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60 Minutes - Season 58 - Episode 19: The Indomitable Margaret Atwood; Knife; Officially Amazing
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00:01Tonight, on this special edition of 60 Minutes presents the 60 Minutes Book Club.
00:09Here she is taking a flamethrower to her own book.
00:13Margaret Atwood was firing back at would-be book burners.
00:17Her books have been banned for content deemed overly sexual, morally corrupt, anti-Christian.
00:23The government put out an edict to all school boards saying that they couldn't have any books in the library
00:29that had either direct or indirect sex.
00:33What is indirect sex?
00:38Did people try to kill you? Yes.
00:41Author Salman Rushdie has been a marked man for nearly half his life.
00:45And in 2022, a knife-wielding attacker almost killed him.
00:50This is his first television interview.
00:52One of the surgeons who had saved my life said to me, he said, first you were really unlucky and
00:58then you were really lucky.
01:00I said, what's the lucky part?
01:02And he said, well, the lucky part is that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill
01:06a man with a knife.
01:10Whether it's this attempt at the biggest pizza party ever or trying to eat an airplane,
01:16there's a method to the madness of getting into Guinness World Records.
01:19As many as 95% of submissions get rejected.
01:24We do validate people that do things that others might seem a bit weird, like eating aircraft and stuff.
01:32Do you not see that as weird?
01:34I see it as really interesting.
01:45Good evening. I'm John Wertheim. Welcome to the 60 Minutes Book Club.
01:49Tonight, we'll hear author Salman Rushdie discuss Knife, his book based on the near fatal attempt on his life at
01:56a literary event in 2022.
01:58Then we'll tell you about the book that has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.
02:04But we begin with a question of sorts.
02:07You're an 86 year old titan of literature, have been for a half century now.
02:12You're Canada's best known author, 64 books and counting.
02:16And increasingly, you find your work on lists of banned books, scrubbed from 135 American school districts.
02:23Yes, that includes your breakthrough work, the dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale.
02:28But you've also been censored for work like The Testaments and The Blind Assassin,
02:33both of which won the Booker Prize, the top award for English language fiction.
02:37What to do?
02:38Sure, you take to the keyboard and write sternly worded opinion pieces.
02:43But as we first told you last fall, if you're the indomitable Margaret Atwood, you don't stop there.
02:52Here she is taking a flamethrower to her own book.
02:56Atwood was firing back at would be book burners by torching an unburnable edition.
03:01It was all promotion for a charity auction to benefit Pan America, a nonprofit that champions free speech.
03:10Atwood's books have been banned for content deemed overly sexual, morally corrupt, anti-Christian.
03:16She told us she was particularly peeved when a recent ban came from Edmonton, Alberta, in her own country.
03:22The government put out an edict to all school boards saying that they couldn't have any books in the library
03:28that had either direct or indirect sex.
03:32What is indirect sex?
03:35You've had any indirect sex lately?
03:38Second wave feminism here.
03:41Atwood speaks as she writes, with a mix of wisdom and deadpan wit.
03:45Last fall, she invited us into her Toronto home.
03:48Do you know offhand how many languages your books have been translated in?
03:52Well, we say over 50 for everything.
03:55How old are you?
03:56Over 50.
03:57How many books have you written?
03:58Over 50.
03:59How many awards have you won?
04:01Over 50.
04:01I thought so.
04:04Under his eye.
04:05Under his eye.
04:06Under his eye.
04:15Over 50.
04:15Third women are forced to cloak themselves in red and bear children for the elite.
04:20Give me children or else I die.
04:23The book would sell more than 10 million copies and spawn an Emmy winning Hulu series.
04:28Beyond that, its scarlet costume would become a uniform of real life protest and resistance.
04:34Shame! Shame!
04:36Handmaid's Tale is your magnum opus.
04:39You think?
04:40Your great Gatsby, how are you with that?
04:42Well, I would question the premise.
04:46You would?
04:46Yeah. It's not due to me or the excellence of the book.
04:50It's partly the twists and turns of history.
04:54With the ongoing rollback of reproductive rights
04:57and the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022,
05:01the Handmaid's Tale began, for many readers, to feel eerily prescient.
05:05Had it been so that none of this ever got enacted,
05:10then it would probably be sitting on a shelf somewhere
05:13and people would be saying, oh, jolly good yarn, but it didn't happen.
05:16Or didn't it?
05:18In 2003's Oryx and Crake, for instance,
05:21Atwood wrote of environmental collapse and a global pandemic.
05:24Pick a catastrophe, any catastrophe.
05:27Before the real world did its thing, she warned about it in her fiction.
05:31It wasn't, you know, this is going to happen without a doubt.
05:36This could happen.
05:38This might happen, so you should be on the watch for it.
05:41What is your relationship with this idea that you're the prophet of doom,
05:46this Cassandra, the forecaster of dystopia?
05:49I think I'm very positive.
05:51I didn't kill everybody off at the end.
05:53You know, some people do.
05:55These are rare books.
05:57A lot of them are pretty obscure.
05:59If Atwood can see around corners,
06:01it's because her visions have historical precedent.
06:04They come rooted in actual events.
06:06At the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library in Toronto,
06:10Atwood has archived stacks of her research.
06:13That is, the hundreds of news clippings that substantiate her plots.
06:17So this is folder upon folder of your research for Handmaid's Tale.
06:24Oh, yeah, lots of it.
06:24She writes by a strict rule.
06:26If it didn't happen somewhere at some time, it doesn't make it into the pages of her fiction.
06:32Women forced to have babies.
06:33Mm-hmm.
06:35Communists are making women have babies.
06:37Persistent non-pregnancy will be considered a crime against the state.
06:42It's not all doom and gloom.
