Rhinoccino?

 Des fois, en revenant de l'école, mon fils et moi nous nous arrêtons dans un café pour manger un morceau et boire quelque chose. Je prends du thé ou du rooibos, il prend souvent un piccoloccino ou babyccino. J'aime bien le premier terme, le second beaucoup moins. Du lait chaud moussé avec un peu de cacao dessus pour faire joli. Servi dans une tasse toujours spéciale. La dernière fois, elle avait un  rhinocéros (rose) dessus. Ce qui fait du breuvage un rhinoccino? Je trouve que ça sonne bien.

Future new Deon Meyer

Quick bit of literary news: South African crime writer Deon Meyer is finishing a new novel, featuring reformed alcoholic and elite police officer Bennie Griessel. It will be released in Afrikaans in October this year, then around mid 2019 in English, French and other translations mid-2019. I cannot believe I will have to wait that long. Anybody else excited?

Trackers by Deon Meyer

I have read all but one Deon Meyer books and I will read his latest one as soon as I am in the mood for scifi. These days, I am reading crime fiction and thought I would recommend to my readers one of my favourite of Meyer's crime novels: Trackers. It is in fact three novels in one and has three protagonists, in three parallels stories that interlace to finally unite in one single plot as the novel goes on: bodyguard for hire Lemmer (his second appearance), Mat Joubert (former cop now private investigator, also his second appearance in Meyer's novels as a protagonist) and Mila Strachan, former housewife who walks out of an abusive relationship to stumble into an espionage plot by finding a new career. Because this is as much a spy novel as a crime one. My favourite part is still the one featuring Lemmer, as he is my favourite character. Cold, professional, principled, but with a chip on his shoulder and haunted by a troubled past, trouble goes after him and it makes for gripping drama and plenty of violence. This time, trouble takes the turn of a mission to smuggle two endangered rhinos, but nothing is as it seems. It turns out to be a bloody affair. I want to re-read every Meyer novels and Trackers most of all.

An Epiphany about Rhinoceros by Ionesco

I was thinking about my recent post on Ionesco's Rhinoceros. About that time when I played it too. And it struck me, I had an epiphany about it: it is a zombie story. It is Night of the Living Dead with more dialogues and an absurd setting. At its core it is the story of an epidemy, one that strikes the body as much as the mind. And the rhinos are just as malevolent as the zombies, maybe even more so. Like many of Ionesco's plays, there is a very sinister side to it, that can be missed sometimes. I watched this performance of Jean's transformation on YouTube. I played the same scene, and indeed the Jean character. I think I got it better, because I played it sinister, like a man turning into a monster. Which is I think the whole point. The play is scary as much as it is funny.

An anecdote about rhinoceroses

I remembered something today, I don't know why exactly. A conversation I had more than two years ago with my then colleagues at the last school I worked in. I am not very nostalgic from that era, although I did enjoy the people there. I never felt I was very important, for the administration I was little more than nothing, but with the teachers and teaching assistants I did feel part of the team. They treated me well. And because of this I was more sociable with them than I was with the people working at the previous school. So I talked more. This is an anecdote about one of those conversations.

It was near the end of my contract, at lunchtime. For some reasons, somebody mentioned rhinos. One of the history teachers, an Irishman, said that the name black rhinoceros and white rhinoceros had nothing to do with their colour. And he kept talking about rhinoceros, telling us that he had learned a lot about these animals, for some reason. I mentioned Ionesco's play Rhinoceros, in which I once performed the role of Jean, who turns in the middle act into a rhino on stage. I mentioned it on the blog here. It was a troubled production, but I was very proud of my performance, so I do mention it from time to time. My rhino obsessed colleague knew about the play, he had an actor friend who even had sent it a copy of one its performances in English. I thought it was strange, I read little about rhinos for the play and this guy's only interest in a classic French absurd play was that it featured his favourite animal. So this was the anecdote. I kind of miss the lunch time conversations there.

Getting the raspy voice

It was my acting class yesterday. The teacher could finally see the almost finished product. I say almost because I am not quite there, but I am very close. I am playing this very old man, dying and bitter and nasty, and I got the voice right. Not perfect yet, but right. Sure, my English is still flawed, but the raspy voice I have manages to hide them. My teacher was impressed when she heard the voice (and how nice does it feel to impress a pro!), she asked: "How did you get it?" I answered: "Peanut butter". Which is true: I have peanut butter toasts for dinner before class and it does irritate your throat a bit. When I was learning to sing, Claudiiine warned me against it before class. I wouldn't be able to sing after rehearsal, I felt like I had a cold.

I am half joking of course: getting a raspy voice is easy when you get in character. I once played in Rhinoceros by Ionesco and I had to turn into a rhino in the second act: I had to grow a raspy voice within the play (among other challenges). It left me exhausted, but it was great fun. I thought about it a lot when I got home yesterday, the throat on fire. It was painful, but I really enjoyed it.