“Short Season”. This was the name one Dame Lorraine gave her portrayal, the fabric for her usually billowing dress not enough to cover her exaggerated body contours. And this seemed to capture in my own musings the essence of 2008’s short carnival season.

This traditional carnival character was originally played by ex-slaves. They imitated the wives of the 18th and early 19th century French planters who themselves used to dress in the costumes of the French aristocracy and parade in groups at private homes.

The ex-slaves used whatever materials they could find: scraps of colourful cloth, and costume jewellery, fans and hats and umbrellas to create dresses that looked some what like the high-society dresses of the planters’ wives. But as if to poke fun at them and to show off their own physical attributes they grossly exaggerated their bosoms and hips.

Like the short-season Dame Lorraine character unable to find material for her dress, calypso writers seem to have also found it difficult to find material to write about, and front line singers of soca bands seem to share Dame Lorraine’s problems.

The Dame’s exaggerated curves are evident in the prices of carnival costumes and all-inclusive fetes. I wonder who is poking fun at whom.

At the all-inclusives, the excess of food and drink, the many music bands, and the need to have the music at topnotch volume are so much like the dame’s swaying hips.

With the short season there are not enough days on the carnival calendar to fit in all the events we would like to attend – all those mega-events organised by promoters with profit being the bottom line. Like the Dame Lorraine playing an individual mas’ with a short message, perhaps we need to be our own events promoters, with more people conceiving the ideas for individual mas’ and bringing them to life.

How long will the expensive mas’ bands on parade on Monday and Tuesday continue, and if they do just how many people will be able to continue playing?

Similarly how much more exaggerated and more expensive will the big fetes become and who will partake?

There was another Dame Lorraine paying tribute to local hero Brian Lara, highlighting his record-breaking scores of 375 and 500+ strategically on her body. So even old news can be used by traditional characters to play a meaningful mas’

Be careful whatever mas’ yuh play during the next couple days. Happy and blessed carnival And even if it is too late to conceive any individual ideas for this carnival, maybe we can think of observing Lent in a meaningful way, meditating on the events around us celebrating the blessings, meditating on how to change those areas of our lives, individually and collectively that we need to change. Lent is not a short season.