I can't come anywhere near grokking all the esoteric stuff in this, but it sounds like they're saying the universe is full of this "Higgs field" and I can't tell if it in turn is supposed to be composed of Higgs bosons. If those bosons are all over the place why isn't it possible to get a handle on one directly -- why does it have to be forged in a multi-GeV fire?
Beats me. My degree is in philosophy—so at least I am familiar with the word "grok". But that is as far as it goes. Sounds like the Higgs boson mechanism is what gives other things their mass. So we can "see" (perhaps better to say measure?) the mass of the other things, but at that point, Higgs is no longer Higgs or has moved on. I guess the little fellows are sticky and slippery at the same time.
Not sure if I understand any more than I did before, but at least it was fun to watch:
Higgs on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics