What Happens When You Take a Nobel Prize Through Airport Security

nobel prize in airport

Win­ning a Nobel Prize has its perks. When you talk, peo­ple lis­ten. And you end up doing a lot of talk­ing. And trav­el­ling.

Reflect­ing on how the Nobel Prize changed his life, Wal­ter Gilbert (1980 win­ner in Chem­istry) com­ment­ed, “You can find your­self spend­ing years trav­el­ling and talk­ing right after win­ning.”

And what if you want to take your Nobel Prize on the road with you? Accord­ing to astro­physi­cist Bri­an Schmidt (win­ner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics), that can present its own chal­lenges. He recent­ly told an audi­ence in New York:

‘There are a cou­ple of bizarre things that hap­pen. One of the things you get when you win a Nobel Prize is, well, a Nobel Prize. It’s about that big, that thick [about the size of an Olympic medal], weighs a half a pound, and it’s made of gold.”

“When I won this, my grand­ma, who lives in Far­go, North Dako­ta, want­ed to see it. I was com­ing around so I decid­ed I’d bring my Nobel Prize. You would think that car­ry­ing around a Nobel Prize would be unevent­ful, and it was unevent­ful, until I tried to leave Far­go with it, and went through the X‑ray machine. I could see they were puz­zled. It was in my lap­top bag. It’s made of gold, so it absorbs all the X‑rays—it’s com­plete­ly black. And they had nev­er seen any­thing com­plete­ly black.”

“They’re like, ‘Sir, there’s some­thing in your bag.’
I said, ‘Yes, I think it’s this box.’
They said, ‘What’s in the box?’
I said, ‘a large gold medal,’ as one does.
So they opened it up and they said, ‘What’s it made out of?’
I said, ‘gold.’
And they’re like, ‘Uhh­hh. Who gave this to you?’
‘The King of Swe­den.’
‘Why did he give this to you?’
‘Because I helped dis­cov­er the expan­sion rate of the uni­verse was accel­er­at­ing.’
At which point, they were begin­ning to lose their sense of humor. I explained to them it was a Nobel Prize, and their main ques­tion was, ‘Why were you in Far­go?’”

So just a word of cau­tion to Jean Tirole, who won the Nobel Prize in Eco­nom­ics today, if you’re ever vis­it­ing grand-mère…

via Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Read 18 Short Sto­ries From Nobel Prize-Win­ning Writer Alice Munro Free Online

Jean-Paul Sartre Rejects the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture in 1964: “It Was Mon­strous!”

Hear Albert Camus Deliv­er His Nobel Prize Accep­tance Speech (1957)

Take a Free Course on the Finan­cial Mar­kets with Robert Shiller, Win­ner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Eco­nom­ics

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Watch the Rare Reunions of Pink Floyd: Concerts from 2005, 2010 & 2011

How many reunions will it take before we’ve final­ly seen the end of Pink Floyd? I’m not com­plain­ing, mind you, but mar­veling at how durable an out­fit the band has been for their fifty-year, on again, off again his­to­ry. Yet aside from the occa­sion­al char­i­ty show, they’ve most­ly been off, hav­ing sup­pos­ed­ly called it quits after 1994’s Divi­sion Bell. As the A.V. Club reminds us, “Pink Floyd has not real­ly exist­ed since Pulp Fic­tion was in the­aters.” Now, after twen­ty years of dor­man­cy, they’re back with a new album, The End­less Riv­er—David Gilmour and Nick Mason’s rework­ing of Divi­sion Bell sessions—due out Novem­ber 10th (see a track­list and hear teasers here). “It’s a shame,” Gilmour tells Rolling Stone, “but this [album] is the end.”

Yeah, we’ve heard that before. This time, it’ll prob­a­bly stick. Key­boardist Richard Wright died in 2008 (the new album is a trib­ute to him), Gilmour and Roger Waters have had a most­ly icy rela­tion­ship, and drum­mer Nick Mason has chan­neled his pas­sion, and for­tune, into clas­sic cars. But it does seem like­ly that they’ll take the stage again, at least for a one-off per­for­mance, as they have a hand­ful of times through­out the years.

