Andy Bakerweg

A couple of weeks ago, when we were in Almere for a birthday party, we were walking from the train station to the house and we had to pass through the Filmwijk, which literally means film district. In an American city, one might expect a statue or something campy, but there's nothing special about it except that most, if not all, of the streets are named after film stars. There were a few Dutch and French star names, but my eyes were drawn to the "American" stars. And by "American" I mean not Dutch or French.

It seems strange to plop "weg" or "straat" after a person's name and make a street name, but we had the LBJ Freeway in Texas and there's always a JFK this or a MLK that, so it's not such a strange idea. Still, I kept thinking about writing "James Stewartstraat" every time I wrote my address. I'm sure it just becomes background noise after a while, but it seemed an odd choice. But it's a theme. And who doesn't like a theme?

At the end of the day, though, I wondered if a plantsoen (an open air garden with plants and trees) named after Greta Garbo is the proper way to memorialize a woman like that. After all, all she really vanted was to be left aloon.