(by Venetia Thompson theguardian.com 8-20-14)
In Spain, meat from fighting bulls is experiencing a resurgence – and its adherents argue that it comes from happier, healthier cattle than commercial beef. Would you eat the byproduct of a bullfight?
La Pepona is one of Seville's most exciting new tapas bars. It is light, airy and trendy, offering natural Andalusian wines and local olive oil. It is, perhaps, not the sort of place you would expect to find such traditional dishes as ragout de toro de lidia – slow-cooked fighting bull meat. But there it is, atop a bed of lightly truffled parmentier.
Restaurateur Juanlu Fernández in no way supports bullfighting, but believes that using the byproduct – the meat – is important, likening it to supporting Andalusian winemakers. "We are in a struggle to defend Andalusian gastronomic culture and recipes against the extreme modernity that is invading us," he says.
And that idea seems to be taking hold. Earlier this year, Seville celebrated Fighting Bull Gastronomic Days, its second annual festival of tapas dedicated to fighting bull meat. Nineteen local chefs competed to create the best simple and gourmet tapas.
But is it possible to separate the idea of the bullfight from the meat? For most of its history, the actual corrida ("run", as the Spaniards call it) was a result of cattle fairs. In much of central and southern Spain, cattle were used primarily for utility, pulling ploughs or transport, and secondarily for beef and milk production, given the low quality of grass found in their semi-arid environment. In every herd there was a proportion of bulls, described as "bravos", who were too aggressive for these purposes and were instead sacrificed in spectacular fashion for public entertainment. Their meat was then used to feed the town as part of the fiesta, providing a rare opportunity for poor rural communities to eat beef.
As the corrida became more popular, some landowners began selecting for the characteristic they called "bravura", or aptitude for the increasingly ritualised bullfight, leading to the development of the ganado bravo, as the breed is known. The trophies that are still awarded to bullfighters after the bull's death (an ear, two ears, a tail) are an echo of its origin in agricultural fairs, when they signified the proportion of the bull's meat the bullfighter was entitled to take home to his family or village, depending on how skillfully he had killed.
In the market of Triana, a district of Seville, specialist butcher Emilio Elena Pozo and his wife Sylvia own the only stall that sells carne de lidia (the meat of the ganado bravo). Because the animals are not reared for meat – the breed exists as a function of the bullfight, so the animals will be killed whether the meat is eaten or not – the beef is relatively cheap, costing on average €10 less a kilo than commercial beef.
With encyclopedic knowledge and obvious passion, they explain that much of their meat comes from animals that never see the inside of the bullring: the breeders select which bulls will go to the ring and which will be kept for breeding, and the rest are sold to an abattoir at the age of two or three (those selected for the bullfight are killed in the ring at three or five). The range of tastes within carne de lidia is very broad, getting increasingly strong and gamey with age, requiring different hanging times and preparation methods.
They have noticed a recent increase in demand for their meat among a new generation of Spaniards with a "gourmet taste for high cuisine". Sylvia tells me she thinks this is because they have had enough of "tasteless commercial meat" and are demanding something they believe to be "different and better".
Restaurateur Ramón López de Tejada would agree – he is one of Seville's most vocal supporters of the quality of ganado bravo meat. He always tries to have off-menu specials of carne de lidia, supplied by Sylvia and Emilio, at his restaurant Antigua Abacería de San Lorenzo.
For experts, the quality of the meat is a result of a better lifestyle. Veterinary surgeon Dr Ismael Díaz Yubero is Spain's former ambassador to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation and the author of Gastronomia del Toro de Lidia (The Gastronomy of the Fighting Bull). He argues that this meat is "the most ecological bovine meat produced anywhere in the world".
In Spain, as in many parts of the world, he maintains: "Most beef cattle are killed within a year and a half of birth; their diet is very forced, being designed to make them grow unnaturally fast; and they live in very cramped conditions." By contrast, Díaz Yubero contends that the fighting bulls enjoy a higher quality of life, since their breeders are "aiming to promote health, bravery and vitality so that a select number of the herd can show off their qualities in the bullring".
He believes even those who end up in the ring have a better deal, overall, than commercially raised animals. "For 15 minutes, they undeniably suffer the stress of combat; for the rest of the time they and the rest of their breed are able to enjoy all the pleasures and privileges possible for cattle, roaming in their natural environment among the acorn trees of the dehesa [pasture], and eating their preferred foods."
While animal suffering is, of course, impossible to quantify, Díaz Yubero argues: "The stress that normal beef cattle endure from the time they enter the transport truck to the time spent waiting to be killed at industrial abattoirs is at least comparable." The consensus among those I spoke to was that fighting bulls are transported and kept in far better conditions than industrially farmed animals at a slaughterhouse.
Opponents of bullfighting would disagree, believing the bulls in the ring endure a slow and painful death. And for those who have ethical objections to human selection and utilisation of sentient animals – for labour, consumption or entertainment – whatever its origins or quality of life, eating beef is wrong. The anti-bullfighting Association for the Defence of Animal Rights conceded that while they firmly believe the best course of action is not to eat any meat at all, the worst thing carnivores can do is to eat intensively farmed meat.
With Spain following the worldwide trend for traceable meat and slow food, it is perhaps unsurprising that the meat of the fighting bull is having a renaissance. Bullfighting will, of course, remain contentious, but while it continues, so will its gastronomic byproduct. If the meat isn't sold, the carcasses will simply be burned instead. So for López de Tejada, and many others, whatever their opinions regarding the corrida, we have a duty to treat the meat with as much respect as possible.
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http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/20/fighting-bull-beef-most-ecological-meat-in-world
August 30, 2014
August 29, 2014
Bullfighter who lost sight in one eye returns to the bullring
A Spanish bullfighter who lost sight in one eye and has partial facial paralysis after a terrifying goring returned to the bullring Sunday, five months after his injury.
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http://www.eitb.com/en/news/life/detail/842895/bullfighting--juan-jose-padillas-returns-the-bullring/
August 28, 2014
August 27, 2014
Ronda
(borrowed from andalucia.com/ronda/plazadetoro)
Inaugurated in 1785, Ronda's Plaza de Toros is one of the oldest in Spain, younger and smaller than that at Sevilla, but home to one of Spain's most famous 'schools' of bullfighting, on foot rather than on horseback as at Jerez and Sevilla. The legendary Pedro Romero (1754-1839) is said to have killed nearly 6,000 bulls here and at other corridas (bullfights). Its most recent superhero was Antonio Ordóñez (1932-1998), fêted by his friend Ernest Hemingway in his book The Fatal Summer.