06:44Atwood showed us the cover she designed for her first volume of poetry.
06:48She also writes short stories and children's books.
06:53For her new book, a new genre, her memoir, Book of Lives, published last November,
06:58takes the full sweep of her life,
07:00starting with a free-range childhood spent in the deep wilderness of Quebec.
07:04She was homeschooled until the age of 12,
07:07while her father did fieldwork on insects as an entomologist.
07:11You wrote, some family stopped for ice cream on the side of the road.
07:15You stopped for infestation.
07:17We stopped for infestation.
07:19So what was that like?
07:20You screeched to a halt.
07:22Father would get out of the car with his tarpaulin and his axe,
07:26and he would go to the infestation.
07:29He would spread the tarp out under the tree and hit the trunk with an axe,
07:33and then the things would fall out, and he would collect them.
07:37And you're in the back seat thinking what?
07:39Oh no, we were usually out of the car watching him do it.
07:42What did you learn watching him go to work?
07:45I think probably growing up with the biologist
07:47makes you quite particular about details,
07:51because you're not saying, that's a butterfly.
07:53You're saying, what kind of butterfly?
07:56You're not saying, that's a tree.
07:57You usually know what kind of tree.
08:00That's what draws people to reading.
08:02Intent on spinning details into prose and becoming a writer,
08:07Atwood enrolled at Victoria College at the University of Toronto.
08:10Well, poetry was the big form in Canada in the 60s.
08:15A young poet, she hit the reading circuit
08:17and performed in student plays and reviews here at Hart House,
08:21one of Canada's oldest theaters.
08:23No, I'm not, I'm just a show-off.
08:25And when Margaret Atwood wants to show off,
08:27you surrender the stage.
08:30You have to stand over there.
08:31Hold my purse.
08:33Here's not just any curtsy,
08:35but she informed us the 17th century
08:38Jacobean court curtsy she learned for a college production.
08:42We told you she's a stickler for detail.
08:44How do I respond to that?
08:46Oh, you bow.
08:49You remember that.
08:50Why are you so surprised that I remember that?
08:52That was very...
08:53Before we left the theater,
08:54Atwood showed us another party trick.
08:57I'm not getting vibes, okay?
08:59You're not getting vibes from...
09:01No, we're doing the classic Renaissance hand-reading.
09:06Yes, she reads poms,
09:08another mode for investigation.
09:10People might think that you're just
09:11a very reasonable sort of rational person,
09:15but in fact you have this other...
09:18Oh, dear.
09:19This intuition.
09:21So some people stop there,
09:22and they're very logical, and that's it.
09:24You are not one of those people.
09:25And we can see that you will never be a murderous dictator
09:29for which we are pleased.
09:31I got that going for me.
09:34Back to our protagonist,
09:36when she graduated in 1961,
09:39Canadian writers were encouraged
09:40to pursue careers outside the country.
09:43Give us a sense of the Canadian lit scene
09:46when you were in college.
09:47What Canadian lit scene?
09:51Still, Atwood stayed
09:52and helped found the country's
09:54now thriving literary institutions.
09:57Along the way, she met another writer,
09:59the late Graham Gibson,
10:00who would become her longtime partner.
10:03So quintessentially Canadian,
10:05their courtship peaked with a canoe trip.
10:08We were both the kinds of people
10:10that if the canoe trip hadn't worked out,
10:13that would have been it.
10:15Good barometer for a relationship.
10:17Yeah.
10:17If you can deal with the canoe trip,
10:19you can probably deal with lots of other things, too.
10:23And they did.
10:24Gibson came to the relationship with some baggage.
10:27A, quote, undivorced wife and two kids.
10:30In her memoir,
10:31Atwood confronts the complications
10:33of the blended family.
10:35Could I ask you to read a bit for us?
10:37Yes.
10:38There are several letters in this book
10:40from me to my inner advice columnist.
10:43Everybody has one.
10:45Dear inner advice columnist,
10:47sorry to bother you.
10:49Atwood uses the columnist device
10:51to confess that though she and Graham
10:53have a daughter of their own,
10:54she wants more children.
10:55We are back at the farm after Scotland
10:57and I've brought up the subject
10:59of a second child.
11:01I would like one,
11:02but Graham has said that a total of three
11:04is enough for him.
11:05I feel deprived, resentful, and disrespected.
11:10If that sounds harsh,
11:11listen to the columnist's response,
11:13the advice she gave herself.
11:15Oh, for heaven's sakes,
11:17count your blessings.
11:18Some people don't know when they're well off.
11:21Many would give the shirt off their back
11:23to have your luck in men.
11:25Suck it up.
11:26Cherish your child.
11:27Get another cat.
11:29Your inner advice columnist.
11:33You can chase, he's rather severe.
11:35That's a very get-over-yourself advice
11:37you gave yourself.
11:38Very get-over-yourself advice,
11:40but Canadians are pretty
11:41get-over-yourself people.
11:43The Handmaid's Tale!
11:45Humility aside,
11:47Canada's leading literary figure
11:49has become something of a cult figure
11:51and a leading voice on all things Canadian.
11:53We asked her about the recent chill
11:55between her country and the United States
11:58as President Trump raises tariffs
12:00and threatens to turn our northern neighbors
12:02into a 51st state.
12:03Atwood says the Canadian response
12:06is best summed up by one phrase.
12:08It's a hockey thing,
12:09and it was this character called Gordie Howe,
12:12who is a very revered hockey player.
12:15Elbows up is when somebody
12:17gets you into the corner
12:18and you block them
12:19by putting your elbow up,
12:21and it means don't mess with me.
12:24And for those who speak of the 51st state,
12:27I do point out
12:28that it wouldn't be just one state.
12:30What do you mean?