Today in trib­ute to their longevi­ty, or their refusal to fade away, we bring you a few of those reunion shows, begin­ning at the top with their Live 8 reunion con­cert in London’s Hyde Park in 2005, a ben­e­fit orga­nized by their old friend Bob Geld­of to coin­cide with the G8 sum­mit. This con­cert is the last time all four mem­bers would play on stage togeth­er, joined by a host of guest musi­cians, and they sound amaz­ing. Gilmour ruled out any fur­ther shows after this, but then two years lat­er, he joined Waters onstage at an event for the Hop­ing Foun­da­tion to ben­e­fit Pales­tin­ian chil­dren. See them play for an inti­mate crowd of just 200 in the video above.

While Roger Waters offi­cial­ly left the band in 1985 on acri­mo­nious terms, he has con­tin­ued to tour both his solo mate­r­i­al and his Floyd music, per­form­ing a solo ver­sion of the The Wall Live to huge audi­ences in North Amer­i­ca and Europe since 2010. At one of those shows, in 2011 at London’s O2 Are­na, Gilmour joined him onstage—atop the wall—for “Com­fort­ably Numb” (above), then returned with a man­dolin, and Nick Mason with a tam­bourine, for “Out­side the Wall” (below).

It seems cyn­i­cal to call the remain­ing mem­bers’ occa­sion­al appear­ances togeth­er oppor­tunis­tic since they gen­er­al­ly only occur at char­i­ty events. But giv­en how long it’s been since they’ve released any­thing new, we might well ask, as the title of their 2011 remas­ter project has it, “Why Pink Floyd?” Why new music, and why now? Since their spaced-out psy­che­del­ic debut, they’ve made increas­ing­ly thought­ful, fine­ly-craft­ed albums for very patient lis­ten­ers, veer­ing into rock opera, stretch­ing out into space opera, becom­ing more and more cin­e­mat­ic in scope. It’s those long, com­plex arrange­ments (like Wish You Were Here and 1977’s Ani­mals), tied togeth­er by Gilmour’s soar­ing gui­tar lines and Wright’s moody key­boards, that hold up best, I think, at least for devot­ed fans, and that’s exact­ly what we can expect from The End­less Riv­er. See Gilmour and Mason dis­cuss the new album, and hear some stun­ning audio sam­ples, at the band’s web­site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Lost Record­ing of Pink Floyd Play­ing with Jazz Vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li on “Wish You Were Here”

Pink Floyd Plays With Their Brand New Singer & Gui­tarist David Gilmour on French TV (1968)

Watch Doc­u­men­taries on the Mak­ing of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

Quentin Tarantino Directs a 1995 Episode of ER: Brings Cinematic Virtuosity to TV

Just as no list of the most 1990s-defin­ing film­mak­ers could do with­out Quentin Taran­ti­no, no list of the most 1990s-defin­ing tele­vi­sion shows could do with­out ER. The long-run­ning, award-laden med­ical dra­ma made more than a few dar­ing moves over its fif­teen years, not least its choic­es of guest direc­tors. Ear­ly in its very first sea­son (which pre­miered a month before the release of Pulp Fic­tion), ER snagged Taran­ti­no to direct the episode “Moth­er­hood,” which aired on May 11, 1995 — three days before Moth­er’s Day. “The rat­ings for ER, which are usu­al­ly through the roof, should be through the moon tonight,” wrote the Bal­ti­more Sun’s David Zurawik, “And there is enough Taran­ti­no to war­rant a bit of a buzz. One weird scene involv­ing a fight between female gang mem­bers as they are being wheeled into the emer­gency room might even be con­sid­ered inspired when judged against the usu­al stan­dards of doc­tor dra­ma. But be warned: It’s ultra-bloody.”

