's the thing though,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, how did he attract how did he
Speaker 1: attract the bird bombs? Like, I don't know, because it
Speaker 1: seems like the language of the law it really does
Speaker 1: require that that be the what what what constitutes a deposit?
Speaker 1: I mean they we're getting silly here, but like you know,
Speaker 1: if a bird poops on your raft, it's technically depositing
Speaker 1: guana onto their raft. So all it took, all it
Speaker 1: takes is one errant, you know. Maybe I mean he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He clearly wasn't in the guano business, right. The population
Speaker 1: of New Atlantis started at six. It was Lester, Doris,
Speaker 1: his spouse, their daughters Ann and Hillary, who were seven
Speaker 1: and three years old at the time, respectively. PR Guy
Speaker 1: named Edward Moss and his assistant Julia. So in February
Speaker 1: there's a vote in the Republic of New Atlantis. Uh,
Speaker 1: the seven voters make Lester the first president. They have
Speaker 1: another PR blitz now that you know, the republic has
Speaker 1: its first election and Kingston, Jamaica's papers cover it. Lester
Speaker 1: tells the paper that his new Republic will be a
Speaker 1: peaceful power and not threaten its Caribbean neighbors. Thanks for
Speaker 1: appreci appreciate it. They also did. I I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but I'm fascinated by what are called micro nations,
Speaker 1: and this is a micronation. Is Micronesia micronation? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's what's the word the micro come from. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm getting back into silly semantic etymology that probably doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: But is Micronesia smaller than Indonesia. It's made up of
Speaker 1: smaller islands. Yes, I got it. So the micro is
Speaker 1: further away a descriptive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe
Speaker 1: so now I am I am an armchair etymologist. I'm
Speaker 1: very interested in it, but I am not an etymologist
Speaker 1: by trade. So it is quite possible that there is
Speaker 1: a hominemic play and that Micronesia actually translates to something
Speaker 1: that neither of us know. It could be, you know,
Speaker 1: the shining scales of the pufferfish. Indeed, micronations though to
Speaker 1: your point, band don't have legal recognition in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, the U N or any kind of bodies
Speaker 1: that do stuff like that, right, right, And the rule
Speaker 1: of nations is uh, it's kind of a fake it
Speaker 1: till you make it approach. We see this even today
Speaker 1: with different different countries or regions that are jockeying for
Speaker 1: you in recognition. The way you become a nation is
Speaker 1: by having other nations say hey, that's a nation. It's
Speaker 1: very ad hoc I mean, I hate to say it
Speaker 1: that way. It feels arbitrary. There is a process if
Speaker 1: you get enough nations together to say, hey, uh, Pegramania
Speaker 1: is indeed a real nation, then then boom, you're in.
Speaker 1: It's also a phenomenon wherein people absolutely lose their minds
Speaker 1: over superproducer casey pegram he's a pegramaniac. Yeah, this and so,
Speaker 1: when you want a nation to appear legitimate, you start
Speaker 1: preemptively creating the trappings of legitimacy, even if you are
Speaker 1: not recognized by the powers that be. So you want
Speaker 1: stuff like flags to satisfy the vexillologists. You want stuff
Speaker 1: like stamps to your point. Right, For the philologists, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for the philatelists, Dan, it's a tricky word. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. That's another There's so many beautiful, mostly useless
Speaker 1: words in English, like the people who collect matchbooks. Voluminist. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a cool word. Where's the flag again? Vexillologists? Exillologists? Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: learning a lot today about what what would you call that? Enthusiasts? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not really experts exactly right, No, not really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: excellologist is just a flag enthusiasts, not necessarily a a
Speaker 1: flag expert with some sort of pedigree, right, yeah, Or
Speaker 1: there's someone who just studies flags, you know, like, hey,
Speaker 1: are you are you a vexillologist? And well not by trade,
Speaker 1: but I'm interested with what kind of flags do you have?
Speaker 1: I don't know now in my head, there's a guy
Speaker 1: with a trench coat who's walking up to people in
Speaker 1: the street and he opens a trench coat and he
Speaker 1: just has a bunch of flags. But they would have
Speaker 1: to be those tiny flags. Yeah, they're tiny flags, which
Speaker 1: is still a flag, right, I mean, you know, a
Speaker 1: flag is a flag is a flag. There's no size
Speaker 1: designation for what makes a flag quote unquote proper right right,
Speaker 1: And although their standard rectangular dimensions, not every country practices
Speaker 1: those dimensions. You know what if all it takes as
Speaker 1: a flag, let's just get ridiculous history of flag. I'm
Speaker 1: moving forward. We should make the shipping container a sovereign nation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: case here, you in let's do it. Okay, good, because
Speaker 1: we need we need an odd number of votes. What
Speaker 1: else will descend into chaos and gridlock and Casey can
Speaker 1: be the the the king, the governor, prime prime minister,
Speaker 1: prime minister. Yeah, I don't want to set them up
Speaker 1: to be a dictator. Case here, you're cool with that.