12:31It's very big.
12:32You can't make the whole thing just one state.
12:35And anyway, Quebec would never stand for it.
12:38You think you're going to make them
12:39part of a unilingual big entity?
12:41Think again.
12:43Atwood is a student of government,
12:45power, and the overreaches of both.
12:47She wrote much of The Handmaid's Tale
12:49on a rented typewriter in 1984 West Berlin.
12:52She recalls hearing sonic booms
12:54from the other side of the wall.
12:56In her ventures to the Eastern Bloc,
12:58she witnessed policing, paranoia,
13:00and the absence of freedom.
13:02In her memoir, too,
13:04she addresses the erosion of democracy.
13:06You say the overriding ordinary civil liberties
13:08is one of the signposts
13:09on the road to dictatorship.
13:11Do you see the U.S. on that road right now?
13:13I don't think I would be wrong
13:15if I said it's concerning.
13:18There are certain things
13:19that totalitarian coups always do.
13:21Like what?
13:22One of them is trying
13:24to get control of the media.
13:26But the other thing
13:27is making the judicial arm
13:30part of the executive.
13:32In other words,
13:34judges just do
13:35what the chief guide tells them to.
13:37If you're saying the sideposts,
13:39the signifiers of totalitarian society are...
13:42There's some warning lights
13:44flashing for sure.
13:46Amid the warning lights,
13:48a series based on The Testaments,
13:50her sequel to The Handmaid's Tale,
13:52will begin streaming on Hulu this year.
13:54But just when you think
13:55you can predict
13:56on which side of the political divide
13:58Atwood falls,
13:59she confounds
14:00by saying something like this.
14:02Just for the record,
14:03I've always been attacked
14:04more from the left
14:05than I have from the right.
14:07Why's that?
14:08Well, I think the right
14:09thinks I'm irrelevant.
14:11And the left thinks
14:13that I should have been
14:14preaching their sermon,
14:15whatever it may happen to be,
14:17and that I am therefore
14:19a traitor for not having done
14:20that which they themselves would do.
14:22And what's your response to that?
14:24It's unprintable.
14:27It involves a finger.
14:31Do I see a little blush?
14:33Do I see a little bit of a blush?
14:35She may turn us red.
14:36She did not turn us to stone.
14:39I'm paraphrasing here,
14:40but in your memoir,
14:41you say you sometimes cut
14:43this Medusa-like figure
14:45with a Medusa-like stare
14:46with interviewers.
14:47I feel like we're doing okay.
14:49The earlier me.
14:50Yeah.
14:51The earlier me.
14:51Now I'm a nice old lady,
14:53so you don't have to be worried.
14:54Why the pivot?
14:55I got older.
14:58I became a blonde.
15:00This was my way of saying
15:01I enjoyed this conversation.
15:03Oh, is that your way of saying it?
15:05So why aren't you a scary old witch?
15:07Is that your way of saying it?
15:15What inspired the signature red cloaks
15:18from The Handmaid's Tale?
15:19Yes.
15:20Well, if you have a cult,
15:22you have to have outfits.
15:24At 60minutesovertime.com.
15:31Salman Rushdie has been a marked man
15:33for nearly half his life.
15:35In 1989, Iran's leader, Ayatollah Khomeini,
15:38declared Rushdie's novel,
15:40The Satanic Verses,
15:41blasphemous,
15:42an insult to Islam
15:43and called for the Indian-born writer's assassination.
15:47Rushdie went into hiding
15:48with around-the-clock police protection
15:50for 10 years.
15:51He eventually moved to the U.S.
15:53and thought he was safe.
15:55But in August 2022,
15:57as he was about to speak
15:58at a literary event in Chautauqua, New York,
16:01Salman Rushdie was attacked
16:02by a Muslim man with a knife.
16:04Rushdie, who's now 78,
16:06lost his right eye
16:07and came close to dying.
16:09He's come to terms
16:10with the attempt on his life
16:12by writing a book about it
16:13called simply Knife.
16:15Anderson Cooper spoke with Rushdie in 2024
16:18in what was his first television interview
16:20since the attack.
16:22You had had a dream
16:25two days, I think it was,
16:26before the attack.
16:27What was the dream?
16:29I kind of had a premonition.
16:30I mean, I had a dream
16:31of being attacked in an amphitheater.
16:34But it was a kind of Roman Empire dream,
16:36you know,
16:37as if I was in the Colosseum
16:40and it was just somebody
16:41with a spear stabbing downwards
16:43and I was rolling around on the floor
16:44trying to get away from him.
16:46And I woke up
16:48and was quite shaken by it.
16:50And I had to go to Chautauqua,
16:51you know,
16:52and I said to my wife Eliza,
16:54I said, you know,
16:55I don't want to go.
16:56Because of the dream?
16:57Because of the dream.
16:58And then I thought,
16:59don't be silly, it's a dream.
17:00Salman Rushdie,
17:02one of his generation's
17:03most acclaimed writers,
17:04had been invited
17:05to the town of Chautauqua,
17:07close to Lake Erie,
17:08to speak about a subject
17:10he knows all too well,
17:11the importance of protecting writers
17:13whose lives are under threat.
17:15Did you have any anxiety
17:18being in such a public space?
17:20Not really,
17:21because in the more than 20 years
17:23that I've been living in America,
17:25I've done a lot of these things.
17:28You haven't had security around you,
17:30a close protection detail,
17:31for a long time.
17:31Long time.
17:32But, you know,
17:32what happens in many places
17:34that you go and lecture
17:35is that they're used to having
17:37a certain degree of security,
17:39venue security.
17:41In this case,
17:41there wasn't any.
17:42The irony, of course,
17:43is you were there
17:44to talk about writers in danger.
