From Grit to Pearls

Transcriber: Evelyn Bagley
Reviewer: Hani Eldalees

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen,
for being here.

It’s a great privilege to open up this
TED talk with a bit of an icebreaker.

And speaking of opening up,

let’s talk about grit. And let’s talk
about grit in the oyster

and the making of a pearl.
Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have an
oyster with me tonight.

It’s a living oyster shipped overnight
from Maine. May I please have the oyster?

I have one of these. Very expensive,
very high-quality oyster.

Thank you very much.

Nice. OK, now, ladies and gentlemen,

you all know the story of how the
oyster struggles and secretes

and then creates this beautiful pearl,
sometimes risking its own life.

And I think this is a beautiful metaphor.
We’re going to open up this show.

We’re going to open up this oyster.

And we’re going to see this process
right here, live.

Not a lot of people have
seen this process live.

So, that’s what we’re going to do.

May I please have-? Let me just
get out my golden tweezers,

which have a light on them.

May I please have the grit? (Laughter)

Got that grit there. Thank you.

How they let me get in here
with this, I don’t know.

But ladies and gentlemen, I’m
not very good at this.

I’ve not ever shucked an oyster before,

But I did go on Google today, and so
we’re going to give this a shot.

And I’ll open up this oyster live right
for you here at the TEDxGainesville.

Here we go.

It’d tell me you’re supposed to
wear a glove with this,

but I’m just going to kind of go for it.

If I could get this open- there we go.
Oh, my God. I did it!

(Cheers) (Applause)

It’s just the way it said it would go.
This Google is something.

OK, there we go. All right. And then,
I’m going to scrape this thing

like they told me off the bottom here.
Stir that around.

Then we’re going to go ahead and get..
where’d the grit go? Oh, there it is.

How’d they put that in there?
It’s hard to get that underneath there.

OK. All right.
Now I put the shell back on here.

All righty. That’s pretty exciting.

Give it some room.

Now, they’ve given me five minutes,

so there’s plenty of time for this
to happen. I’m pretty sure.

This part I didn’t research so well.

But I think it’s coming along. Just hang
on a second here. Good. Good pearl.

Good pearl coming.

All right.

(Laughter)

What?

OK, all right.

I’ve just been told that if you-

I’ve been told this.
I don’t know if this is true.

I didn’t research this. But
apparently if you shuck the oyster,

and take it off of the pieces
of the shell, you kill it.

(Laughter)

So.

And this is an obstacle to
my show, obviously. So.

But as a performance artist, you
always try to keep on going.

Make a little joke out of it. Anybody
got any Tabasco sauce?

(Cheers)

Oh, I happen to have some.

(Laughter)

So, we’re going to proceed forward. By
the way, in terms of grit, tenacity,

who ate the first one. Right? Was
it a man or woman? Interesting.

And then, the other thing about this,
now that this isn’t going so well, is -

let me just get a little of this on here.

This is June, and there’s no water.
So, I’m taking a risk for you,

just as this oyster did, to
try and make this work.

So, I’m going to go ahead
and eat this oyster.

And see what happens. See if we can get a
little entertainment out of this.

So, just excuse me, if you don’t mind.

I don’t know. June is not-

Oh, my god!
Oh, no!

It’s really very expensive
to get these from Maine. (Coughing)

(Laughter)

(Coughing)

Sorry. (Coughing)

(Laughter)

(Cheers) (Applause)

Never let anything stand in
the way of your dreams!

Thank you.