Speaker 1: We just elected you. I rule at the pleasure of
Speaker 1: the people. That's great. I love your energy, man, so
Speaker 1: so our nascent nation here ridiculous history aside, Uh, New
Speaker 1: Atlantis does get a flag Leicester's spouse was it? And
Speaker 1: then they also create a national currency. I love this name.
Speaker 1: Oh I can see why, Ben, because you have no scruples,
Speaker 1: my friend. The scruple. That's what it's called, the scruple.
Speaker 1: It's like a ruble, a scruple. Scruple is also like
Speaker 1: the thing what is a scruple Like? If you have
Speaker 1: no scruples, that means you are a moral in some way, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: A scruple is a reservation, right yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's what stops you from doing something morally, morally sketchy
Speaker 1: or reprehensible. And he must have had that in mind,
Speaker 1: because it's almost like saying, this is our currency is
Speaker 1: the very nature of goodness. If you have scruples, then
Speaker 1: that means you are a thoughtful person. If you have
Speaker 1: no scruples, then you are a bad person. So he's
Speaker 1: really drawing the line in the water, the rat in
Speaker 1: the raft. It's such a writer joke because Lester later said,
Speaker 1: I believe the rich should have many scruples. Boma that
Speaker 1: here's my question. Did he have all this stuff set
Speaker 1: up before he went out on the raft? Did he
Speaker 1: ever leave the raft? What if he left it unoccupied?
Speaker 1: Could it have been you know, uh invaded so many
Speaker 1: questions here. Who designed the flag? Did he do it himself?
Speaker 1: It seems like it was him and his wife designing
Speaker 1: this clusive as to how much they had worked out
Speaker 1: in advance, Uh, we can say that there is a
Speaker 1: draft of the New Atlantis Constitution, so they did write
Speaker 1: stuff down. It was typed on manual typewriter, and it's
Speaker 1: more or less an exact copy of the articles that
Speaker 1: form the main body of the U. S Constitution. And
Speaker 1: they just sort of mad lived New Atlantis in wherever
Speaker 1: it's the United States. So, I mean, let's let's be
Speaker 1: real here. The whole thing was sort of a protesting
Speaker 1: kind of symbol like act. You know, there there was
Speaker 1: a lot of satire built in with the whole scruples
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think he was necessarily intended.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, he says he was trying to
Speaker 1: raise money for preservation and for this research center. I
Speaker 1: think he was hoping that the stunt would catch enough
Speaker 1: publicity that he would you know, create a groundswell of
Speaker 1: support and you know, revenue, and then he could actually
Speaker 1: you know, funnel some money into these causes that he
Speaker 1: believed in. Right, but the whole thing was a bit
Speaker 1: of a satire kind of a jokey thing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like it's a merry prank sur vibe. I know what.
Speaker 1: The mid sixties too, So we're at the we're at
Speaker 1: the peak of this sort of performance. Do you think
Speaker 1: there would have been LSD on the stamps that he
Speaker 1: was distributing. Interesting question, you know, he probably could have
Speaker 1: sold some more. Uh, now that you mentioned it, it's
Speaker 1: funny we should spend some time on the stamps because
Speaker 1: he printed stamps in five different denominations. And as you said, no,
Speaker 1: he told reporters that he was going to finance the
Speaker 1: International Marine Research Society with the with the stamps, right.
Speaker 1: But fatal flaw. Fatal flaw because the Universal Postal Union,
Speaker 1: which is based in Switzerland, refused to recognize the stamps.
