Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Just got home–soooooo sleepy–I’ll blog more about our northern adventures but first I want to jump back to Stockholm University’s ceremony of the Ever Jumping and Smiling Green Frog on December 13–one of the most fun parties we’ve ever enjoyed.

As the youngest laureate, Frank discovered (after the first few drinking songs and toasts with aquavit) that he would be making a midnight thank-you speech. He scribbled 7 pairs of rhyming words on a paper napkin and delivered the following:

I’m well aware that the primary virtue of a speech like this is brevity. I couldn’t come up with a worthy haiku, so you’ll have to settle for a sonnet. The sonnet is a strict form, that requires fourteen lines. Here goes.

When studying physics, who would have thunk,
It’d lead to public sonnetizing, quasi-drunk
After days of partying and eating like a hog
Climaxed by jumping around like a frog.

Through it all I’ve found that I’m taking a liking
For living life large, like a Viking.
So, when I return to my peaceful local village
I’ll be tempted to indulge in some looting and pillage.

But you’ve taught me how Swedes got past doing wrongs:
By investing time, instead, in learning drinking songs.
On the surface everyone seems calm and nice
But beneath, in reserve, there is plenty of spice.

For this lesson, frog, and fun: Thanks a lot!
That’s fourteen lines, it’s all I’ve got.

Footnote: We are now home in our peaceful village, but I now want sleep a lot more than looting and pillage…

What a glorious place–more later, as we have to dash off to visit the Space High School…

Hans from Stockholm [1] sent this email to you through Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar? [2] regarding this page [3].

Keep up the good work, no answer expected…

Thanks, Hans!

Hi mom-
How’s the frozen north?  the frog ball?  I’m dying to hear more about
the secret rituals and bismuth amphibians.
love
mickey

I’m blogging from the conference center at Esrange, just about to go watch a stratospheric balloon launch. And I will not neglectthe frog ball but first a quick core-dump of this morning’s notes, as we drove from the Ice Hotel (loved it!) to the space station:

Kiruna is home to about 500 people who make a living by herding reindeer and an equal number of space scientists…

Some of whome are waiting for me now–more later!

My childhood idea of a “ballgown” was based on Disney’s cartoon Cinderella–a gleaming display of fine shoulders but no naughty bits. My Google researches before buying gowns of my own showed that Sweden’s beautiful Queen and the Royal Aunt wear long flowing dresses with cap sleeves or even with long sleeves.

For the traditional royal dinner at the palace, I wore my own long-sleeved long velvet dress so that my new birthday necklace would show. I was glad of the sleeves, because Stockholm’s Royal Palace turns out to be much colder than City Hall!

Today about 1 p.m. we saw our last daylight–at least until we fly south again on December 18. We’re pausing in Luleå for one night–here’s their church built in 1492–tomorrow we head north again, past the Arctic Circle.

We’ve said fond good-byes now to Stockholm and to Nobel Week. We’re saying hello to life without Cecilia, who solved all our problems with unmatchable efficiency and good humor. We’re wondering how we’ll survive without Harald, who drove us everywhere in his stretch Volvo limousine.

The Arctic Hotel of Luleå has comfortable large rooms and even free wireless Internet. But I think Frank and I will spend some time pining for Stockholm’s incredible Grand Hotel…

• Golden elevators lined with sparkling mirrors
• Fresh flowers and even chocolates for laureates
• White-clad maidens who deliver breakfasts or pick up your laundry as if they were taking a pleasant break from performing complex brain surgery elsewhere

Still, the future lies ahead, including the Ice Hotel tomorrow!

	The football-helmet-hairstyle of Patty Duke
	The drat-those-orcs-hairstyle of her son Sean Astin shown here with similarly coiffed young Frodo

Last night was great fun and Frank Wilczek is now a green frog. We went to bed happily smiling at 1 a.m.–now it’s 5 and we are taking last showers before packing up for the north.

I have to decide what to do with my Patty-Duke helmet-hair. Don’t blame my elegant young hairdresser Morgan Johansson for creating this time-honored style twice during our stay–I talked him into it, both times. Without lots of smoothing and fluffing and serious hairspray, my hair likes to curl itself up into tiny dreadlocks

So tempted as I am to wash it this morning, I’d much rather look like Sean Astin’s mom than like third-reel Frodo or Sam. And I’ll regret my helmet hair if I fall off that dogsled!

At 6:50 a.m., the sparkling-clean Wilczeks jumped back into bed and turned off the light. We were, of course, wearing our “dignified pajamas.” (Since I’d had no time to buy new pajamas in Stockholm, we had put on our heaviest and still-unwrinkled long underwear.) Soon, we heard the Lucia knock at our door….

The Lucia singers were escorted by two ladies from the Grand Hotel’s “guest services,” so we didn’t have to get up to unlock the door. Soft singing and candlelight slowly progressed into our darkened bedroom. The Lucia girl had a headdress with real lighted candles–her attendants all carried candles in their hands. (I later found out these were students from a local music college–their voices were lovely!)

The Lucia attendants wore tall pointy hats (the “star boys”) or green wreaths with flowers (“maids of honor”). They sang “Santa Lucia” (in Swedish, that’s pronounced “Loo-see-ah” rather than “Loo-chee-ah”), a bit more Swedish Christmas music, then slowly filed out singing “Santa Lucia” again.

David Gross told me later that one year a laureate was really surprised by this Swedish custom. The sleepy laureate woke up to melodious singing by handsome young blondes in long flowing robes and jumped to the conclusion he’d died and gone to heaven.

The Grand Hotel Lucia singers also brought us coffee, saffron buns, and a wrapped Lucia gift that turned out to be a ceramic Lucia. At the time, the coffee was much less exciting than their singing. Which, for coffee-addicts like Frank and me, suggests some kind of miracle.

Later, I saw the same singers down in the lobby and snapped a few photos. The singers are serious but the people they sing to are smiling from ear to ear–I know we were.

December 12, 2004. New Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek visits the Nobel Foundation, to sign final papers for getting money and medals. Assisting him are foreign-service desk officer Cecilia Ekholm (left) and Nobel Foundation public communications officer Annika Ekdahl.

So he has quite a few reasons for smiling today!