…or at least, snow and farewell. It’s pouring down snow, and roofs are getting white.
Frank and the camera crew left for MIT after shooting footage of just about everything you can imagine.
I am wondering what Swedish tv audiences will think of all the events this crew took pictures of:
- Snow falling on our garden, as seen from our bedroom window.
- Frank reading in his favorite chair.
- Frank playing the piano.
- Frank and Betsy sitting in two chairs talking. Have you ever
tried to talk with your spouse non-stop for 10 minutes, pretending that
just the two of you are there?
- Marianne the dog, watching Frank and Betsy as if we were a Wimbledon tennis match.
- Frank and Betsy being interviewed by Roland about Longing for the Harmonies, which W.W. Norton now plans to re-publish.
- Betsy blogging, with Frank looking on, bemused.
The crew then, intrepidly, shot some more footage outdoors. Frank and I
were instructed to shut the front door, count to ten, then open it and
stroll out, going for a walk. We are not allowed to look at Guy or Rob
or Roland or the camera. So, we do some walking following these
instructions. Then we are asked to do some more walking, starting from
a point outside the house and going together around the corner.
I said to Guy, “Maybe Roland would like to walk with us?” Guy said, not unkindly, “You haven’t done a lot of this, have you?”
So we walked to the corner and past it and kept on going. Snow fell on
us. Frank was wearing his brand-new black shoes, bought for Sweden, and
flakes of snow were melting all over them. I was having a great time,
maybe because, as Guy noted, I haven’t done a lot of this.
Now our house is quiet. Marianne, in her 114 dog years, has rarely seen or smelled so much
excitement. She’s conked out in her fuzzy dogbed now, so fast asleep
that she’s not even snoring.
Marianne has got the right idea.
Tags: Nobel
It’s usually said that we Swedes get exactly the sort of government
that we deserve. When it comes to the presidential election in the US,
one could easily say that the world gets exactly the kind of President
that the Americans deserve.
On the brighter side, as Roland continues, “To all European Kerry supporters the result
may be disheartening, but never the less, the outcome is a
victory for democracy.”
(Det brukar sägas att vi svenskar får precis den regering vi
förtjänar. När det gäller presidentvalet i USA kan man säga att världen
får precis den president som amerikanerna förtjänar. För alla
europeiska Kerryanhängare kan det verka nog så provocerande, men årets
val är trots allt en seger för demokratin.)
Tags: Heroes and funny folks
Tags: Nobel
Left to right: Light with schmutz, microphone in heavy fur coat, Guy the cameraman.
Tags: Nobel
1) I shot some photos of Frank with Roland, Guy, and Rob just at the moment before they started.
But I left the camera cable upstairs, and now I can’t go tromping up the stairs get it because the “So, what is a quark?” phase of this interview has started. Footsteps in the background would not be a good thing.
In fact, I’m pinned down in the kitchen, eavesdropping and (of course) typing this. Thank heaven for Airport wi-fi!
2) Roland wants some still photos on his camera also, for newspaper ads. I’m willing to take them–but Amity’s would be much better! And she has been darn nice about all the interruptions to her graduate work, over the years, when Mom or Dad suddenly needs a photographer.
Of course, a quick call to her cellphone failed to reach her, and the crew should be finished and out of here in an hour…so I sent her an email and (one more desperate measure), I’m blogging this call for help.
Tags: Nobel
Frank is sitting in the dining room chair, getting lit for the camera.
“More schmutz,” says Guy. Schmutz turns out to be two pieces of
waxy-looking paper he hangs in front of a light that is shining on
Frank.
“Why is that schmutz?” I ask.
“That’s just what we call it,” says Guy. “The real name, the brand name for it, is actually Opal.”
Something with a pretty name like Opal gets nicknamed “schmutz”? It must be a guy thing, Definitely, a guy thing.
Tags: Nobel
Three very nice young tv-crew-men are downstairs getting ready to
interview Frank, so of course I decided it would be fun to live-blog
this unusual event.
Roland, the interviewer from Sweden, is young and tv-good-looking–he has already
interviewed two US Nobel laureates before he came here–visiting Minneapolis and
Santa Barbara.
Guy, the cameraman who also does lighting, lives in Wellesley. Rob, who does sound, is also a local freelancer.
They’re setting up lights and cameras and microphones all over our
house’s familiar spaces, while Roland and Frank chit-chat about physics
and travel.
Rob dangles a huge microphone in a thick fur sweater (a “Rykote windscreen”) over one of our dining room chairs.
Guy pulls down the shades in our dining room so that he can take full control of the ambient light.
More soon….
Tags: Nobel