Speaker 1: They said, look, the stamps are not legit because the
Speaker 1: country you've new, Atlantis, is also illegitimate. So they said
Speaker 1: you know, to us, you're just some guy on a
Speaker 1: raft cutting paper into little squares. Well, that's totally what
Speaker 1: he was. And I mean, you know, my question is,
Speaker 1: you know, we you don't just print your own stamps
Speaker 1: in the same way you don't just print your own money,
Speaker 1: or or do you? I mean, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: a sovereign nation, you've got your own mints, you recognize
Speaker 1: your own currency. That makes it legitimate. This is the
Speaker 1: fact that your sovereign nation. But what makes it legitimate
Speaker 1: internationally is that record mission you know, from outside of
Speaker 1: your bounds in this case the very very small bounds
Speaker 1: um of this raft. So yeah, that's interesting. I guess
Speaker 1: you you know, we do print our own stamps. The
Speaker 1: Post Office doesn't print stamps for you, does it. How
Speaker 1: are stamps produced? I believe it. I want to say
Speaker 1: it's the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Right, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: Then that's totally true. So that I mean that that
Speaker 1: sort of pulled some of that legitimacy in the first place, right,
Speaker 1: I means literally saying I printed my own stamps and
Speaker 1: my own denomination um. There was no recognition of that.
Speaker 1: You would need the recognition I think before you could
Speaker 1: print the stamps and then expect them to be considered legitimate, right,
Speaker 1: so we sort of put the raft before the sea
Speaker 1: horse in this situation. I think they got close to
Speaker 1: recognition though, and then you know how to play the game.
Speaker 1: So they one of their stamps that came out in
Speaker 1: nineteen four honored President Lyndon Johnson u S President Lyndon
Speaker 1: Johnson Jumbo. Yeah, the guy who nicknamed his genitalia Jumbo,
Speaker 1: and they called him the protector of the free World.
Speaker 1: In this stamp, they got a note from the White House.
Speaker 1: It was a very nice thank you note, but they
Speaker 1: did not get diplomatic recognition. Supposedly, the thank you note
Speaker 1: addresses Lester as the acting President of New Atlantis. So
Speaker 1: this is the closest he's come to being recognized as
Speaker 1: the as the leader of this developing nation. But still
Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't quite there. The US Office of
Speaker 1: the Geographer, one of the spokespeople said, this thank you
Speaker 1: note from the White House was quote, the closest a
Speaker 1: dreamer has come to official recognition. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: Lester really was kind of a dreamer. And and if
Speaker 1: you ask me, did set himself apart from his older brother.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is him pretty bold stuff that he
Speaker 1: was doing. And he was quoted as saying he really
Speaker 1: only did it to have a little fun, like we
Speaker 1: said that Mary prankster vibe, and to make some dough.
Speaker 1: UM didn't really make any dough. Definitely seemed to have
Speaker 1: some fun and and left a pretty interesting legacy that
Speaker 1: actually did did did endure a bit though. His tiny
Speaker 1: raft nation UH was eventually destroyed by a storm, and
Speaker 1: we could have seen that coming. It was, um, you know,
Speaker 1: held together by twine and and scraps and lead pipe
Speaker 1: and bamboo and all of that stuff. So but it
Speaker 1: did stick around for a few years. UM. But it
Speaker 1: actually caught the attention of one Mary M. Hearth, who
Speaker 1: was a librarian for the University of Texas Humanities Research
Speaker 1: Center UM and in October of nineteen sixty five UM
Speaker 1: she and the center created an exhibition UH to memorialize
Speaker 1: Lester's mad experiment. That's right. The exhibit includes a letter
Speaker 1: from from Lester to her. He addresses her as Lady Mary.
Speaker 1: So you can travel today to the spot where the
Speaker 1: Nation of New Atlantis once existed, but you will not
Speaker 1: see the actual raft. What happened to Lester It's a
Speaker 1: bit of a tragic tale. For the last five years
Speaker 1: of his life he was primarily focused on the Bimini
Speaker 1: Out Island News. I'm pronouncing that carefully because for years
Speaker 1: we've been saying Bemini like bikini, but it's Bimini, right,
Speaker 1: gem yeah, yeah, yeah like geminy. So this, this uh
Speaker 1: Bimini Out Island News was a little monthly newsletter on fishing.
Speaker 1: So he returns to writing primarily about fishing. He also
Speaker 1: gets diagnosed with type two diabetes and he suffers through
Speaker 1: multiple operations like five over the course of only six months.
Speaker 1: He may end up losing his legs and tragically. Lester
Speaker 1: hemming Way decides to end his life in two at
Speaker 1: the age of sixty seven. But he did leave behind
Speaker 1: a very interesting legacy UM that generated a lot of
Speaker 1: of you know, publicity UM and created well, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he could argue that this maybe he isn't
Speaker 1: an amazing result, but it did create a lot of
Speaker 1: right wing interest in the idea of you know, setting
Speaker 1: up one's own nation artificial nation island UM and Peter
Speaker 1: Thiel of PayPal Um had this used used this concept
Speaker 1: for his Sea East Standing Institute concept, the idea of
Speaker 1: reimagining civilization with floating cities that is directly from the
Speaker 1: Sea Standing dot org website. Um that reads The c
Speaker 1: Standing Institute is a nonprofit think take promoting the creation
Speaker 1: of floating ocean cities as a revolutionary solution to some
Speaker 1: of the world's most pressing problems rising sea levels, over population,
Speaker 1: poor governance, and more. I could get behind that. I
Speaker 1: I think that's a uh. I think it's at the
Speaker 1: very least inspired by New Atlantis and of course shout
Speaker 1: out to one of the most famous micro nations, the
Speaker 1: Principality of Seilands, which is Have you heard of this one?
