Mug
The first coffee, alone, before the city starts making noise: this praying mantis mug is for that moment. You're the one holding it. It carries Bruno, a mantis in a lime-green jacket who does live sound for concerts in Marseille, from my Animal Kinhood series.
Mantis religiosa
Good sound is invisible. If the audience notices me, something's gone wrong.
Meadows, Mediterranean scrubland, field edges and sunny peri-urban zones from southern Europe to northern Africa and western Asia; successfully introduced to North America since 1899.
Before he made a living from live sound, Bruno started recording at night with a small recorder and a mic: the screech of a tram, the murmur of the harbor, the city when nobody's left. That's where the ear that pays his bills today came from. He's freelance, chooses who he works with, and drinks three coffees a day, always black, always in a small cup: the first when he wakes up, around eleven, before his day gets going.
In high school, a technology teacher let him use the assembly hall's equipment for an end-of-year festival. Bruno spent three weeks putting up cardboard and fabric to tame a reverb that sounded like a cave; it sounded decent for the first time. In private, the teacher told him: you've got an ear, do something with it. A fact about the species: the mantis slows down in the cold and needs warmth, so a hot mug suits him doubly well. Yours, for that first coffee; there's more of Bruno in his biography.
