Death in the Salamantino Afternoon

rarr!





Hey Folks...

My travels are accumulating so fast that I´m having a hard time keeping up with the blogging. I´ve been to Sierra de Francia and Portugal since I last blogged, but in order to play some catch-up, this entry will be about the bullfight, or corrida de toros, that I saw last week. If you are at all squeamish about things like blood, torture, cruelty to animals, sexism, or brutal re-enactments of ancient rituals of man´s domination over the world of brute instinct, then please do not read on. Some of the pictures will be slightly graphic, though I will try to focus on the humane side of things.

I just finished reading John Dos Passos´Spanish travel novel, Rosinante to the Road Again, which is as much a charming account of a 20-21´year old´s thoughts about being away from home as it is a literary who´s-who of early 20th century Spain. Dos Passos reinvents himself as Telemachus, son of Penelope, travelling with his wild party animal friend Lyaeus, from the small pueblos of western Castilla to Toledo, in the south.

All of it was great, but the part I found most interesting was the theme that he introduces in the first essay, ¨A Gesture and a Quest¨, the idea that Spanish culture is best embodied by an almost undescribable gesture, both vague and immediately recognizable, that is a flagrant defiance of death. Spaniards, he says, are constantly acutely aware (not quite obsessed, but almost) of their oncoming deaths, and so they live their lives in such a way as to say ¨piss off¨ to the destiny to which they know they are bound.

He quotes the Castillian poet Jorge Manrique...

Nuestras vidas son los ríos Our lives are the rivers
Que van a dar en la mar, That will end in the sea
Que es el morir. . . . Which is death...

There are hundreds of places where you can see the gesture... I´ve seen it in the extremely bloody crucifixes in the cathedrals (the Christ figure on the one in Salamanca has real human hair, provided each year by a local wig shop), in the way the Spaniards laze around all day, as if waiting for something big to happen, in the way they cram as much life and partying as possible into each night of fiesta...

"It's the gesture that's so overpowering; don't you feel it in your arms? Something sudden and tremendously muscular."

"When Belmonte turned his back suddenly on the bull and walked away dragging the red cloak on the ground behind him I felt it," said Lyaeus.

"That gesture, a yellow flame against maroon and purple cadences . . . an instant swagger of defiance in the midst of a litany to death the all-powerful. That is Spain. . . . Castile at any rate."

"Is 'swagger' the right word?"

"Find a better."

"For the gesture a medieval knight made when he threw his mailed glove at his enemy's feet or a rose in his lady's window, that a mule-driver makes when he tosses off a glass of aguardiente, that Pastora Imperio makes dancing. . . . Word! Rubbish!" And Lyaeus burst out laughing.

And so I´ve arrived at my point.... The corridas are the perfect example of this unnamable gesture, en vivo. When the torero flicks his muleta (his cape) or steps deftly out of the way of the charging, tremendous bull, there´s something about it that is, if not macabre, at least wholly and entirely Spanish.



That is a picture of Fernando Ordoñez, one of the most famous toreros in Spain. But he is mainly famous because he recently separated from his wife, who is daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Alba. He has cut more than 300 ears in his career (cutting the ear of the toro and giving it to the matador means that he did a good job) and fought over 700 bulls, but to my eye he had no art. He could not stir the toro to any kind of energy or anger, and each of his paseos, the turns of the bull that he executed, were flat and lifeless...



The real star of the show was the 22-year old Serafin Marín, a Sevillano who has only cut 3 ears in his career. He had been out of the ring since May after being gored, and when I saw him it was his first corrida back since then.



His paseos were smooth, elegant, and daring...



guiding the bull into the sand...

and cutting his two ears of the day...



The corrida begins with a big procession into the Plaza de Toros, with each of the three main toreros and their 2 assistants. The picadors, which are prominent in this next photo, ride blindfolded horses...



They carry long spears and their horses are padded heavily on one side to block against the toro´s horns...



When the toreros induce the toro to charge the picador´s horse, it´s the picador´s job to stab the toro in its shoulders, to weaken the shoulder muscles so that when the final dance of death comes, it will charge the matador with its head lowered.



The picador wears a heavily padded boot so that the horns don´t tear up his leg...



After the picadors weaken the bull, the bandililleros come out with two hand-held spikes decorated with crepe-paper. They coax the bull into charging them, then run at the bull at a slight angle, jump over the bull´s head, and plant the spikes in its back. It´s the most bad-ass part of the whole bullfight, and probably the most dangerous...



The final stage of the bullfight takes about 15 minutes, in which the torero does a bunch of sinuous, hypnotizing paseos, leading the toro into the center of the ring (ideally) or to the side, so that he can kill it with his sword. Here is Marin killing:



I insisted to a few of my friends that we should buy wineskins to drink while watching the corrida, but no one listened to me. I did, however, get a shot of this awesome old dude drinking from his like a pro, as well as smoking a cigarette with the same hand...



That guy was pretty lairy. He kept on yelling at the band, which you can see behind this awesome viejo with zero teeth in the next photo. He wanted them to play a paso doble called ¨La Bota¨, which they did, several times, at his gruff requests...



The whole scene was pretty old-school. For my own part, I bought another €2 straw hat for the occasion...



And at the end, after Serafin Marín killed his second bull, the entire Plaza came to its feet and waved white panuelos (handkerchiefs), the ultimate sign of tribute to an artful torero.



And finally, out back after all the swagger and glamour of the toreros, which their shiny traje de luces suits and flamboyant poses, we have the uglier side of things...



....death in the afternoon.