17:46Yeah, exactly.
17:47And the need for writers
17:48from other countries
17:49to have safe spaces
17:50in America,
17:52amongst other places.
17:52And then, yeah,
17:53it just turned out
17:54not to be a safe space for me.
17:56For years,
17:57no place was safe
17:58for Salman Rushdie,
17:59whose sprawling,
18:01600-page novel,
18:02The Satanic Verses,
18:03offended some Muslims
18:04for its depiction
18:05of the Prophet Muhammad.
18:08Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini
18:10issued a fatwa,
18:12a religious decree
18:13calling for Rushdie's death
18:15in 1989.
18:18There were worldwide protests
18:19from London to Lahore.
18:22The Satanic Verses was burned
18:23and 12 people died
18:25in clashes with police.
18:27The book's Japanese translator
18:28was murdered
18:29and others associated with it
18:31were attacked.
18:32Did you have any idea
18:33that it would cause violence?
18:35No, I had no idea.
18:37I thought probably
18:38some conservative religious people
18:40wouldn't like it,
18:40but they didn't like
18:41anything I wrote anyway.
18:42So I thought, well,
18:44they don't have to read it.
18:45Were you naive?
18:46Probably.
18:47You know, I mean,
18:48it's easy looking back
18:49to think,
18:49but nothing like this
18:50had ever happened to anybody.
18:51And of course,
18:52almost all the people
18:53who attacked the book
18:54did so without reading it.
18:57I was often told
18:58that I had intended
18:59to insult, offend people.
19:01And my view was,
19:02if I need to insult you,
19:03I can do it really quickly.
19:04I don't need to spend
19:05five years of my life
19:06trying to write
19:08a 600-page book
19:10to insult you.
19:11Rushdie was living in London
19:13when he went into hiding,
19:14and for the next 10 years,
19:16the British government
19:16provided him
19:17with 24-hour police protection.
19:19Did people try to kill you?
19:21Yes.
19:22There were maybe as many
19:23as half a dozen
19:24serious assassination attempts,
19:26which were not random people.
19:27They were state-sponsored
19:29terrorism professionals.
19:30After diplomatic negotiations,
19:32the Iranian state
19:33called off its assassins
19:35in 1998.
19:37Rushdie finally
19:38came out of the shadows.
19:39He moved to New York
19:40and for the next two decades
19:42lived openly.
19:43He was a man about town.
19:45He continued writing
19:46and became a celebrated advocate
19:48for freedom of expression.
19:50So when he received
19:51the invitation to speak
19:52in Chautauqua
19:53in August 2022,
19:55he gladly accepted.
19:56I was seated at stage right.
19:59In his book Knife,
20:00he described what happened next.
20:02Then, in the corner
20:04of my right eye,
20:05the last thing
20:06my right eye would ever see,
20:07I saw the man in black
20:09running toward me
20:10down the right-hand side
20:11of the seating area.
20:13Black clothes,
20:14black face mask,
20:15he was coming in hard and low,
20:17a squat missile.
20:19I confess I had sometimes imagined
20:21my assassin rising up
20:23in some public forum or other
20:25and coming for me
20:26in just this way.
20:28So my first thought
20:29when I saw this murderous shape
20:31rushing towards me was,
20:33so it's you.
20:35Here you are.
20:37So it's you.
20:38Here you are.
20:39Yeah.
20:40It's like you've been
20:41waiting for it.
20:42Yeah, that's what it felt like.
20:43It felt like something
20:44coming out of the distant past
20:45and trying to drag me
20:47back in time, if you like,
20:49back into that distant past
20:50in order to kill me.
20:52And when he got to me,
20:54he basically hit me very hard
20:55here.
20:58And initially I thought
21:00I'd been punched.
21:01You didn't actually see a knife.
21:02I didn't see the knife.
21:03And I didn't realize
21:04until I saw blood coming out
21:06that there would have been
21:07a knife in his fist.
21:09So where was that stab?
21:10Here.
21:11In your neck?
21:12In my neck, yeah.
21:13Then there were a lot more.
21:14The worst wounds
21:15was there was a big slash wound
21:17like this across my neck.
21:19And there was a puncture
21:21stab wound here.
21:23And then, of course,
21:25there was an attack on my eye.
21:26Do you remember
21:27being stabbed in the eye?
21:29No.
21:30I remember falling.
21:32Then I remember not knowing
21:34what had happened to my eye.
21:35He was also stabbed
21:36in his hand, chest,
21:38abdomen, and thigh.
21:40Fifteen wounds in all.
21:42He was both stabbing
21:43and also slashing.
21:44I think he was just wildly...
21:46The attack lasted 27 seconds.
21:49To feel just how long that is.
21:51This is what 27 seconds is.
22:21That's it.
22:22That's quite a long time.
22:23That's the extraordinary
22:25half minute of intimacy
22:28in which life meets death.
22:32What stopped it from being longer?
22:35The audience pulling him off me.
22:37Strangers to you?
22:37To this day,
22:39I don't know their names.
22:39Some of those strangers
22:41restrained the attacker
22:42while others desperately tried
22:44to stem the flow
22:45of Rushdie's blood.
22:46There was really a lot of blood.
22:48You were actually watching your blood.
22:50I was actually watching it spread.
22:51And then I remember thinking
22:52that I was probably dying.
22:54And it was interesting
22:56because it was quite matter-of-fact.
22:59It wasn't like I was terrified of it
23:00or whatever.
23:01And yeah, there was nothing.
23:03No heavenly choirs.
23:05No pearly gates.
23:06I mean, I'm not a supernatural person.
23:09You know, I believe
23:10that death comes as the end.
23:11There was nothing that happened
23:12that made me change my mind about that.
