Rete-irritating, painful, uncomfortable, unsympathetic and uncivilized or quite fat. Less than five minutes after Jelle de Graaf had glued himself to Beau’s talk show table – who replaced the ailing Eva Jinek – there were already at least five perspectives from everyone at the table on what was happening on the table.
The broadcast started with the worldwide malfunction of WhatsApp, as a result of which former cyclist Thomas Dekker received fewer congratulatory apps for his latest book than expected. Then came rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, who has made such a fuss with weird things saying that sports brand Adidas should stop working with him, even if it costs a lot of money. Then the films were started for the following topic: climate activists throw tomato soup, mashed potatoes or chocolate cake over works of art, and between action and arrest they glue themselves to the wall of the museum.
He sat at the table for the first time, said Jelle de Graaf ominously. The climate activist from Extinction Rebellion was invited to explain why actions against works of art make sense and are justified. He did, a little high in his breath, quite accurately. It can glue itself to the rails to prevent coal transport. He did and it was quite “disruptive”, but it yielded no more than a news item in the back of the newspaper. If an action really wants to attract attention, he said, it must be “rete-irritating”. “Breaking the Social Morals.” His presence there proved his right. Van Gogh’s sunflowers were pelted with soup at The National Gallery in London last week, and we’re still talking about it, with him at the table. Even then.
Was it two-component glue or a Pritt marker with which he then stuck his hands to the table top? Nobody knew that yet. He took off. An ominous tidings about the disasters that are plaguing the world and about which too little is talked about, especially at talk show tables.
He talked a lot during the rebound and he certainly intended to continue to do so. And Beau didn’t think that was nice of him, to keep talking all the time. Not that effective either, just ‘sending’. Also give me a Beau if I’m in danger of losing myself. This man has raised four teenage sons, you can’t fool them so easily, he remains calm and understandingly condemning the act, but not the perpetrator himself.
He got Jelle quiet, and gave the floor to Emilie Gordenker, director of the Van Gogh museum and forgive me, because of all the consternation I can no longer reproduce exactly what she said. Something about the fact that the museum has always been very concerned about the climate and that it is therefore stupid to choose art as an enemy. Then Jelle thought she had been talking for quite some time and started talking about the oil industry that sponsors her museum.
Meteorite
Then came the ad. And after the commercial, Jelle was gone. How? We saw that later. First we listened to Thomas Dekker, the cyclist. He talked about his book about who he was in his wild years as a cyclist and who he became after cycling. WhatsApp was now working again, at least for me, and I received a message from a sharp viewer that this looked like a scene from the movie Don’t look upin which scientists sound the alarm about an approaching meteorite, but the conversations about pebbles at talk show tables just ripple.
Jelle, it turned out later, was with a table top and already carried away by security guards. Huh, there was just another tabletop under the table. Why that? Foresight? Tabletop with Jelle on it did not fit through the door and had to tilt, Jelle slid down. The climate is not easy to glue.