Ordóñez's sons and grandsons have also fought at Ronda, but today the Plaza de Toros is a museum, open to tourists, and used only in the spectacular September Goyesca bullfights, in which combatants dress in the manner of Goya's portraits of 18th century life in Spain.
August 26, 2014
August 24, 2014
Encierro
(sanfermin.com 12-16-12)
The web RTVE has issued some advanced information in a promotion of the film Encierro - Bull Running in Pamplona. This film shows the running of the bulls and the Sanfermin fiestas in 3D and it has been listed for the Goya Awards of 2013 in 8 categories. According to what the web page states, this "spectacular feature-length documentary narrates the running of the bulls from the viewpoint of the runners who take part in the annual event in Pamplona during the fiestas of San Fermín (from the 7th to the 14th of July) /.../ with Miguel Ángel, Paco, Miguel, Joe and Noel, five fanatics of the running of the bulls and who allow us an intimate look at what it means to them to run in the event as they share their reasons, their fears and their experiences." In addition, we can see some of the images used to promote the feature film and which we can absorb, but which belong to the work of the RTVE national channel.
The critical reviews from RTVE about the content states that he Running of the Bulls is a "documentary full of action and emotion, filled with tension but also of beauty, with a spectacular narrative sequence and some images never before captured and all provided by the latest cameras of High Velocity 3D. A special camera was also used which was hung at a height of 270 meters across the center of Estafeta Street as it filmed the bulls and runners below. In order to transmit the spectacular images in the most impressive manner possible, the film was shot in 3D stereoscope, which proved to be a technological challenge for the cameramen. In addition, due to the fact that the running only happens over eight days annually and the difficulties presented by the 3D technology, the shooting was carried out over the years 2009, 2010, 2011 y 2012."
The film has been produced by Enrique Urdánoz, Manuel Cristóbal, María Cabanas, Salvador Puig and Jose Luis Rubio from D4D Ingeniería Visual and REC, under the director, Olivier Van der Zee.
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Update
The film, at least at the moment, can be seen here on YouTube:
August 23, 2014
The Quick and the Dead
(1995)
Ellen, an unknown female gunslinger rides into a small, dingy and depressing prairie town with a secret as to her reason for showing up. Shortly after her arrival, a local preacher, Cort, is thrown through the saloon doors while townfolk are signing up for a gun competition. The pot is a huge sum of money and the only rule: that you follow the rules of the man that set up the contest, Herod. Herod is also the owner, leader, and "ruler" of the town. Seems he's arranged this little gun-show-off so that the preacher (who use to be an outlaw and rode with Herod) will have to fight again. Cort refuses to ever use a gun to kill again and Herod, acknowledging Cort as one of the best, is determined to alter this line of thinking ... even if it gets someone killed ...
A classic film in my book, directed by Sam Raimi and staring Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman.
What does this movie have to do with bullfighting? Nothing.
Although the movie does somewhat stir up the same emotions as a bullfight with it's "quick-draw competition" and the possibility of death if one is not quick enough to survive. Plus, the film is set in the 1800's on the Western frontier, a place where bullfights did occasionally occur.
But I wanted to save this photo from my favorite scene and part of an interview of Lance Henriksen who played Ace Hanlon, one of the characters from the film that really steals the show.
This article is from John Kenneth Muir's blog "Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV"
Here is the link to the full article;
http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2011/05/lance-henriksen-interview-on-quick-and.html
On his first day working with Gene Hackman:
HENRIKSEN: There were some very funny moments on that set. I believed that I was this guy so much that when Gene Hackman and I did our first scene together, Sam put the camera on the ground and said to Gene, "you step up in front of the lens like this, with your legs spread." Through his legs, you see Ace Hanlon standing there, taking a bow for what he just did.
And Hackman said, "What is that? What's that mean? That's just a camera shot, right?" He says, "I'm going to walk to him."
And I said, "Gene, wait a minute."
I'd never worked with Hackman before, and I waited twenty years to work with him, and I said, "Gene, don't walk to me. Let me walk to you. It makes you stronger. If you walk to me, you're weaker, so let me walk to you." And then I did that little turn where I said "I'm the best you'll ever see."
I'd never worked with Hackman before, and I waited twenty years to work with him, and I said, "Gene, don't walk to me. Let me walk to you. It makes you stronger. If you walk to me, you're weaker, so let me walk to you." And then I did that little turn where I said "I'm the best you'll ever see."
But I remember after the day was over, I said, "what the fuck did I just do? You don't tell Gene Hackman where to walk!" But he held his ground. It was that kind of environment where I was so much "the guy" that there was no ego involved. If he'd told me to fuck off, it would have been all right.
August 22, 2014
Miura
A Miura bull is a Spanish fighting bull bred from the lineage of the Miura Cattle Ranch located in the province of Seville, Spain. The ranch originally belonged to Don Eduardo Miura Fernández, and is known for producing large and difficult fighting bulls. A Miura bull debuted in Madrid on April 30, 1849.
The Miura line traces its roots to five historic Spanish bull breeds, namely the Gallardo, Cabrera, Navarra, Veragua, and Vistahermosa-Parladé.
The Miura ranch is located at the Zahariche estate, a few miles from the village of Lora del Río, in the province of Seville. The estate, which has been occupied by the Miuras since 1842, encompasses over 600 hectares, and several hundred bulls, oxen, cows and calves live on its lands. The stud farm employs twelve people, including eight Andalusian vaqueros. The ranch is presided over by Eduardo and Antonio Miura, sons of the late Don Eduardo. According to Eduardo Miura, the ranch aims to "breed for quality, not quantity."
The Miura breed was created in 1842 by Juan Miura, using 220 Gil de Herrera cows, and 200 José Luis Alvareda cows and studs, all coming from the Gallardo family of El Puerto de Santa María. In 1850, the Cabrera line was added using cows from Jerónima Núñez de Prado, and two Vistahermosa studs were brought in 1860. The bullfighter Rafael Molina Sánchez donated a Navarro bull, and the Duke of Veragua contributed a castaño ojinegro. Also known to have been involved are a bull from Conde de la Corte, and the bull named "Bandillero", a Parladé belonging to the Marquess of Tamarón. --------------- Hace 57 años, un día como hoy en Bilbao se lidió un Miura de 597 kgs, el tercio de varas duró 20 minutos, tomó 7 puyazos y derribó 5 veces el picador. Hoy en día, los ganaderos se quejan y tratan de evitar el "exceso de bravura"...
