THE REALM OF THE UNKNOWN — WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.” Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, 1963

The euro-zone debt crisis, housing starts, fluctuating energy and commodity prices, persistently high unemployment numbers, thin commercial loan demand, not to mention what looks like will be an Obama/Romney faceoff in November … all by their nature are uncertainties that populate the realm of the unknown.

In this issue’s FinalCut, we dispense with our convention of illustrating a recent news story. Instead, we take the occasion to pay tribute to Maurice Sendak, the writer/illustrator who passed away on May 8. Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are lives in the hearts and minds of Baby-Boomers everywhere.

Sendak found delight and inspiration in allegory and so do we. Here our illustrator Jerry Gonzalez gives us this issue’s representation of a trusty asset-based lender (we’ll call him Max) who reigns supreme and yet finds himself dealing with a new and slightly unsettling world. Jerry’s rendering of Sendak’s fantastical and mischievous creatures (yes, allegorical representations of the aforementioned uncertainties) cause a “wild rumpus” in Max’s previously ordered world.

So closes this year’s ABL Marketplace issue.

As every good audience deserves an epilogue, here is ours. To the master of imagination who took us places we never would have gone ourselves, we say thank you. To our asset-based lending professionals, we offer you a bit of appreciation for the wild things you contend with these days. Remember, no matter how fierce the creatures get, you folks are the fiercest of all…SPP