Scarlett Goes to Pot

Scarlett Johansson was honored as the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year today in Cambridge. She was cause of more traffic snarls in the Harvard Square area than the icy road conditions yesterday's storm brought. The festivities began with a parade through the streets of Harvard Square followed by a roast at Agassiz Theatre and a press conference, both on Radcliffe Yard. Being the Year of the Woman 2.0 (madam speaker Nancy Pelosi, madam president - to be, of Harvard - Drew Gilpin Faust, and madam presidential candidate Hilary Clinton) it's fitting that Scarlett received Hasty Pudding's golden Hasty Pudding Pot on what was once the campus of Harvard's sister institution, Radcliffe, now part of Harvard as an Institute for Advanced Study. Hasty Pudding's permanent home in Harvard Square is still under construction and is expected to be finished soon, but not before Ben Stiller comes to Cambridge to receive his award, so for the second year in a row the pudding pot was awarded to the Woman of the Year at the Agassiz Theatre rather than the Hasty home base.

We're waiting for full footage and coverage of the roast that we weren't willing to shell out the $50 a ticket to go see. Last year Halle Berry gave a rousing performance we were almost sorry we missed. NECN has posted the video of the acceptance of the golden "Pudding Pot,", countless news sites have stills posted from the event, and numerous blogs covered the moments when Scarlett made her way around the Square as part of the parade. She did profess her honor in receiving the Pudding Pot making the statement that it was "the closest to a Harvard degree" that she'd ever come, apparently Scarlett isn't Crimson. (Yep, we went there.) Our moment as paparazzi was somewhat disappointing as we only were able to catch her arriving to the theatre as we were getting out of a meeting, but we'll tell you this – the darling starlet Scarlett was shorter and not as svelte as we'd anticipated when we saw her in person.