August 21, 2014
Cave Creek Arizona, February 7-9, 2014
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| Ouch ! |
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| I normally don't like people running in costume but this guy nailed it ! |
August 17, 2014
August 16, 2014
Cape Crusaders Keep an L.A. Tradition Alive
(by Jessica Gresko articles.latimes.com 9-22-05)
City's rich bullfighting history includes a club, practice sessions and a noted book collection.
Ready to charge Bill Torres at Griffith Park on a Saturday afternoon is a man clutching a bar barbed with two bull's horns. Torres, 65, holds his ground, feet together.
"Hey, toro, toro, toro, hey," Torres teases. His adversary, Mario Orlando, 43, of Hawthorne rushes at a cape Torres is holding, turning the horns toward the cape as Torres skillfully maneuvers it out of the way. Orlando returns for pass after pass, and Torres sends him by with a series of practiced flourishes of the cape.
"Mario does the animal excellent," Torres said later.
Torres isn't a bad bull himself. "I do the snorting sometimes," he said, and he is also careful to act as if he has four feet and a lumbering body when he takes the horns.
Practices like this one have gone on for more than three decades at Griffith Park and generally draw half a dozen aficionados practicos, or amateur bullfighters, swishing capes and brandishing dummy swords.
Practicing in the tradition of matadors worldwide, some of the Saturday bullfighters are preparing to fight real bulls in festivals in Mexico or for visits to ranches where they practice with cows. Others come to watch or just to stay involved in a pastime from their youth.
On Saturday, bullfighting enthusiasts will gather at a ring in Artesia for a "bloodless bullfight," one of about two held each year. In a colorful ritual expected to draw more than a thousand spectators, two bullfighters will face a total of six bulls, but instead of using lances to weaken the bull and spearing it with decorated banderillas, fighters will brandish sticks with Velcro on one end and try to attach them to a Velcro pad on the charging bull.
The Saturday sessions and this weekend's event aren't the only bullfighting Los Angeles has in its history.
Early Angelenos built a bullfight ring steps away from present-day downtown before the fledgling state of California outlawed the spectacle. The city boasts one of the oldest bullfight clubs in the nation. And a collection of 1,700 books on bullfighting at the Central Library is believed to be the largest in the United States. Still, few people are aware of the city's bullfight history, say aficionados.
"Most people I run into away from the bullfight world don't know much about it at all," said Jimee Petrich, president of Los Aficionados de Los Angeles, the oldest bullfight club, which was founded in 1949 and now meets monthly on Olvera Street.
Some of the amateurs practicing in Griffith Park on weekends became interested in bullfighting as children. Torres' father used to take him to bullfights in Mexico on his motorcycle, starting when Torres was about 3. David Aguilar, 74, lived steps away from a ring in Mexico. Paco Iniga, 55, saw his first bullfight in his native Ecuador when he was 7 and once sold his algebra book to pay for a bullfight ticket.
But Kate Leffler discovered bullfighting as an adult. The San Francisco artist, who attended a Griffith Park practice this summer, started bullfighting because she wanted to paint fights and found her drawings lifeless.
Early accounts suggest that Angelenos began attending bullfights, or corridas, at an area near downtown that was fenced off for the spectacle in the early 19th century. By 1849 a permanent bullring had been constructed on Calle del Toro, now North Hill Street, on the current site of Pacific Alliance Medical Center in Chinatown. The weekly L.A. Star periodically reported gorings.
Not everyone agrees on the nature of the 19th century bouts, however. Early L.A. chronicler Horace Bell, writing in 1881, described an area bullfight with some of the trappings of a modern event: glittering outfits and specialized bullfighters. Other historians argue that Los Angeles bullfights probably were far less elaborate and perhaps milder, more akin to bull baiting, with the animals rarely being killed.
Bullfighting that harms a bull was outlawed in California after it became a state, though Portuguese -- or bloodless -- bullfights still take place as part of religious festivals. In the 1980s, Los Aficionados de Los Angeles installed a plaque on Olvera Street commemorating L.A.'s early bullfights, and the club keeps talk of bullfighting alive with monthly meetings at El Paseo Inn, where members watch bullfighting films or hear speakers.
The club is one of 12 in the country and three in California, including one in Chula Vista and another in San Francisco, and has 150 members.
"I grew up going to bullfights like you would go to a ballgame," said Dolores Merino Hofert, the club's executive vice president, who grew up in Mexico and said she saw her first bullfight when she was 2. "I've always loved it. I've always gone."
Rosita Morales, another member, was a professional bullfighter for nine years in Mexico. Tom Shea, 78, started going regularly to bullfights in Tijuana as a college student at USC. ("Aside from an SC football game, it was the thing to do on Sunday.") Mike Schaefer, now a lawyer, was living in San Diego when he first went to Tijuana to see a bullfight in his early 20s and liked it just enough to go back -- then was hooked.
Club member Charlcie Zavala, meanwhile, hated the first bullfight she saw. But after reading more about the tradition, she came around, she said, and eventually co-founded a bullfight club in Texas, where she used to live. Now when Zavala and her husband vacation in Spain, France and Mexico, they sometimes see three bullfights, or 18 individual bouts, a day.
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/22/local/me-bullfighting22
City's rich bullfighting history includes a club, practice sessions and a noted book collection.
Ready to charge Bill Torres at Griffith Park on a Saturday afternoon is a man clutching a bar barbed with two bull's horns. Torres, 65, holds his ground, feet together.
"Hey, toro, toro, toro, hey," Torres teases. His adversary, Mario Orlando, 43, of Hawthorne rushes at a cape Torres is holding, turning the horns toward the cape as Torres skillfully maneuvers it out of the way. Orlando returns for pass after pass, and Torres sends him by with a series of practiced flourishes of the cape.
"Mario does the animal excellent," Torres said later.
Torres isn't a bad bull himself. "I do the snorting sometimes," he said, and he is also careful to act as if he has four feet and a lumbering body when he takes the horns.
Practices like this one have gone on for more than three decades at Griffith Park and generally draw half a dozen aficionados practicos, or amateur bullfighters, swishing capes and brandishing dummy swords.
Practicing in the tradition of matadors worldwide, some of the Saturday bullfighters are preparing to fight real bulls in festivals in Mexico or for visits to ranches where they practice with cows. Others come to watch or just to stay involved in a pastime from their youth.
On Saturday, bullfighting enthusiasts will gather at a ring in Artesia for a "bloodless bullfight," one of about two held each year. In a colorful ritual expected to draw more than a thousand spectators, two bullfighters will face a total of six bulls, but instead of using lances to weaken the bull and spearing it with decorated banderillas, fighters will brandish sticks with Velcro on one end and try to attach them to a Velcro pad on the charging bull.
