REDMOND, Wash., July 14, 1997 — It is an island of the forbidden and the familiar. Located just 90 miles from U.S. soil, Cuba is a paradox. Baseball, Chevys and rock ‘n’ roll are a resonant part of the culture, yet, on the flip side, possession of American currency can land a person in jail. Celebrated American author Ernest Hemingway spent the final years of his life in Cuba. This month the Mungo Park ™ online adventure magazine (http://mungopark.com/) , published by the Microsoft® Expedia
™
travel service, celebrates Hemingway the writer and explores his life in Cuba through the eyes of his granddaughter, film and television actress Mariel Hemingway.
“Hemingway loved Cuba,” said Richard Bangs, Mungo Park editor in chief. “So much so that when he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954, he gave the medal to the people of Cuba.” Mariel is the voice of July’s live expedition, called Hemingway in Cuba, exclusively on Mungo Park . In a series of daily reports from the field from July 17 to 19, Mariel makes her first visit to the island, exploring her grandfather’s old haunts, nature reserves and the beautiful bay after which she was named.
“So much has been written about my grandfather over the years,” Mariel said. “This is an opportunity for me to experience and understand the powerful connection he felt for this small tropical island.”
Joining Mariel on the Hemingway trail in Cuba is correspondent Tom Miller, author of six books, including the critically acclaimed “Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba.” Miller has been writing about Latin America for more than 25 years and is one of the best-known American journalists covering Cuba today.
Armchair adventurers can follow this month’s live expedition, Hemingway in Cuba, July 14-22 on Mungo Park at (http://mungopark.com/) . Mungo Park brings the tropical isle of Cuba to virtual explorers through lush digital photographs, video, and audio communiqu
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s from the field, combined with the high-caliber writing of famous authors, journalists and the Mungo Park editorial staff. Here’s what else can be found on Mungo Park in July:
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Live Internet chat with Mariel Hemingway. Chat with acclaimed actress Mariel Hemingway on July 23 at 6 p.m. PDT. Find out what Mariel has to say about her first trip to Cuba and her grandfather, Ernest Hemingway.
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Running With the Bulls: Live From Pamplona, Spain. Check out this year’s running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. To kick off the July issue, Mungo Park traveled to Spain, where Hemingway spent his early years. His first novel, “The Sun Also Rises,” made the annual San Fermin Festival and the running of the bulls world-famous. On July 10, Mungo Park secured the first live audio coverage of Spain’s wildest annual rite. Richard Bangs reported live from the narrow streets of Pamplona as he dodged giant bulls and fellow runners. Relive his wild run on Mungo Park.
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Meeting Ernest. George Plimpton, founder and editor of the acclaimed literary quarterly the Paris Review, is best-known for doing things that most people only dream about, such as playing quarterback for the Detroit Lions, basketball for the Boston Celtics, and percussion with the New York Philharmonic. Find out how Plimpton the reporter scored the story of his life when Hemingway granted him a rare interview. Read this historic Hemingway interview, which ran in the 1958 Paris Review, this month on Mungo Park.
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Hemingway Excerpt. Read an excerpt from the first Internet publication of a Hemingway work, “The Old Man and the Sea,” a story that takes place in Cuba.
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Santer
í
a: A Fascinating Religion. Writer Nancy Zimmerman delivers a firsthand account of Santer
í
a, the growing Cuban religion that blends West African and Roman Catholic belief systems into a mysterious world that includes animal sacrifice. Find out why it’s attracting North Americans in droves. -
Art Gallery. View the work of New York-based painter Roger Mason, who brings the sultry streets of old Havana to life on canvas. Mason’s work hangs in the private collections of Hume Cronyn, Daryl Hannah, Keith Carradine and Robert Altman, among others.
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Cinema Cuba. Peter Rainier, chief film critic for New Times Los Angeles and chairman of the National Society of Film Critics, travels to celluloid Cuba. Join Rainier for a cinematic exploration of how Fidel’s country is portrayed in provocative films by Americans, Cubans and Russians.
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Detours: Stops on the Hemingway Trail. Browse through this traveler’s compendium of destinations Ernest Hemingway frequented, from Paris to Pamplona, from northern Italy to Africa – with tips on how to travel in the Hemingway style.
Web-Site Access to Mungo Park Made Easier
Now Mungo Park is fully accessible to any frame-based browser. Netscape Navigator users are no longer required to download plug-ins to navigate through the site or to view the majority of the site’s content. Plug-ins will be needed only for more advanced multimedia features such as video clips.
Since September 1996, Mungo Park has taken online adventurers on the first-ever descent of the Tekeze River in Ethiopia; in search of the Queen of the Lovedu, a legendary Bantu tribe of women; into space aboard Atlantis space shuttle mission STS-81; diving the coral reefs of Fiji with Jean-Michel Cousteau; and through the remote and treacherous rain forests of the Darien Gap.
Mungo Park is accessible on the World Wide Web and features an interactive expedition program, live Internet chats, a famous-author series, and regular columns from well-known journalists. Named for the famous 18th-century Scottish explorer who discovered the Niger River and mysteriously disappeared while navigating its waters, Mungo Park is about exploring the world – firsthand and online.
Mungo Park is accessible free of charge (connect-time charges may apply) on the Internet and on MSN Ô, The Microsoft Network (connect-time charges may apply). To access Mungo Park , users need World Wide Web access, with a 14.4Kbps or faster modem recommended. A frames-enabled browser, FutureSplash and RealAudio plug-ins are recommended. Mungo Park is best experienced with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher and Netscape Navigator 3.0 or higher. Both the Macintosh platform and the Windows® operating system are supported.
Microsoft Expedia is a free online travel planning service (connect-time charges may apply) that’s available on the World Wide Web at (http://expedia.MSN.com/) , and on MSN (connect-time charges may apply). Using the same comprehensive reservations system used by professional travel agents, Expedia provides a series of software wizards that help customers research and purchase or reserve airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars. Airline tickets can be purchased online with credit cards and will be delivered by first-class or express mail, or they can be picked up at airport ticket counters. Expedia also supports electronic ticketing, or “ticketless travel.” After receiving their tickets, customers requiring last-minute assistance can call the toll-free Expedia customer support number 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To access Microsoft Expedia, users need access to the World Wide Web and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or an Internet browser that supports HTML 3.0, HTML Tables, HTML Frames and JavaScript. Expedia is also a featured service in the Essentials section of MSN.
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