The Closer Look: How to Fold a Fitted Sheet.

There was a palpable, apathetic confused excitement in the air on Lower Cuba Street on April 7th. The sun shone brightly down upon the crowd that had gathered around a small patch of footpath. In the middle of the circle stood a microphone and a speaker. The crowd rather timidly hummed and sang along to the words of Natasha Bedingfields ‘Unwritten’. The crowd of mostly young people was slowly growing and filling up most of Lower Cuba Street between Manners and Dixon. People had climbed up on phone boxes and hung off the sides of lampposts just to get a better view. At One O’clock on the dot, a man stepped into the middle of the circle, crumpled fitted sheet in hand. As the fist full of Sheet was raised in the air, the crowd of roughly 400-500 erupted in applause and hollering. The man came up to the microphone and the crowd settled: “Wellington, your weird”

In the weeks leading up to April 7th Cuba Street had been plastered with posters that read:

come and watch me fold a fitted sheet on my own
outside taco bell on cuba street
april 7 at 1pm

These posters were in simple black and white helvetica all in lower case. You would often see someone pointing at one and laughing or taking a picture to send to their friends. So when April 7th rolled around I gathered the inaugural Wellington Writers Studio Investigative Squadron (WWSIS). We head down to 'outside taco bell' to see what could unfold when a fitted sheet gets folded. The median age of our group of three was about 50. As we walked down Cuba we discussed what we thought we might see. We came to an agreement that whatever was going to happen it would be a dude doing it. Whoever this man was, we also assumed that it would be more complex than a man simply folding a fitted sheet. We turned out to be right about both of these hypotheses.

The stunt was pulled by New Zealand comedian Dan Boerman. He performed a little bit of stand-up to the crowd. Mostly roasting Wellington for a variety of different reasons. Then he folded to the fitted sheet to much applause and hullabaloo. First I want to acknowledge that anyone who can gather hundreds of young people together without any online marketing has an impressive skill. The whole thing was essentially an ad for some comedy shows Dan has coming up in Wellington.

Aptly questioned by WWSIS member Adele, “Do all these people not know how to fold a fitted sheet?” It's an interesting question in the context of the event. Due to the nature of the crowd, I would assume that most did in fact not know how to fold a fitted sheet. However, I think the real reason hundreds of young Wellingtonians showed up is much more sad. Is this the level of absurdity needed to get young people out of bed and to show up in person? Absurdity after all is nihilism dressed up in a laughing fit. Amazing local art is happening all the time in this wonderful city, in this rare moment some of it got the attention it deserved. Think of how lively the local art scenes would be if young people showed up in droves to all sorts of local art.

Recently I went to see my friend Nathan King's Fringe show ‘Dictionary’ it was hilariously clever. But what was even more special was seeing my friend shine through in the artistry of it. Because I know my friend the play felt familiar. The feeling of familiarity is not to be overlooked in the art we consume. Support local artists in whatever way you can. Share friends work, show up, talk about it after the fact. I think people say they don't have the money for it at the moment. People spend money, they just choose to spend it on their Netflix subscription instead. As I walked away from the folding of the fitted sheet I overheard a young woman say to her friend: “And like everything else it all leads back to capitalism.” Well that may be true but wouldn’t it be great if we backed local capitalism instead?

Much love, Be blessed,

Jesse