“Hungry for mas”
The Caribbean Review of Books, August 2008
There is a truly wonderful moment just before the end of this amiable tribute to the art of mas-making in Trinidad. The Carnival band Threads of Joy is waiting to take to the stage at the Queen’s Park Savannah, the major judging point for the parade of bands in Port of Spain. The band’s leader, Brian MacFarlane, is going over with some of his crew the order in which different colours of confetti will be released when the band comes on. But there is a problem. The crew, at this last moment, has got the combinations of colours wrong. On top of this, the lead music truck has struck up ahead of time. MacFarlane explodes in a frenzy of expletives and wild gesticulation, storming back and forth before the situation is finally rectified and the band is let loose on the Savannah stage.