23:14You have not had a revelation.
23:16I have not had any revelation
23:17except that there's no revelation
23:19to be had.
23:20His attacker, the man in black,
23:22was hustled off the stage.
23:25In the book,
23:26you do not use the attacker's name.
23:29Yeah.
23:29I thought, you know,
23:30I don't want his name in my book.
23:32And I don't use it
23:33in conversation either.
23:34But that is important to you,
23:35not to give him space in your brain.
23:37Yeah.
23:38He and I had 27 seconds together.
23:40You know, that's it.
23:42I don't need to give him
23:43any more of my time.
23:46Paramedics flew Rushdie
23:47to a hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania,
23:4940 miles away,
23:50where a team of doctors
23:52battled for eight hours
23:53to save his life.
23:54When he finally came out of surgery,
23:56his wife, Eliza,
23:58a poet and novelist, was waiting.
24:00I mean, he wasn't moving
24:01and he was just laid out.
24:03He looked half dead to you?
24:05Yes, he did.
24:06He was a different color.
24:08He was cold.
24:09I mean, his face was stapled,
24:13just staples holding his face together.
24:16Rushdie was on a ventilator,
24:18unable to speak.
24:20Eliza and the doctors
24:21had no idea whether the knife
24:23that had penetrated his eye
24:24had damaged his brain.
24:26Someone from the staff
24:29said that we would use
24:30this system of wiggling the toes.
24:32To communicate?
24:33To communicate.
24:34Do you remember the first question
24:35you asked to get a wiggle?
24:37I think I said,
24:38Salman, it's Eliza.
24:39Can you hear me?
24:40And there was a wiggle.
24:45And I asked him, I think,
24:46do you know where you are?
24:48And he wiggled.
24:50And it was very basic,
24:53simple questions.
24:54Because you can't express yourself
24:55with any subtlety
24:56with your toes.
24:57Which is your favorite thing.
25:02After 18 days in the hospital
25:04and three weeks in rehab,
25:06Rushdie was discharged.
25:08One of the surgeons
25:09who had saved my life
25:11said to me,
25:12first you were really unlucky
25:13and then you were really lucky.
25:15I said, what's the lucky part?
25:17And he said,
25:18well, the lucky part
25:19was that the man
25:19who attacked you
25:20had no idea
25:21how to kill a man
25:22with a knife.
25:23You're not a believer
25:24in miracles.
25:25But the fact that you survived,
25:26you write in the book,
25:27is a miracle.
25:28This is a contradiction.
25:30How does somebody
25:31who doesn't believe
25:32in the supernatural
25:33account for the fact
25:35that something has happened
25:35which feels like a miracle?
25:37I mean, I certainly don't feel
25:38that some hand reached down
25:40from the skies
25:40and guarded me.
25:42But I do think
25:43something happened
25:44which wasn't supposed to happen.
25:45And I have no explanation for it.
25:48His attacker
25:49was a 24-year-old
25:50from New Jersey
25:50who lived in his mother's basement.
25:52He was believed
25:53to be a lone wolf.
25:54He pleaded not guilty
25:56to attempted murder
25:57and when we talked
25:58with Rushdie,
25:59he was still awaiting trial.
26:00In an interview,
26:01he told the New York Post
26:02he'd only read
26:03a couple pages
26:04of the satanic verses
26:05and seen some clips
26:06of Rushdie on YouTube.
26:08He said he didn't like him
26:09very much
26:10because Rushdie
26:11had attacked Islam.
26:12Does it matter to you
26:14what his motive was?
26:16I mean, it's interesting to me
26:17because it's a mystery.
26:19If I had written a character
26:22who knew so little
26:23about his proposed victim
26:25and yet was willing
26:26to commit the crime of murder,
26:28my publishers might well
26:30say to me
26:30that that's under-motivated.
26:31You need to develop
26:32that character better.
26:33Yeah, not enough of a reason.
26:34You know, not convincing.
26:36But yet, that's what he did.
26:39Rushdie's knife,
26:40his 22nd book,
26:41is one he initially
26:43did not want to write.
26:44That was the last thing
26:45I wanted to do.
26:46Because you didn't want
26:47this to yet again define you?
26:49Yeah.
26:49It was very difficult for me
26:51after The Satanic Versus
26:52was published
26:52that the only thing
26:53anybody knew about me
26:54was this death threat.
26:56But it became clear to me
26:58that I couldn't write
26:59anything else.
27:00You had to write this first?
27:01I had to write this first.
27:02I just thought,
27:02you know, I need to focus on,
27:05you know, to use the cliche,
27:06the elephant in the room.
27:07And the moment I thought that,
27:09kind of something changed
27:10in my head.
27:11And it then became a book
27:12I really very much
27:13wanted to write.
27:14You say the language
27:15was my knife.
27:16If I had unexpectedly
27:17been caught
27:18in an unwanted knife fight,
27:19maybe this was the knife
27:20I could use to fight back,
27:21to take charge
27:22of what had happened to me,
27:23to own it,
27:24make it mine.
27:25Yeah, I mean,
27:26language is a way
27:29of breaking open the world.
27:32I don't have any other weapons,
27:33but I've been using
27:34this particular tool
27:35for quite a long time.
27:37So I thought this was
27:38my way of dealing with it.
27:41It's been three years
27:42since the attack,
27:43and Rushdie is back home
27:45now in New York,
27:46still getting used
27:47to navigating the world
27:48with one eye.
27:49How much time did it take
27:51to kind of readjust?
27:52I'm still doing it.
27:53You still are?
27:54Yeah.
27:54Do you feel like you
27:55are a different person
27:56after the attack?
27:57I don't feel I'm very different,
27:59but I do feel that
28:00it has left a shadow.
