Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Let the wild rumpus start!

Kamau Brathwaite's poem "Blues" begins with a section labelled "Basie" that starts like this:

Hunched, hump-backed, gigantic,
the pianist presides above the
rumpus...

And suddenly I'm transported to a Maurice Sendak scene, with Basie playing for a wild rumpus while pink palm trees sway in the breeze. Better romp while we can because when the boat leaves, the rumpus is over.

1 comment:

jaywalke said...

I met Sendak when I worked at an ad company in NYC. He was selling his characters to AT&T for an ad campaign.

He was a vicious, dried-up little man.

I still like the book, and I'm a big fan of making mischief of one kind and another.