The Saturday sessions and this weekend's event aren't the only bullfighting Los Angeles has in its history.
Early Angelenos built a bullfight ring steps away from present-day downtown before the fledgling state of California outlawed the spectacle. The city boasts one of the oldest bullfight clubs in the nation. And a collection of 1,700 books on bullfighting at the Central Library is believed to be the largest in the United States. Still, few people are aware of the city's bullfight history, say aficionados.
"Most people I run into away from the bullfight world don't know much about it at all," said Jimee Petrich, president of Los Aficionados de Los Angeles, the oldest bullfight club, which was founded in 1949 and now meets monthly on Olvera Street.
Some of the amateurs practicing in Griffith Park on weekends became interested in bullfighting as children. Torres' father used to take him to bullfights in Mexico on his motorcycle, starting when Torres was about 3. David Aguilar, 74, lived steps away from a ring in Mexico. Paco Iniga, 55, saw his first bullfight in his native Ecuador when he was 7 and once sold his algebra book to pay for a bullfight ticket.
But Kate Leffler discovered bullfighting as an adult. The San Francisco artist, who attended a Griffith Park practice this summer, started bullfighting because she wanted to paint fights and found her drawings lifeless.
Early accounts suggest that Angelenos began attending bullfights, or corridas, at an area near downtown that was fenced off for the spectacle in the early 19th century. By 1849 a permanent bullring had been constructed on Calle del Toro, now North Hill Street, on the current site of Pacific Alliance Medical Center in Chinatown. The weekly L.A. Star periodically reported gorings.
Not everyone agrees on the nature of the 19th century bouts, however. Early L.A. chronicler Horace Bell, writing in 1881, described an area bullfight with some of the trappings of a modern event: glittering outfits and specialized bullfighters. Other historians argue that Los Angeles bullfights probably were far less elaborate and perhaps milder, more akin to bull baiting, with the animals rarely being killed.
Bullfighting that harms a bull was outlawed in California after it became a state, though Portuguese -- or bloodless -- bullfights still take place as part of religious festivals. In the 1980s, Los Aficionados de Los Angeles installed a plaque on Olvera Street commemorating L.A.'s early bullfights, and the club keeps talk of bullfighting alive with monthly meetings at El Paseo Inn, where members watch bullfighting films or hear speakers.
The club is one of 12 in the country and three in California, including one in Chula Vista and another in San Francisco, and has 150 members.
"I grew up going to bullfights like you would go to a ballgame," said Dolores Merino Hofert, the club's executive vice president, who grew up in Mexico and said she saw her first bullfight when she was 2. "I've always loved it. I've always gone."
Rosita Morales, another member, was a professional bullfighter for nine years in Mexico. Tom Shea, 78, started going regularly to bullfights in Tijuana as a college student at USC. ("Aside from an SC football game, it was the thing to do on Sunday.") Mike Schaefer, now a lawyer, was living in San Diego when he first went to Tijuana to see a bullfight in his early 20s and liked it just enough to go back -- then was hooked.
Club member Charlcie Zavala, meanwhile, hated the first bullfight she saw. But after reading more about the tradition, she came around, she said, and eventually co-founded a bullfight club in Texas, where she used to live. Now when Zavala and her husband vacation in Spain, France and Mexico, they sometimes see three bullfights, or 18 individual bouts, a day.
To get their bullfighting fix, many club members take frequent trips to Tijuana's two bullfighting rings, where officials and some of the matadors are their friends. Others plan visits to Spain, France and Latin American countries where bullfighting is more common. And many surround themselves with bullfight memorabilia in their homes.
One of the club's early members, George B. Smith, was a Los Angeles schoolteacher. He took collecting bullfighting material so seriously that James Michener, writing in his novel "Iberia," noted that the collection Smith amassed was "what many call the finest library of its kind in the United States." Margaret Sewell, 85, his niece, remembered her uncle's frequent trips to Spain and Mexico and his collection taking over his small downtown apartment.
"There were books lining the hallways, there were books in the kitchen, there were books on the back porch. Every room was full of books," Sewell said. "Even in the bathroom."
Before he died in 1986, Smith donated his bullfighting books and other memorabilia to the Central Library. Now, the collection's 1,700 books -- about 950 of which are in Spanish -- take up about a fifth of the library's appointment-only rare books room and about a tenth of the library's rare books collection. Knickknacks collected by Smith are displayed in glass-fronted cabinets.
Daniel Dupill, who oversees the library's rare books room, said he receives eight to 10 requests a year to use the collection's books, the oldest of which is from 1747.
Each volume contains Smith's bookplate: "George B. Smith, Biblioteca Taurina," or bullfighting library.
Aficionados, however, say book knowledge of bullfighting goes only so far. "You could talk about bullfighting for forever and a day," says Bill Torres. "But there's nothing like doing it."
One of the club's early members, George B. Smith, was a Los Angeles schoolteacher. He took collecting bullfighting material so seriously that James Michener, writing in his novel "Iberia," noted that the collection Smith amassed was "what many call the finest library of its kind in the United States." Margaret Sewell, 85, his niece, remembered her uncle's frequent trips to Spain and Mexico and his collection taking over his small downtown apartment.
"There were books lining the hallways, there were books in the kitchen, there were books on the back porch. Every room was full of books," Sewell said. "Even in the bathroom."
Before he died in 1986, Smith donated his bullfighting books and other memorabilia to the Central Library. Now, the collection's 1,700 books -- about 950 of which are in Spanish -- take up about a fifth of the library's appointment-only rare books room and about a tenth of the library's rare books collection. Knickknacks collected by Smith are displayed in glass-fronted cabinets.
Daniel Dupill, who oversees the library's rare books room, said he receives eight to 10 requests a year to use the collection's books, the oldest of which is from 1747.
Each volume contains Smith's bookplate: "George B. Smith, Biblioteca Taurina," or bullfighting library.
Aficionados, however, say book knowledge of bullfighting goes only so far. "You could talk about bullfighting for forever and a day," says Bill Torres. "But there's nothing like doing it."
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August 15, 2014
Running of Bulls Is Risky, but Liability Is Low
(by Marc Lacey nytimes.com 10-5-11)
As Hemingway pointed out, sprinting ahead of a herd of snarling bulls certainly makes the
Phil Immordino, who organized three bull runs in Nevada and Arizona a decade ago modeled on
Mr. Immordino expects hundreds of runners to sprint along a quarter-mile track while being pursued by dozens of 1,500-pound rodeo bulls with names like Blood Money and Dooms Day. Also expected are animal rights activists, who take a dim view of an event they find cruel on its face.