28:01I think that shadow
28:02is just there.
28:03And some days it's dark,
28:06and some days it's not.
28:07You feel less
28:08than you were before?
28:09No, I just feel more
28:10the presence of death.
28:12In an interview
28:13almost 25 years ago,
28:14you said of the fatwa,
28:15I want to find an end
28:17to this story.
28:17It is the one story
28:18I must find an end to.
28:20Have you found that ending?
28:22And an ending
28:22to this story as well?
28:23Well, I thought I had,
28:24and then it turned out
28:25I hadn't.
28:26I'm hoping this is just
28:27a last twitch
28:29of that story.
28:34I don't know.
28:35I'll let you know.
28:37Last year,
28:38Salman Rushdie's attacker
28:40was found guilty
28:40of attempted murder
28:41and sentenced
28:42to 25 years in prison.
28:56with more than
28:57150 million copies
28:59sold in 40 languages,
29:01Guinness World Records
29:02is one of the best-selling
29:03books in history.
29:04In it,
29:05you'll find the shortest,
29:06tallest,
29:06and fastest,
29:07alongside jaw-dropping
29:09human feats
29:09and eighth-grade
29:10bathroom humor.
29:11As Cecilia Vega
29:12first told you in November,
29:14some achievements
29:15are so over-the-top
29:16it was hard to keep
29:17a straight face
29:18during the interviews.
29:19But behind the spectacle,
29:21a meticulous system
29:22of British auditing,
29:24so strict,
29:24it has crushed
29:25many more record attempts
29:27than it has certified.
29:28Even if what you see
29:29defies belief,
29:31you can trust
29:31that if it made it
29:32into the book,
29:33it is real,
29:34and, as Guinness World Records
29:36declares,
29:37officially amazing.
29:40Are you ready?
29:43How are you feeling?
29:44I'm feeling pumped.
29:46Yeah?
29:47For Colin Kaplan,
29:48the stakes couldn't be higher.
29:50Not in my wildest dreams
29:51could I have ever thought
29:52that I'd be doing
29:53anything like this.
29:54After a year of planning,
29:56he's about to find out
29:57if his city,
29:58New Haven, Connecticut,
29:59can eat its way
30:01into history
30:02by hosting
30:03the world's largest
30:04pizza party.
30:05Let's get some pizza!
30:07Kaplan,
30:08a local historian
30:09and food tour guide,
30:10is so obsessed
30:11with pizza,
30:12last year he chartered
30:14a jet to Washington
30:15and got his congresswoman
30:17to declare New Haven
30:18the pizza capital
30:19of America.
30:20New Haven,
30:21pizza capital, baby!
30:23Is this a serious endeavor?
30:25Yeah.
30:27Yeah, I think it is.
30:29I'll tell you what,
30:30it seems light and fun,
30:31but it's serious
30:33in a sense
30:33of what's on the line.
30:35What's on the line
30:37is the glory
30:38of a Guinness World Record,
30:40and people will do
30:41just about anything
30:42to get one.
30:44Humans are such
30:45an interesting band,
30:46aren't we?
30:47And record-breaking
30:48is an innately human thing.
30:50And if that means
30:51you do strange things
30:52like swallowing
30:53sausages whole
30:54or climbing Everest
30:56or running a marathon
30:57with a milk bottle
30:59on your head,
31:00then that's fine,
31:02that's great.
31:02Craig Glenday
31:04has been the book's
31:04editor-in-chief
31:05for the past 21 years.
31:07I really like that,
31:09so I think we want
31:09more of that.
31:10In his signature
31:11Scottish accent,
31:12he recounts
31:13with a straight face
31:14what is often
31:15a circus of absurdity.
31:18You know,
31:18we get things like
31:19fastest time
31:20to run around my garden
31:21playing the banjo
31:22with a snake on my head.
31:23It's like,
31:24next.
31:25They get a nice letter
31:26of like,
31:26thank you,
31:27but no thank you.
31:28Cutest babies
31:29and cutest dogs
31:30don't make the cut either.
31:32Records must meet
31:33strict criteria.
31:34They have to be filmed
31:36from multiple angles,
31:37verified by independent
31:39eyewitnesses
31:40and measured
31:41with precision.
31:43Each year,
31:44Guinness World Records
31:45receives roughly
31:4650,000 applications,
31:48but as many as 95%
31:50get rejected.
31:52The largest number
31:53of submissions
31:54come from the United States.
31:56One of my favorite days
31:57in the job
31:57was I was at the X Games
31:59at the Staples Center
32:00in LA
32:00and a dog
32:01zipped past me
32:02on a skateboard
32:03and despite the heat
32:05I chased after this dog
32:06and I found the owner
32:07and said,
32:08I've never seen a dog
32:09on a skateboard.
32:10He said,
32:10oh, this is Tillman.
32:11He loves skateboarding.
32:12I had a tape measure.
32:14We measured out
32:14100 meters of the car park
32:16at the Staples Center
32:16and we set the record
32:18there and then
32:19because I was so amazed
32:20by it.
32:20Do you just walk
32:21through the world
32:22with a tape measure
32:22in your pocket?
32:23Well, I do usually.
32:24Do you?
32:25Yeah, I have a tape measure
32:26and a stopwatch
32:27because you never know.
32:29Many of the record holders
32:30you know.
32:31Usain Bolt
32:32for the fastest 200 meters,
32:34Beyonce for the most Grammys
32:36and many you've probably
32:38never even imagined.
32:40Go.
32:41Like serial record breaker
32:43David Rush,
32:44an Idaho tech worker
32:46who has broken
32:47more than 350 records
32:49and counting,
32:50including most bites
32:52taken from three apples
32:54while juggling
32:55for a minute.