That quote comes from a roundup of con­tem­po­rary write-ups of the episode at Chrono­log­i­cal Snob­bery, which gets into impres­sive detail on the sto­ry behind, the plot of, the hype sur­round­ing, and the Taran­tin­ian imagery in “Moth­er­hood,” and it also offers a brief inter­view with for­mer child actor Abra­ham Ver­duz­co, who “played Palmer, one of the eight Ranger Scouts with diar­rhea.” Taran­ti­no fans of the type who would fre­quent the Quentin Taran­ti­no Archive will have rec­og­nized Ver­duz­co from his ear­li­er appear­ance in Robert Rodriguez’s Taran­ti­no-fea­tur­ing Des­per­a­do. “The episode boasts the usu­al inter­twined sto­ries of bleed­ing gang­sters, rela­tion­ship trou­ble, fam­i­ly dra­ma, preg­nan­cies, drug abuse and for­bid­den love,” says the QTA. “What makes this episode so inter­est­ing to Taran­ti­no fans are all the QT trade­marks that one can spot through the episode.” Some of these, aside from a pen­chant for vin­tage shades (“Quentin picked out the sun­glass­es and was adamant we wear them,” said actress Julian­na Mar­guiles), include:

  • Dr. Lewis wears a Yosemite Sam t‑shirt
  • Pulp Fic­tion’s Angela Jones appears as Michelle
  • A Bea­t­les song (“Black­bird”) accom­pa­nies a birth
  • The Ranger Scouts act like the Three Stooges, and Dr. Carter calls the con­stel­la­tion of the stars by the names Moe, Lar­ry, and Curly
  • A girl cuts anoth­er girl’s ear off

And a more than bit of cin­e­mat­ic vir­tu­os­i­ty comes right up front in the form of the episode’s much-dis­cussed (as recent­ly as last week, on Metafil­ter) sin­gle-take open­ing. You can see a cou­ple seg­ments of the episode right here, and for the whole thing — not to men­tion video qual­i­ty supe­ri­or to that which you get above, and for which we apol­o­gize — you need only to find disc four of the ER sea­son one DVD col­lec­tion. It makes me wish 1990s tele­vi­sion had done as much to bring auteurs into the fold at 21st-cen­tu­ry tele­vi­sion has; what I would­n’t give for a Hal Hart­ley-direct­ed episode of Sein­feld, say, or a Kevin Smith X‑Files.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Quentin Taran­ti­no Lists the 12 Great­est Films of All Time: From Taxi Dri­ver to The Bad News Bears

Quentin Taran­ti­no Tells You About The Actors & Direc­tors Who Pro­vid­ed the Inspi­ra­tion for “Reser­voir Dogs”

My Best Friend’s Birth­day, Quentin Tarantino’s 1987 Debut Film

Quentin Taran­ti­no Explains The Art of the Music in His Films

The Pow­er of Food in Quentin Tarantino’s Films

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Bill Murray, the Struggling New SNL Cast Member, Apologizes for Not Being Funny (1977)

In 1977, after a few under­whelm­ing months as the first new guy in Sat­ur­day Night Live’s then-brief his­to­ry, a 26-year-old Bill Mur­ray reached out to home view­ers with the emo­tion­al equiv­a­lent of a Kick­starter cam­paign. The audi­ence expect­ed the Not Ready for Prime Time Play­ers to be fun­ny, and in every­day life, Mur­ray claims above, he was. It just wasn’t com­ing togeth­er in front of the cam­eras yet.

It didn’t help that he was replac­ing audi­ence favorite, Chevy Chase.

He was also an unknown quan­ti­ty in the eyes of the writ­ers. Rather than entrust their pre­cious mate­r­i­al to a guy who’d yet to prove him­self, they saved their plum assign­ments for the likes of  John Belushi  and Dan Aykroyd.