Before anyone runs, though, he or she is required to sign, and then sign some more.
“We have a seven-page waiver, and they need to initial every paragraph and every page,” said Mr. Immordino, a Phoenix native who also organizes
Betsy Grey, an expert on tort law at the
Mr. Immordino said he and others involved in the run had plenty of insurance in case anything went awry. He has $1 million in coverage, he said, and the owner of the private land where he will run the bulls has another million. The owner of the bulls has additional insurance and the landowner has liability insurance on his property as well, he added. Just in case, there will be paramedics and rodeo clowns at the ready and escape routes are in place along the route to allow runners to veer away from bulls that get too close.
Town officials had initially approved a special-event permit allowing Mr. Immordino to move forward with the running, so long as he came up with $5 million in insurance. That figure was lowered to $3 million. When the town and the promoter could not reach agreement on the level of insurance coverage, Cave Creek withdrew the permit but allowed the spectacle to go ahead on private property and told Mr. Immordino that he would be liable should anything occur.
“I think whenever you mix bulls and humans in this kind of setting we have enough evidence from Spain that there can be problems,” said Vincent Francia, Cave Creek’s mayor. “I will hold my breath until it’s over.”
Organizers are more optimistic.
“We’re covered,” said Mr. Immordino, who is busy preparing the bull run, which will begin Oct. 14 and continue through Oct. 16. “We’ve never even had a sniff of a claim against us.”
That is not to say there have not been mishaps in his three previous efforts to bring a Spanish tradition that goes back centuries to the American West.
Mr. Immordino was arrested in 1998 after he failed to get proper permission to hold a bull run in northwestern Arizona, just across the Nevada line. In 1999, heavy rain kept crowds away from a bull run in Mesquite, Nev. In 2002, in
Actual participants have fared better. Nobody has been gored, although video of the 2002 run shows one runner crumpled in the dirt with his arms over his head as bulls jump over him. Mr. Immordino said that the bulls he uses were less aggressive and have duller horns than the ones that run along the cobblestone streets of Pamplona, where the running of the bulls was immortalized by
Running of the Bull, American Style (i.e., Tame)
(by Frank Bruni nytimes.com 7-12-98)
Pumped up by the sort of foolishness that flourishes at bachelor parties as nowhere else, Jim Hamill and several buddies interrupted their weekend-long debauchery in Las Vegas to drive about an hour northeast to a dusty ranch here for what they expected to be the wildest, craziest adventure imaginable.
Along with more than 600 other people, they entered a long, narrow pen this morning to be chased by, and run with, massive bulls weighing up to 1,500 pounds, an event meant to evoke the violent, sometimes lethal rampage every July in the streets of Pamplona, Spain. Mr. Hamill said he had figured it would be good for a flood of sweet adrenaline. But he was forced to make do with a trickle.
''It wasn't exactly what I expected,'' Mr. Hamill, a Los Angeles police officer, conceded moments after his brush with the bulls was over. ''One minute the bulls were behind us, then they were gone. You couldn't really even see them through the dust.''
After all the chest thumping by promoters and hand wringing by animal welfare advocates, all the swaggering by those who planned to participate and gawking by those who stormed the sidelines to watch, the first ''Running of the Bulls'' in the United States was a relatively tame spectacle, less bloody rampage than bizarre promenade.
August 14, 2014
The Last Matador
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2012-09/13/juan-jose-padilla-matador-bullfighting-interview
(by Alexander Fiske-Harrison gq-magazine.co.uk 9-13-12)
Spain's financial crisis and animal-rights activists are sending the bullfight spiralling into decline. Enter Juan José Padilla. GQ finds out how one man become an icon for the Spanish fighting spirit...
Juan José Padilla was the first matador I met while researching my book Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight (£15.99, Profile Books). He was also by my side (and saved my skin more than once) when I took my first steps into the ring for the controversial closing section of the book, which ended in me killing a bull myself.
Still, I wasn't too concerned for his safety. Padilla has been seriously injured 26 times by bulls. In 2001, he was carried from the Pamplona bullring by his team after a Miura bull slid its horn clean through his neck, piercing his oesophagus. Two weeks later he was carried in triumph from the bullring in Santander on the shoulders of the crowd.
In Spain, his homeland, Padilla is famous as a killer of the bulls other matadors won't fight, especially the strain that is bred on the ranch of the Miura family, Zahariche, 40 miles outside Seville.
Known provocatively as the "Bulls of Death", Miuras have killed more bullfighters than any other variety. When Ferruccio Lamborghini, then a tractor billionaire, was searching for inspiration to outmatch Enzo Ferrari's sports cars in the early Sixties, he found it at Zahariche. Awed by the ferocity, power and agility of the bulls, he named his first mid-engine two-seater the Lamborghini Miura and took a fighting bull as his badge to rival the Ferrari's "prancing horse". When I say that Padilla's dining room in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on the coast has six Miura heads displayed triumphantly above the place settings - all of which he killed in a single afternoon in Bilbao in 2001 - you get an idea of the man.
Here's what I saw: Padilla - at the centre of the arena - was placing the multi-coloured sticks with their barbed points, the banderillas, in the second "third" of the bullfight. Nowadays, most matadors don't place their own banderillas, delegating the task to their assistants. However, Padilla is Padilla. This time, though, somewhere around umpteenth time he must have performed this particular move, something went badly wrong. He tripped.
Running past the bull, a foot tapped an ankle and he was down, the bull on him like a vengeful, snorting locomotive - all coiled black muscle channelled down into a point the circumference of Louboutin stiletto; like an iron skip balanced on a nail. Crunch. The horn entered under Padilla's left ear, cracking the skull, ripping the auditory nerve, and then into the jaw, smashing through both sets of molars, exploding his cheekbone as surely as a rifle bullet and coming out through the socket of his left eye. If you can stomach to even look at the images (let alone the YouTube video), just be pleased the tragedy was all over in a matter of seconds.
His team took the bull off him; distracting the animal's resurgent aggression with their bright capes. Padilla, astonishingly, got up. He was holding half his face in his right hand. Cheek, jawbone and eyeball, like the contents of a butcher's bin, rested in his upturned palm as he walked towards the edge of the ring. "I can't see, I can't see," repeated the fighter. As he walked out, the 42-year-old's legs, unsurprisingly, buckled - blood loss and nervous shock eventually getting the better of his breathtaking machismo. He was rushed to the ring's infirmary and from there out into the city of Zaragoza and to the Miguel Servet Hospital. By now the entire nation was following the sirens.
