Sweet-talkin' Ernie H.

Bostonist is all about the advances in technology, but we're still suckers for old love letters sent via snail mail or telegram - particularly they include words from a legendary writer.

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum is releasing today a slew of letters that Ernest Hemingway wrote to screen and stage siren Marlene Dietrich over a 10-year span. The correspondence of this friendship, which paired literary work and Old Hollywood, will give museum visitors further glimpse into Papa Hemingway's life, according to the Globe, who said it shows "Hemingway at his most unbuttoned: profane and boyish, sometimes playful, sometimes philosophical, and always deeply affectionate."

What adds to the thrill factor is that the pair's correspondence reflects an attraction that was never consummated, says the Globe. Reporter Mark Feeney quotes Hemingway as he asks Dietrich, "What do you want really want to do for a life work? Break everybody's heart for a dime? You could always break mine for a nickel and I'd bring the nickel."

Sigh.

We are eager to read these letters (call it what you will: voyeurism or academia) and are sure that others are as well. The release to the public comes shortly before the 2007 Hemingway Foundation Award/PEN Award for fiction this weekend, with author Ben Fountain set to take home this year's prize.

We'll wait to see just how long young men wait to start working some of Hemingway's lines into their flirtatious emails. Our bet? Not long.

We were going to include a photo of the "In Love and War" movie poster -- in which Chris O'Donnell portrayed young Ernie H. -- until we saw this photo of Hemingway as a Lego, courtesy of flickr user Dunechaser.