From lichen to Stadsfeest Beverwijk. For columnist Joris Brussel, it takes a lot of getting used to the name
IJmond
Lichens are sensitive. If it weren’t already the headline of an article in this newspaper, I would have gladly claimed that sentence as the title for my collection of poems. What beautiful words. Which contains an article about a workshop that was recently given in the Pieter Vermeulen Museum in Driehuis.
Citizen science student at Eindhoven University of Technology – Lotte Sluijs – talks about her research into lichens. And specifically about the way in which lichens teach us about our living environment. Lichens that can teach us something. It is language at its best. And the ‘lichen’ is something different from the cosmos – my favorite word in our language, before I fixed lichen.
city party
But what’s in the name? After all, the Beverwijk festival week is renamed the Beverwijk City Festival. And there the beauty of language goes straight back into the sink, to stay in festive week terms. Stadsfeest Beverwijk sounds like a kind of TROS-on-the-square sing-along party. A bit forced, obedient and semi-spontaneous. I can barely hear the voice of a 1950s Polygon newsreader when I say it out loud.
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It seems like an attempt to let the partygoers enjoy their city during a party. A city party. Almost like an intervention. “Oh, as citizens of Beverwijk you just want to drink beers during the festive week, visit the fair and watch riders on horseback from cyclists? Nothing comes of it! Stop it! It will be chauvinistic. And cheer gratitude for the city you will.”
Now more changes. The festival week – sorry, the city festival is for example a week from seven earlier this year. Yet it is mainly the name that I have to get used to. But the more often I better call it myself, the more often I ring it in my own ears. City festival Beverwijk… City festival Beverwijk…. “Where are we going? The Beverwijk City Festival!” Like going to the circus.
Get used to
actually. And it’s a good thing that in a matter of a few minutes – and a few sentences in this column – I convinced myself of the new name. Will it just be a matter of getting used to? And do more people have that? Because it won’t be long before other cities will follow. After all, there is another advantage: city festivities cannot be transformed into a stabbing week like a party week. And city festival fits in nicely with the series of village festivals – which the IJmond is again rich this summer. Such as the Village Festival Velsen-Noord, which I like to covertly advertise. Top idea, the choice for Stadsfeest Beverwijk. As if written in the local stars of the lichen.
Passport
Joris Brussel (1987) is a columnist, writer, (urban) poet and communication strategist. He comes from Velsen-Noord and lives in Beverwijk. Every week he gives his opinion here.