A team of expert surgeons - general, trauma, plastic and nerve-specialists who usually work on face transplants - worked desperately to try to piece together the skull with titanium, prevent the loss of the eyeball, prevent infections from a horn wound so close to the brain, and generally stop Padilla from flatlining. They succeeded. Just. Although he came away with his life, what Padilla had lost was 15kg of his usual 70, his left eye and the mobility in the left side of his face - and that was just the physical injuries.
More miracles were to come: ten days after this horrific accident, the unthinkable happened. Wheeled out by his bullfighting and medical teams, Padilla announced to the attending press that he would be returning to the ring. He couldn't walk, couldn't eat, and could only half-see, half-hear and half-speak, but what he said was that he was coming back. Back into the ring. Back to fight the bulls. It was only then that I knew I had to be there with him.
When I was younger, like you, probably, I thought I'd hate bullfights. I was a member of the WWF and read biology at university. However, the first bullfight I saw - in Seville in 2000 - was an unusually good one, drawing me to identify with the courage, skill and art of the man, rather than the injury and death of the bull. (I saw it as a dance in which the man lures the bull to run past him - hence corrida de toros, "running of bulls" - until he is ready to kill it.)
Men have been proving themselves against bulls for at least as long as they have been painting on cave walls. Those bulls were aurochs, the great horned ancestor of all domestic cattle. The most aggressive of its descendants is the Spanish fighting bull, the toro bravo.
The corrida was originally a form of jousting, with the mounted knight sending a servant on the ground to finish the animal off, the matador, or "killer". But as its popularity grew in the 18th century, the spectacle became dominated by the matador and today it is he who first greets the untouched bull, full of fight and fury, with the large magenta cape so synonymous with the sport. He then deploys a knight, or rather picador, to show the bull's ferocity and strength by letting it charge the armoured horse and its rider's lance.
In the old days, the matador would then place the banderillas (barbed spears) in the bull to show his athletic prowess - Padilla and a few others still do. Finally, the matador takes up the more famous, smaller red cape - the muleta - and the sword and enters the ring to dance with this bull - which has been "diminished" for just this reason - allowing him to bring the bull so close it seems impossible he won't be caught. Then, he crosses the horns of the bull with the sword to kill it.
Let's not get too romantic here; this is clearly not a sport, and there is no "winning". Well, certainly not for the bulls. If the matador gets killed or injured it is a mistake, another matador kills the animal. But mistakes do happen. Five-hundred-and-thirty-three notable professional toreros have been killed by bulls in the past three centuries, and that's just the famous ones. Of course, modern medicine has reduced the frequency of this to practically zero, but the injuries still occur - as Padilla's horrific case proves.
Animal-rights activists might argue that it's a question of context, that bullfighting is - whichever way you puff it up - nevertheless the unnecessary and bloody death of a terrified, goaded animal merely for the artistry and enjoyment of others. Supporters merely counter: is tradition no longer necessary? Is art no longer necessary?
In 2007, there were 2,622 bullfights in Spain. In 1932, the year Ernest Hemingway published the bullfight aficionado's bible, Death In The Afternoon - called so as the majority of bullfights take place after lunch - there were only 1,089. Since then, however, the sport seems to have gone into a steep decline. Certainly up until very recently, and depending on whether you live in rural Spain or not, any mention that you might be keen to witness a fight yourself seemed catastrophic for one's social and moral standing in the modern world.
In October 2008, in a statement to the Spanish Congress, Luis Fernández, the president of Spanish state broadcaster RTVE, confirmed that the station would no longer broadcast live bullfights - citing a loss of advertising and the impact of violence on minors. This broadcast tradition dates back as far as the invention of the colour television, so this was an unprecedented win for the animal rights groups.
Even more radical change was afoot. At the end of 2011, bullfights were banned in Catalonia. The regional capital, Barcelona, is Spain's second city, and the closure of its ring La Monumental was a serious blow to bullfighting aficionados. In fact, the official figures show that the number of bullfights across Spain have fallen by a third since 2007 - from 2,622 five years ago to 1,724 in 2010. Many believe this decline mirrors the start and longevity of Europe's financial crisis - bullfighting coming under pressure in Spain because of public-subsidy cuts.
But come 2012 and something is stirring amid the ranks of matadors and the lovers of the bullfight. What's clear is that such staunch defenders of tradition are not going to give up their beloved arenas quietly - they've been scrapping for their livelihoods for centuries, after all. Over the last 12 months there's been a shift, if not in the ever-diminishing figures, then certainly in the mood.
A growing list of Spanish, French and South American cities and regions have started to formally declare their celebrations of bullfights part of their protected cultural patrimony. In France, for example, in small towns such as Béziers, found along the border with Spain that also has bullrings, the ADDA (Asociación Defensa Derechos Animal) says that the French government has categorised bullfighting as an "intangible cultural heritage" - a lead followed quickly by the cities of Madrid and Murcia in Spain.
Not only this, but those who rely on the profession financially are also looking to the UNESCO Bullfighting Project to protect their livelihoods and cultural heritage - in short a lobbying group that aims to place bullfighting under UNESCO protection using the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. If this happens - a big if - and bullfighting is shielded by UNESCO, animal-rights activists are deeply concerned that supporters of sealing, whaling and cockfighting may well try a similar approach to safeguard their industries.
Today, there are those in Spain who think the ban in places like Catalonia and the Canary Islands could well be overturned. And soon. In March this year, the Confederation of Bullfighting Professionals turned in 590,000 2012 signatures on a petition to protect bullfighting as an "asset of cultural interest"; a petition that also demanded the ban be overruled and the sport be reinstated.
What's more significant (and more worrying for the likes of PETA, who campaign tirelessly for bullfighting to be abolished in its entirety) is that the current Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is an ardent supporter of bullfighting. He, too, signed the petition to protect and reinstate bullfighting in places such as Catalonia; a sentiment supported by the reigning conservative People's Party.
As Spain's financial woes keep unemployment up - despite a recent £80m bailout plan - politicians are looking to bullfighting's working-class heritage to instil in voters a sense of nationalistic pride, hard-fought nowadays in a country split by its economic debt. It seems to be working. Earlier this year, the people of Guijo de Galisteo, a small town in western Spain, voted to turn their back on austerity and use the £12,000 cash pot collected by the town hall to hire bulls for their summer festivities later this year, rather than to pay local people to carry out odd jobs about the municipality.
So what of Juan José Padilla? How does the ageing, one-eyed matador fit into Spain's broader picture? Well, for many, Padilla - after announcing his injury-defying return to the ring - has somehow become symbolic of bullfighting's predicament in its homeland. And perhaps its last hope.