Speaker 1: It's pretty much the same. Uh, it's a very similar thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Former British Army major, a guy named Patty Bates occupies
Speaker 1: this one by fifty ft platform. It's just it's literally
Speaker 1: an anti aircraft gun platform. He takes over it and
Speaker 1: declares that his own nation, and no one really stresses
Speaker 1: out about it. Celan is a great story stuff you
Speaker 1: should know has a good episode on it as well,
Speaker 1: so check them out. Lester overall seems to be a
Speaker 1: pretty swell guy. He doesn't resent his brother's talent. He
Speaker 1: seems to love him, and he seems like he's having fun,
Speaker 1: you know, uh weirdly enough. The Connecticut Review, going back
Speaker 1: to our statements about masculinity, the Connecticut Review said the
Speaker 1: following about Lester. They say, he's articulate, vibrant, definitely his
Speaker 1: own man, and he had managed somehow to accommodate himself
Speaker 1: manfully to living in earnest shadow, how does want accommodate
Speaker 1: oneself manfully and in earnest and in earnest? There we go.
Speaker 1: I like that manfully, man fully. We're gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do things manfully now. One note before we go, it's
Speaker 1: just an important thing. Um. We did mention that Lester
Speaker 1: took his own life, and as you know, Ernest him
Speaker 1: and Way also took his own life. Uh. Depression is real,
Speaker 1: and sometimes these things do run in families. But if
Speaker 1: you or anyone you know has uh ever ever feels
Speaker 1: like you're getting in these dire straits or you're having
Speaker 1: a tough time, there are people you can reach out to.
Speaker 1: So the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is one to seven, three,
Speaker 1: eight to five, or reach out to someone close to you.
Speaker 1: Never feel like you're burdening anybody. I think that's the
Speaker 1: biggest barrier to people just having conversations that could really
Speaker 1: make a world of difference, as people don't want to
Speaker 1: impose and and you're never imposing. I can say that, UM,
Speaker 1: speaking as someone who's never maybe even met you out there,
Speaker 1: I would be more than happy to talk to anyone
Speaker 1: who's ever feeling any of these these feelings, as I
Speaker 1: know Ben would as well. UM, So please reach out
Speaker 1: to someone close to you or to a stranger. Um,
Speaker 1: just reach out to somebody, absolutely and well said. Thank you,
Speaker 1: knowl speaking reaching out. You can find us all over
Speaker 1: the internet. We're on Facebook, We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Meet one of our favorite parts of the show, your
Speaker 1: fellow listeners on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. All you
Speaker 1: gotta do is name drop myself, Ben Bowling, super producer,
Speaker 1: Casey Pagram, any of the myriad names that we dropped
Speaker 1: in the credits, or you know, just a ref to
Speaker 1: one of the episodes, or just something pithy, uh that
Speaker 1: lets us know that you're a human person with actual
Speaker 1: interests in joining the group and not some sort of
Speaker 1: Russian butt. And you know, if you're a Russian bot
Speaker 1: and you're in the audience and your pun game is strong,
Speaker 1: I might still let it go. Bring it on, and
Speaker 1: you can follow us as individuals. I'm at Ben Bowling
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I'm at Ben Bolling h s W on Twitter.
Speaker 1: You can find me exclusively on Instagram at how Now
Speaker 1: Noel Brown Big. Thanks to super producer Casey Pegram. As always,
Speaker 1: Christopher hasiotis here in spirit, Alex Williams, who composed our theme,
Speaker 1: our research associate uh slash Mastermind Gabe. Thanks also to
Speaker 1: Eve's Jeff Coat, and you know what, thanks to uh
Speaker 1: thinks the Lester Hemingway. If I kind of want to
Speaker 1: build a nation now too, and I want to find
Speaker 1: out more about this guy. He sounds like the kind
Speaker 1: of guy you'd wanna um just have a beer with
Speaker 1: and maybe go rafting. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
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