32:55It's just past
32:57the two mile mark.
32:58And most t-shirts
32:59worn during a half marathon.
33:02And Monsieur Mange 2,
33:04that's Mr. Eats Everything
33:06in French,
33:07he held the record
33:08for the world's
33:09strangest diet.
33:11The guy who'd,
33:12you know,
33:13he'd supposedly
33:14eaten a Cessna
33:15because he could
33:15eat metal and glass.
33:17A Cessna plane?
33:17Well, apparently
33:18it took him two years.
33:19We couldn't quite give him...
33:20It doesn't sound very healthy.
33:21Well, I mean,
33:22his wife wouldn't let him
33:23use the toilet at home
33:24because if he'd been
33:26eating metal,
33:26it tends to come out
33:28like bullets
33:29and it would chip
33:30the porcelain.
33:31So he'd have to use
33:31a hotel with metal toilets
33:34near his house.
33:35This is the craziest
33:35interview I've ever done.
33:37Let's just say.
33:38Sorry.
33:40I'm sorry.
33:41Come back to what
33:42you were saying.
33:43That when you...
33:44I mean, for me,
33:45it's every day,
33:45so I don't quite get it.
33:47But yeah, okay.
33:48He could do glass and metal.
33:49He couldn't do chains.
33:51But to meet him
33:52was a real honor for me
33:53because he was like
33:54a childhood hero for me.
33:55You must get this question
33:56all the time.
33:57Why?
33:58Why?
33:58I mean, it's different
33:59for everyone.
34:00Everyone has a different reason.
34:01Some just want fame.
34:02Some want to be in print.
34:04We do validate people
34:06that do things
34:07that others might seem
34:08about a bit weird,
34:10like eating aircraft and stuff.
34:12Do you not see that as weird?
34:15I mean, I see it
34:18as really interesting.
34:20I've got to tell you,
34:21I thought it would be
34:21a little crazier.
34:23Inside the company's
34:24London headquarters,
34:26Glenday keeps a cabinet
34:27of greatest hits.
34:29It's Craig's cabinet
34:30of Curie oddities.
34:32Like the world's
34:32smallest playing cards
34:34and a giant size 29 shoe.
34:38I'm like the Vanna White
34:39of oddities here.
34:41What is this?
34:42If you have a little
34:43investigation of that,
34:44it's the world's oldest vomit.
34:46Vomit?
34:47Vomit.
34:48You got me on that one.
34:49160.
34:50It doesn't smell
34:50and it's obviously
34:51petrified, isn't it?
34:52Not everyone chooses
34:53to break records.
34:54I'm 5'10",
34:56so what was she?
34:57She's just on seven foot.
34:59The tallest
35:00and shortest people
35:01often have had
35:02genetic conditions.
35:03The woman
35:04with the longest fingernails,
35:0643 feet,
35:07hasn't cut them
35:08since her daughter,
35:09who painted her nails,
35:11passed away in 1997.
35:13So she still
35:14holds the record?
35:15Still has the record
35:15and I think
35:16that's the longest
35:16ever measured.
35:18The idea for the book
35:19began during a hunting trip
35:21at this country estate
35:22in Ireland,
35:23where the manager
35:24of the Guinness Brewery
35:25got into an argument
35:27over who could name
35:28the fastest game bird
35:29in Europe.
35:30To settle future pub debates,
35:32he commissioned a book
35:33of superlatives,
35:35which eventually became
35:36the Guinness World Records.
35:37The first one
35:38was published in 1955.
35:41The initial reaction
35:42from the book trade
35:43was not that positive.
35:45In the first sales meeting ever,
35:47the salesperson wrote six
35:48on the slip
35:49and they said,
35:50do you mean 6,000?
35:51600?
35:52No, six.
35:53They just wanted six?
35:54Six for the whole country.
35:55Yeah.
35:56By the end of the week,
35:57it was like 10,000.
35:58They sold that quickly?
35:59And it was just,
35:59it just blew up.
36:0270 years later,
36:03it's still a hit
36:04at school book fairs,
36:05but today,
36:07the name Guinness World Records
36:08is synonymous
36:09with viral stunts
36:11that become clickbait gold.
36:13Is Google
36:14your biggest competition?
36:15I could pull my phone out
36:16right now
36:16and search the world's
36:18fastest bird.
36:19You might as well
36:19open the window
36:19and shout your question
36:20into the street
36:21and you'll get an answer.
36:23Yeah, but is it the right one?
36:24Well, I can say
36:25I know Sultan Kosen's
36:26eight foot three
36:27because I was there
36:28with the tape measure.
36:29I measured him.
36:30He's also measured
36:31the shortest person
36:32who he learned about
36:34after a woodcutter
36:35passed through
36:35a remote village
36:36in Nepal
36:37and alerted the team
36:38at Guinness World Records.
36:40So it was confidence enough
36:42for me to then go to Nepal.
36:44You get on a flight
36:45and go to Nepal
36:45to measure this percent?
36:47And we would never
36:47have known about him
36:48had that woodcutter
36:49not gone through
36:50the village that day
36:51and sent us
36:52the video footage.
36:54And then there are the rules.
36:56So rigid,
36:57they've sparked office debates
36:59over who makes the cut
37:00for the largest gathering
37:01of people dressed
37:02as Smurfs.
37:04So it's like,
37:05OK, well,
37:05what is a Smurf?
37:07What do they wear?
37:08Do they all have blue skin?
37:10Yes.
37:11You know,
37:11you might have to
37:12write guidelines
37:13for any possible topic.
37:15So we've got this huge
37:16big book of experts,
37:18you know,
37:19from archaeologists
37:20to Smurfs
37:20to Smurfologists.
37:21Yeah,
37:21I don't know if that's something.