Could Padilla - a man from humble beginnings whose feats have been so defined and so adored by the sport and who cheated death in the arena - face down all the odds and rise again triumphantly, lifting bullfighting back into favour, and back into the hearts and minds of those countrymen who once loved the spectacle?
Some believe that if anyone can, Padilla can. For some, Padilla's return to the ring has become less about one man's personal victory, and more a symbol of Spain's integral survival. No pressure, then.
Seville, 2 March 2012 (Morning)
I arrive in Spain's southern capital two days before Padilla's projected comeback and drive the 60 miles south to his home. It is good to see Padilla again in the flesh, but when we embrace, it's a shock to feel each individual rib. However, I note that his arms are still hard with wiry muscle: there is steel there as well as bone. Interviews aren't Padilla's strong point, as he quickly points out: "Too much press, before a fight it is bad. Press after a fight is good." He can certainly feel the world's gaze; his comeback has even made the front page of the New York Times this morning.
We talk at a private bar at the end of his garden, which has a sign outside that reads: "Here... there are no problems." Last time we were there, we practically rolled out. Padilla remembers: "Good memories. I have not drunk since the accident. We will drink here again soon."
I notice that when Padilla talks, his gruff voice is harder to understand than normal - half his face barely moves. I begin by asking about his family: "Lydia [his wife] and the children are good. Paloma [his daughter] is learning English. You remember Paloma, you met her at the festival at Cazalla de la Sierra." I nod, remembering a little girl drawing in the corner of a hotel room. At the time, Padilla was lying almost naked on a bed as his wife rubbed liniment into his scarred body before a bullfight. Are they happy about Padilla fighting again? "My children say I am a bullfighter.
What else would I do?" When he was young, Padilla was apprenticed to his baker father, baking loaves late at night to pay for bullfighting school. Now he supports his family. "Lydia knew I would return to the ring from the beginning. She was for it. She was the only one. My parents, though, they were very unhappy."
I notice Padilla is now talking more clearly and I see why: he is pressing a fingertip just above the side of his mouth, holding the lip clear of his teeth. I ask him what it is like to get back in the training ring since his injury - is there a difference? "Nothing. There is no difference." I'm a little sceptical, but there's no drawing him: "Everything was the same from the moment I went into the ring." It is well known that with only one eye, a man's perception of depth is seriously skewed, but Padilla is quick to cut off any doubt as to his ability: "It doesn't matter," he says, firmly. I sense I should move on. Is he happy, himself, to be back in the ring? "Yes. And I am grateful, grateful to be back." And what of his memories of the injury? "I have always known, as a Christian, that suffering is a part of glory." The south of Spain, Andalucia, is Catholic enough to make Rome look agnostic. "I have had many important afternoons with the bulls, many triumphs, and I have suffered many wounds. This is a part of bullfighting; its other face."
Padilla tells me about the injury that he suffered on 7 October last year; was he afraid when it happened? "Yes, for my children, for my wife, for my family, I was very afraid at that moment. Also, remember, I could not see out of either eye at that moment. I could hear the silence of the audience, the bull moving elsewhere in the ring, and the voice of my team calling to me. I could hear the danger in their voices. I could hear their horror."
And your thoughts in the infirmary, the hospital? "My thoughts were with God, because I knew I was in great danger, and I wanted to come back, and to come back to bullfight." Did you think you might die? "Yes, because I could tell the doctors thought I was dying." Was he afraid? "Yes, only because I do not want to leave my wife on her own, I do not want to leave my children on their own. I feel no resentment to the bull or to my profession. I have been given many successes, many moments of glory by the bulls. How could I resent that? But I did feel a great pain, and a sense of loss."
Despite Padilla's iron-fisted machismo, the recovery and the rehabilitation have clearly been tough: "Yes, especially the face, which was paralysed - to reactivate, to reanimate, to re-educate it - and to do that for four hours a day, whilst going to train on the ranches in the afternoons with the cattle, that has been very hard." His fans have helped: "Amazing. The whole of Spain rose up with this Twitter campaign, #fuerzpadilla ['Strength Padilla']."
Padilla, as you might expect, isn't on Twitter, but shows me a book containing thousands of tweets, chosen from hundreds of thousands, which someone has compiled especially for the bullfighter.
Many of these celebratory tweets speak of him as their hero. "No. This was a mistake. Scars are not medals, they are the marks of mistakes. That is all."
I ask him if he will have any limitations once back in the ring; whether he will be taking any precautions that perhaps he didn't take before the accident. "No, my profession does not permit limits, it does not permit precautions."
And with that, I end the interview. I can see he has grown tired.
Why men fight bulls in Spain is an "Everest question": because they are there. Every bar in Andalucia has a bull's head on the wall; even roadside cafés are littered with photos of matadors. In Padilla's house there are no fewer than 30 bulls' heads on the wall. In one room there is a long cabinet whose top overflows with trophies, while underneath are a dozen "suits of lights" (traje de luces) behind glass, each worn at a defining moment in his career: his alternativa when he became a full matador, his triumphs in Madrid, Pamplona, Seville. I ask him his favourite, and he takes out the plainest one there. No bright cloth, no gold embroidery.
"My wedding suit," he smiles.
As we finish up, his children arrive back from school, Paloma, now nine, and Martín, aged five. They try out their broken English on me as he plays with them, a tender and affectionate father. I leave him in peace in his last days before he has to face the blood and thunder again.
Vejer de la Fronter, 2 March 2012 (Afternoon)
From Padilla's house, I drive 50 miles further south to the farm of the Núñez del Cuvillo family who have bred the bulls for this particular fight, trying to gauge just how daunting a task this is set to be for Padilla.
Álvaro Núñez shows me the six bulls relaxing in their paddock, having been brought in from the 7,000 acres of wild pasture. In the background I can make out some of the other 2,000 cattle in herds among the oak-stubbled hills.
It is this that quietens my doubts about the brutality of killing cattle in this way. Ranches have one third the number of cattle per acre a British farm has. It is a wild landscape, tree-shaded against the Andalucian sun - a nature reserve. Of the six million acres of Spanish dehesa - wooded wilderness - around a fifth is on bull ranches. The bulls look good: well-developed and strong with long, arching horns. Two of them were for Padilla - drawn by lot on the day - the other four for the two matadors alternating with him. The bulls lounge in the shade, half-ton fighters with two blades apiece, secure after five years training on each other. Ready for transport, they are the only ones in the paddock who don't have plaster casts on their horns to prevent them from killing each other. But soon those grazing bulls will be in the arena, ready to face a matador.