Mur­ray was rel­e­gat­ed to the sort of pal­lid sup­port­ing roles that require no par­tic­u­lar talent—“the sec­ond cop, the sec­ond FBI agent, the guy hold­ing the mop…” is how he described them to Howard Stern in an inter­view last week. It’s a sto­ry that’s also recount­ed in the book, Live From New York: The Com­plete, Uncen­sored His­to­ry of Sat­ur­day Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writ­ers, and Guests.

Back in ’77, he wise­ly chose not to blame the mate­r­i­al.

Instead he cur­ried favor with ref­er­ences to his late father, his hard work­ing mom, and his nine sib­lings, one of whom was a nun. (Anoth­er had polio, but he left that out. Appar­ent­ly, some things are sacred.)

Lat­er in his career, he’d become cel­e­brat­ed for his smirk­ing insin­cer­i­ty, but his direct appeal, as pro­duc­er Lorne Michaels dubbed it, had none of that.

He wasn’t look­ing for view­ers to write in on his behalf, just an assur­ance that they’d root for him (and his large, father­less Catholic fam­i­ly) dur­ing his tenure at Rock­e­feller Plaza (“New York City, New York 10020”).

It’s doubt­ful whether a sim­i­lar gam­bit would’ve paid off for Gar­rett Mor­ris or Laraine New­man. Com­e­dy, like life, is not fair.

Now that he’s rich and famous, he advis­es peo­ple who dream of sim­i­lar glo­ries to check if the first part alone won’t be suf­fi­cient to cov­er the bulk of their fan­tasies.

But we, the pub­lic, need Bill Mur­ray to be famous, too, in order to crash our par­ties, and help us under­stand Shake­speare, and read poet­ry to con­struc­tion work­ers.

Turns out he’s not the only one to reap long term med­i­c­i­nal ben­e­fits from those two “table­spoons of humil­i­ty” he swal­lowed live on air, all those years ago.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Sings the Poet­ry of Bob Dylan: Shel­ter From the Storm

Bill Mur­ray Gives a Delight­ful Dra­mat­ic Read­ing of Twain’s Huck­le­ber­ry Finn (1996)

Watch Bill Mur­ray Per­form a Satir­i­cal Anti-Tech­nol­o­gy Rant (1982)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the cre­ator of The Mer­maid­’s Legs, a trau­ma-filled Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen reboot debut­ing in the shad­ow of Rock­e­feller Cen­ter in less than two weeks. See it! And fol­low her @AyunHalliday

2nd Graders Eat at Fancy French Restaurant, Daniel; Acclaimed Director Captures Their Reactions

For its fall Food issue, The New York Times mag­a­zine took six sec­ond graders from Brook­lyn to din­ner at Daniel, the fan­cy French restau­rant locat­ed on the Upper East Side of Man­hat­tan. There, the kids each enjoyed a $220, sev­en-course tast­ing menu, which includ­ed Maine Lob­ster Sal­ad, Squash Ravi­o­li with Pork Bel­ly, Smoked Papri­ka Cured Hamachi, Crispy Japan­ese Snap­per, and Wagyu Beef Rib-Eye. Jef­frey Blitz fit­ting­ly cap­tured the kids’ reac­tions. He’s the direc­tor of the Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed doc­u­men­tary Spell­bound, which fol­lowed eight teenagers on their quest to win the 1999 Nation­al Spelling Bee. These young kids have style, and cer­tain­ly not the most finicky taste I’ve ever seen.

Fol­low us on Face­bookTwit­ter and Google Plus and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Food­ie Alert: New York Pub­lic Library Presents an Archive of 17,000 Restau­rant Menus (1851–2008)

The Right and Wrong Way to Eat Sushi: A Primer

What Pris­on­ers Ate at Alca­traz in 1946: A Vin­tage Prison Menu

Michelangelo’s Hand­writ­ten 16th-Cen­tu­ry Gro­cery List

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Coleman Hawkins’ Landmark Recording of “Body and Soul” Turns 75 This Week

The jazz stan­dard “Body and Soul” was first per­formed live in Lon­don by singer Gertrude Lawrence in 1930, and then record­ed lat­er that year by the great Louis Arm­strong. But Cole­man Hawkins cut the most his­toric ver­sion on Octo­ber 11, 1939 — exact­ly 75 years ago today. The Mis­souri-born musi­cian made the record­ing almost by acci­dent, on a spur-of-the-moment-deci­sion, and he had no inkling that he had cre­at­ed the first com­mer­cial hit of a pure jazz record­ing.