37:22But, you know,
37:23like we've got
37:23a myrmecologist,
37:25which...
37:25What is that?
37:26Myrmecologist
37:26is an ant expert.
37:28So if we've got a question
37:29about what's
37:30the most dangerous ant...
37:31Quick,
37:32get the myrmecologist
37:32online now.
37:33So you get us like,
37:34we've just found
37:34this big ant.
37:35Is it the biggest?
37:36For large events
37:37like the New Haven
37:38Pizza Party...
37:39I am today's official
37:40Guinness World Records
37:41adjudicator,
37:42so I'm basically
37:43the judge.
37:44Guinness World Records
37:45sometimes sends
37:46an adjudicator
37:47responsible for enforcing
37:49the rules
37:49from headquarters.
37:50You're going to write
37:51how many people
37:52you disqualified.
37:53Hopefully that is
37:53a nice big round zero.
37:56Thomas Bradford
37:57is one of 81 adjudicators
37:59the company employs
38:00across six continents.
38:02His day job
38:03is as a performer
38:04at Disney,
38:05but when it's go time,
38:07he puts on
38:08his trademark blue jacket.
38:10The largest gathering
38:11of people dressed
38:11as dinosaurs
38:12was one of my favorite events.
38:14And you kind of expect
38:15people to just come
38:16in the classic,
38:16you know,
38:17inflatable T-Rex costume.
38:18What do they come in?
38:20Diplodocus,
38:21Triceratops,
38:21like you name it,
38:22we had it.
38:23Legit gear.
38:24Everything.
38:24I had to turn away
38:25people that were
38:26dressed as Godzilla
38:26because Godzilla
38:27is not a dinosaur.
38:28How do you break it
38:29to a dinosaur
38:30in a bad costume
38:31that they don't qualify?
38:32You kind of just
38:33have to play the role.
38:35I think my accent helps
38:36and there is a level
38:37of, you know,
38:38authority that comes
38:39from a British accent.
38:40Very much that.
38:42The largest pizza party
38:43is probably the most
38:44competitive record
38:44that I've ever been a part of.
38:46Is that true?
38:46I didn't think it would be
38:47as it's a lot.
38:49Yes.
38:50Is it stressing you out?
38:50This is one of the most
38:52stressful record attempts
38:53I've had.
38:54Colin Kaplan needs
38:553,358 people
38:58to show up
38:59in order to beat
38:59the current record.
39:01And you want to beat Tulsa?
39:02We're going to beat Tulsa,
39:03Oklahoma.
39:05Participants get 15 minutes
39:07to eat two slices of pizza
39:08and drink a bottle of water.
39:10But here's the catch.
39:12They have to stay
39:13until the party
39:14is officially over
39:16and...
39:16They must eat
39:17the entire pizza.
39:19No one can leave
39:19their crusts.
39:21They have to eat
39:22the crust.
39:23What makes
39:24a pizza party
39:25like this so difficult?
39:27People.
39:28Yeah.
39:29It's, you know,
39:29you don't know
39:30if they're going to
39:30stay for 15 minutes.
39:32They might wait for 14
39:33and be like,
39:33I'm fine.
39:34You're disqualified
39:35if you leave
39:36after 14 minutes.
39:37You know,
39:37people is the toughest thing.
39:40This official
39:41Guinness World Records
39:42attempt has begun!
39:46At first,
39:47it was slow going.
39:49What if, like,
39:50not enough people show up
39:51or have you guys
39:51already accounted?
39:52But then...
39:54In came the pizza
39:56obsessed.
39:57College students,
39:58children,
39:59those in their
40:00finest pepperoni attire.
40:02It's 10,000 slices,
40:04which is 625 pizzas
40:05in about three and a half hours.
40:08Kaplan's pursuit
40:09of a record
40:10didn't come cheap.
40:11Brands and businesses
40:12chasing titles
40:14for marketing
40:14must pay fees.
40:16He said he paid
40:17nearly $30,000
40:19and fundraised
40:20six figures
40:21to cover all the costs,
40:23including eight ovens
40:24and all that cheese.
40:27There you are.
40:28Thank you so much.
40:28When Thomas Bradford
40:30wasn't busy
40:30being a celebrity...
40:32Awesome!
40:33He and a group
40:34of 100 volunteers
40:36kept the tally.
40:37Only two
40:38didn't finish?
40:39Yes.
40:39One left?
40:40Perfect.
40:41Okay.
40:41With an hour to go...
40:42It's gonna go to the wire,
40:43I think.
40:44It's gonna be close.
40:45Kaplan was still
40:46trying to make
40:47the pie calculations
40:48add up.
40:49We could actually feed
40:511,800 people
40:53starting at 6 o'clock still.
40:54Okay.
40:54And that means
40:55that we could 100%
40:56beat the record
40:56and almost get to 5,000.
40:58So did they?
41:01Finally,
41:02the verdict.
41:03And now,
41:04New Haven is home
41:05to the world's
41:06largest pizza party.
41:084,525 people
41:12gathered for a new
41:13Guinness World Record.
41:15Congratulations,
41:16New Haven.
41:17You are all
41:18officially amazing.
41:21And a slice
41:22of history.
41:24Human beings are
41:25in nearly the same
41:26everywhere.
41:27They are, really,
41:28because they're
41:28trying to get through
41:29from birth to death
41:31and have as much fun
41:32and enjoy life
41:33and get all the
41:34experiences that you can.
41:35And we see this
41:36every day.
41:37The world is full
41:38of these amazing,
41:39fun things
41:39if you just look
41:40in the right place.
41:50I'm John Wertheim.
41:51Thanks for joining us.
41:52We'll be back next week
41:53with an all-new edition
41:54of 60 Minutes.
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