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

Why settle for garnishing food with fresh-ground pepper–or even my mother’s four wicked secret tricks?

The Nobel banquet staff dessert “presentation” requires a Mozart mini-opera prelude, plus hundreds of waitstaff marching in unison, holding trays high with one hand and ringing small bells with the other.

Those three flights of marble stairs add dramatic tension, and I’m told waiters aren’t allowed to help serve dessert until they are veterans of previous Nobel banquets.

The Swedish television Nobel page links to lots of fun jsp popups that don’t have independent URLs of their own. For the benefit of my non-Swedish readers, I’ve mis-translated a few of the links you might click.

Nobelpriser och festmingel:

Nobel ceremony and party-mingle (Still shots of Nobel ceremony and banquet.)

Vem bar snyggaste klänningen?

Who is wearing the most beautiful clothing? (Royalty and others walk downstairs to banquet hall.)

Snillen och glitter på tidigare fester

Nobel glittererati of the past, including Nobel ice cream from years ago and two photos of Gunter Grass jitterbugging!

Toner av Mozart underhöll gästerna

Mozart’s music adds tone to any occasion (Video from ceremony and banquet.)

One of the many charming people I’ve met here is Swedish blogger Aron Ambrosiani. I met him amid the whir and buzz of the Nobel Museum events, and saw him again last night surrounded by glitter and dance music at the post-banquet Nobel Ball.

I’m hoping to read some Nobel party news from a Swedish point of view (relying on this free Swedish-to-English translator (which translates “Frank Wilczek” into “Stamp Wilczek” but still works better than trying to guess what words mean) ) but Aron may be as sleepy as I am this morning.

Keep blogging, Aron!

Someone described Nobel Week as a series of “can you top this?” experiences. December 10 was a full day of such events.

The first big event was rehearsing the Nobel Prize ceremony. That is, Frank and the other laureates rehearsed marching and getting medals from the King while wives and reporters rehearsed sitting in the audience.

The part of the King was played by a very distinguished Nobel Board member–Michael Sohlman, I think–and I took several photos of the pre-event for this blog but was asked not to post them in fairness to newspapers, who had been told the rehearsal was off-limits to photos.

Then Harold drove us back to the Grand Hotel, whose fitness center serves a great salad lunch. Frank did some exercising, took a sauna, and walked to the Nobel Museum to buy more toys while the two girls and I had our hair done at the hotel…so much fun, many thanks to Morgan Johansson and his team.

Ten big black limos lined up at the Grand Hotel to ferry laureates to Stockholm Concert Hall. We rode through the twilight streets and into a courtyard illuminated by lighted torches that some pre-teen scouts were waving to welcome us.

Then, after clambering around various backstage corridors, Frank went to wait with the other laureates while I went to sit in the audience with other family. (Non-family guests, friends, and colleagues sat somewhere else.)

Frank’s Uncle Walter and Aunt Billie were already sitting down when I arrived. We had great seats, in the second row from the front. I’d already showed Frank my assigned seat that morning–#84, right in the middle. For the actual ceremony, I was sitting between our daughter Amity and the Austrian ambassador. (He was there on behalf of literature laureate Elfrida Jelinek.)

I won’t describe the ceremony–it’s 3 a.m., and newspapers will do it better. All the laureates shook hands with the king properly, and nobody forgot to do all the right bows. The music was lovely, especially a Rossini aria sung by the young Swedish soprano Susanna Andersson. (Both the Prince and the King, when I met them later on, mentioned how very much they’d enjoyed her singing.)

After the final music and formal exits, family members rush up on stage to reclaim their own laureates. I said to Frank, “Show us your medal,” and he said, “Here’s the box, you open it and show us.” Wow. So, that’s the moment the photo above is showing.

This is a first–the official Nobel Prize website now links to this blog from its page on “Other Resources” for Frank Wilczek!

Now (Friday morning, December 10) we have to go practice marching to our places in the Stockholm Concert Hall. No fancy clothes needed for this exercise, although white tie and tails for all the men were delivered to the Grand Hotel last night.

Today (December 9), the Nobel Foundation threw a huge party in Stockholm’s monumental Nordiska Museum. I joined the many official photographers there in snapping some pictures as well as in eating and drinking. Here, the statue of Gustav Vasa (1496-1560) looks on as ten Nobel laureates line up in front of his toes.

Not really, but giving a very dynamic talk about what it means that quarks won’t let you do that.

Picture of Frank Wilczek giving his Nobel Lecture in Physics, Dec. 8, 2004, taken by Jonas Förare, talented photographer and biologist, now science editor and press officer of the The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Thanks, Jonas!

Last year at this time, two feet of snow fell overnight in Cambridge. This year in Stockholm, both daylight and snowfall are less. Thanks to mega-blogger Dave Winer for reminding me of how much my old dog Marianne loved last year’s snow bonanza.

I miss you, Marianne! But I’m sure Ilse is taking great care of you at home, feeding you almost as many different treats as the hospitable Stockholmians feed me and Frank.