He lat­er mused,“It’s fun­ny how it became such a clas­sic.” “Even the ordi­nary pub­lic is crazy about it. It’s the first and only record I ever heard of that all the squares dig as well as the jazz peo­ple, and I don’t under­stand how and why, because I was mak­ing notes all the way. I was­n’t mak­ing a melody for the squares. I thought noth­ing of it. I did­n’t even both­er to lis­ten to it after­wards.”

For jazz his­to­ri­ans, the song is rec­og­nized as one of the “ear­ly tremors of bebop.” That’s large­ly because “Hawkins hints at the song’s melody dur­ing his first six bars, but he is impro­vis­ing right from the start, nev­er actu­al­ly stat­ing the theme,” writes Ken­ny Berg­er in The Oxford Com­pan­ion to Jazz.

In 2004, the Library of Con­gress placed Hawk­in’s record­ing into the Nation­al Record­ing Reg­istry. Above, you can lis­ten to the land­mark 1939 ver­sion and also watch Hawkins per­form “Body and Soul” live in 1967 at Nor­man Granz’s Jazz at the Phil­har­mon­ic.

A spe­cial thanks goes to Michael for flag­ging this anniver­sary for us.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

10 Great Per­for­mances From 10 Leg­endary Jazz Artists: Djan­go, Miles, Monk, Coltrane & More

Philoso­pher Jacques Der­ri­da Inter­views Jazz Leg­end Ornette Cole­man: Talk Impro­vi­sa­tion, Lan­guage & Racism (1997)

Haru­ki Murakami’s Pas­sion for Jazz: Dis­cov­er the Novelist’s Jazz Playlist, Jazz Essay & Jazz Bar

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The Empire Strikes Back Uncut: A New Fan-Made, Shot-for-Shot Remake of the 1980 Sci-Fi Classic

In 2010, devot­ed Star Wars fans released Star Wars Uncut, a mashup, scene-by-scene remake of the very first Star Wars movie.

Now comes The Empire Strikes Back Uncut. Here’s the gist:

With more than 480 fan-made seg­ments culled from over 1,500 sub­mis­sions, The Empire Strikes Back Uncut (also known as ESB Uncut) fea­tures a stun­ning mash-up of styles and film­mak­ing tech­niques, includ­ing live action, ani­ma­tion, and stop-motion. The project launched in 2013, with fans claim­ing 15-sec­ond scenes to reimag­ine as they saw fit – result­ing in sequences cre­at­ed with every­thing from action fig­ures to card­board props to stun­ning visu­al effects. Helmed by Casey Pugh, who over­saw 2010’s Emmy-win­ning Star Wars Uncut, the new film has a won­der­ful home­made charm, stands as an affec­tion­ate trib­ute to The Empire Strikes Back, and is a tes­ta­ment to the tal­ent, imag­i­na­tion, and ded­i­ca­tion of Star Wars fans.

ESB Uncut was just released yes­tery, right in time for the week­end. Below we have some more cre­ative takes on the Star Wars films to keep you enter­tained.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

Fans Recon­struct Authen­tic Ver­sion of Star Wars, As It Was Shown in The­aters in 1977

Hard­ware Wars: The Moth­er of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Prof­itable Short Film Ever Made)

Star Wars as Silent Film

Star Wars Gets Dubbed into Nava­jo: a Fun Way to Pre­serve and Teach a Fad­ing Lan­guage

7 Free Stephen King Stories: Presented in Text, Audio, Web Comic & a Graphic Novel Video


In Stephen King’s first tele­vised inter­view from way back in 1982, the hor­ror writer revealed that he sleeps with the lights on. He may have grown out of the habit by now, but it’s no won­der if he hasn’t. A macabre imag­i­na­tion like his prob­a­bly sees all sorts of creepy things lurk­ing in the dark. In any case, King has cer­tain­ly learned a thing or two since then about mak­ing his fears more mar­ketable. In the past sev­er­al years he’s been pro­mot­ing his work on the Inter­net to reach new audi­ences.

In 2000, his novel­la Rid­ing the Bul­let debuted exclu­sive­ly online, and in 2008 he part­nered with Mar­vel Comics to pro­mote his first col­lec­tion of short sto­ries in six years, releas­ing one short graph­ic video episode at a time adapt­ed from the 56-page novel­la “N.” See all 25 episodes above. It’s a sto­ry, writes Time, “about a psy­chol­o­gist whose obses­sive-com­pul­sive patient is entranced by a mys­te­ri­ous plot of land.” King calls the adap­ta­tion “kind of a video com­ic book,” and while the “point of the exer­cise,” says his edi­tor Susan Moldow,” is to stim­u­late book sales,” I think you’ll agree it’s a pret­ty nifty bit of sto­ry­telling on its own.

King Comic

On King’s web­site, you’ll find links to all sorts of mul­ti­me­dia prod­ucts, includ­ing a Life­time orig­i­nal movie, Big Dri­ver, a film titled A Good Mar­riage, now out on video-on-demand, and the lat­est from graph­ic nov­el series Dark Tow­er. You’ll also find a com­ic adap­ta­tion of the short sto­ry “Lit­tle Green God of Agony.” See the first pan­el above, and read the full sto­ry here.

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Long before Youtube and online comics, there was the audio­book. King has nar­rat­ed his own work for years, and it’s also been read by such big names as Kathy Bates, Sis­sy Spacek, Willem Defoe, Anne Heche, Eli Wal­lach, and many more. Just above, hear char­ac­ter actor John Glover—a name you may not know, but a face you’d recognize—read “One for the Road,” a sto­ry from King’s first, 1978, col­lec­tion Night Shift. It’s a vam­pire sto­ry, but a par­tic­u­lar­ly deft one, writes Noah Char­ney at New Haven Review, one that “deals in arche­types that are the heart of good hor­ror fic­tion.” King’s sto­ries, Char­ney asserts, are “beau­ti­ful­ly-writ­ten, high­ly intel­li­gent. They hap­pen to fea­ture mon­sters of all sorts, from nat­ur­al to preter­nat­ur­al, but that is sec­ondary to their core as great sto­ries, well-told.”

King has long defend­ed pop­u­lar fic­tion to the literati—in his accep­tance speech for the Nation­al Book Award, for example—and lashed out at “the keep­ers of the idea of seri­ous lit­er­a­ture,” whom he says “have a short list of authors who are going to be allowed inside.” It may have tak­en a few years, but King got in, even­tu­al­ly pub­lish­ing in such august out­lets as The Atlantic and The New York­er. Read four sto­ries from those pub­li­ca­tions at the links below. And if you’re still in need of a good scare in the days lead­ing up to Hal­loween, make sure to check out “The Man in the Black Suit,” a short film adap­ta­tion of anoth­er sto­ry pub­lished in The New York­er in 1994.

“A Death” (The New York­er, March 2015)

Her­man Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic, May 2011)

Pre­mi­um Har­mo­ny” (The New York­er, Novem­ber, 2009)

Harvey’s Dream” (The New York­er, June 2003)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen King Reveals in His First TV Inter­view Whether He Sleeps With the Lights On (1982)

Stephen King’s Top 20 Rules for Writ­ers

Stephen King Cre­ates a List of 96 Books for Aspir­ing Writ­ers to Read

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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