Olivenze, 4 March 2012 (Evening)
Having followed the bulls 230 miles north to the Portuguese border, I am in the packed bullring and the crowd's excitement is like nothing I have witnessed before. When Padilla walks in at the head of his team, in a green suit of lights stitched with a gladiator's laurel leaves in gold, 6,000 people rise to applaud him - mainly for just turning up.
Padilla is up first as the most senior matador - he has "worn the gold" for 18 years - and watches from behind the barrier. The first bull is 480kg of jet-black danger, moving warily as it exits the "Gates of Fear". Then it sees something move and it charges, attacking the barrier with its horns, sending splinters flying.
Padilla walks towards the bull, cape in both hands, meets it with his legs locked straight, back arched like a dancer and slowly sweeps the cape, with the bull attached to it as though by glue, through three perfect veronicas, the fabric brushing the animal's face on each pass. With each pass, it comes closer, and with each pass the crowd shout olé, and he ends, fixing it on the spot with a half-veronica before walking calmly away, his back to the bull.
When we come to the banderillas, everyone wonders whether Padilla will place his own. Remember: he has no depth perception after the injury and it involves sprinting at the bull. Despite this, he places all three pairs to crescendos of applause.
The trumpets blow for the final act of this dark drama and Padilla takes up the muleta and his sword. He flicks the end of the red cloth at the bull and draws it towards him, luring it past him, so that the horns glide harmlessly by. He pivots on his feet and sends another ripple down the fabric. Again the bull charges past, again Padilla turns, and now the olés are coming with each pass as he twists and dances, the vast muscles thundering around him in pursuit of the muleta, the man standing implacable and upright, besieged by a plunging and bewildered death.
Soon the bull, tiring rapidly, refuses to charge and stands its ground. It wants this enemy to come to it.
Padilla accepts the invitation, aiming down the blade of his sword in his right hand, and pushing the muleta forward with his left. The bull rears at the lure, while the man charges the bull. This is called "the moment of truth". The curved sword point strikes between the bull's ribs to the left of the spine and bites down, its trajectory towards the aorta. Padilla swerves away from the horns at the last second. Within a minute, the bull keels over, crashing to the sand. Padilla salutes it. The crowd are on their feet, white handkerchiefs out, petitioning the president of the plaza for a trophy for their hero, and he is given it: an ear of the bull.
Padilla is victorious, and more importantly alive. After the other two matadors kill their first bulls, each dedicating their animal to Padilla, he greets his second bull on his knees and goes on to give not only a better display of his profession than earlier, but the greatest he has given in his career, earning yet another ear.
The other two matadors fight brilliantly, but it is Padilla alone who is swept up to tour the ring on the shoulders of the crowd. Then I see that it is not the crowd, but other bullfighters. An entire profession is holding him up so that an entire nation can applaud him. That night Padilla is on every news channel; come the morning he will be on the front page of every newspaper. When I meet him at the hotel afterwards, he has tears in his eyes.
So Padilla is not dead, and neither is bullfighting. Well, not amid the heat, the roars, the spilt red blood and yellow crushed rock. Not dead. Not here. Not yet.
August 11, 2014
Bullfighting In Spain Stays Alive Despite Regional Ban
(by Lauren Frayer npr.org 9-28-11)
But it's a different story elsewhere in Spain. While relatively few Spaniards are real aficionados of bullfighting, many more see it as a national tradition and don't want it banned.
On a recent day, Antonio Gutierrez and his friends puff on cigars and shuffle dominoes on a folding table near Madrid's famed Las Ventas bullring. They're a bit suspicious of a foreigner asking about bullfights.
"Bullfighting is very, very good. OK?" says Gutierrez.
Regional Conflict
They start cursing what they call "uppity Catalans," accusing Barcelona — the capital of Catalonia — of turning the world against bullfighting.
"Bullfighting is the history of Spain. It's the tradition in Spain. Barcelona is anti-bullfight, because it's anti-Spain," Gutierrez explains.
In other words, he thinks Catalonia's ban on bullfighting is mostly about politics and nationalism. The Catalan language and culture were repressed during the nearly 40-year military dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
Since democracy, Catalan nationalists have sought to cast off all things Castilian — referring to Spain's central, and more conservative, heartland.
But bullfighting is alive and well in Madrid. Ionela Olteanu gives tours at the Las Ventas ring.
"For us, it's an art. It's combination of an artistic part and a technical part. And it's very important, this tradition," Olteanu says.
Bullfighting on foot began as a peasant game and morphed into something regal — a source of national pride, says Ricardo Perez, cuddling with his girlfriend on a bench near the bullring. It's what he was raised with — even if it is a bit bloody, he says. He respects it and thinks it should not be banned.
"I don't like that people kill bulls, but I respect it. I think it should be legal," Perez says.
Economic Challenges
It's true that attendance at bullfights is down nationwide — from 2,622 in 2007 to 1,724 in 2010, a drop of about one-third. Alexander Fiske-Harrison is a British aficionado who writes about bullfighting. Speaking from his home in London, he blames Spain's economic crisis for bullfighting's decline.
"Bullfighting has fallen off as the economy has collapsed, because it's an expensive hobby. People can't afford the tickets, and people can't afford the bulls," he says.
The bad economy even affects the quality of bulls that breeders bring to the ring.
Paco Mateo is a black-clad, chain-smoking writer. With his dark beard, he seems to be channeling another famous bullfighting writer, Ernest Hemingway, as he sits brooding at a cafe near the Plaza de Toros.
"In the world of bullfighting, there's much corruption, he says. The people killing the bulls aren't the fighters, it's those who are trying to save money because of the crisis, he says, adding that the companies are rotting the game.
When the bulls are weak or listless, and the matador has to goad them into fighting — that, he says, is when the sport looks most cruel.
A Complex Love-Hate Relationship
Many younger Spaniards, like Elisabeth Barcelo, don't see any romance in bullfighting.
"Bulls are not aware of what they do, but people are. So I don't like it. It's torturing an animal. It doesn't make any sense to me," she says.
Barcelo leans up against a bus stop plastered with an Armani ad. The hunky model on the poster is a famous bullfighter. And that's the paradox of bullfighting in modern Spain: The younger generation calls it murder, but still sees matadors as style icons.
The British aficionado, Fiske-Harrison, trained as a bullfighter himself.
"I think there will be an ongoing conflict between the animal rights and animal welfare lobby on the one side, and the pro-bullfighting lobby on the other. It's very hard to see it actually dying out completely, though."
Meanwhile, Madrid's bullring hosts half a dozen fights this weekend. Out of 24,000 seats, 20,000 tickets have already been sold.
August 9, 2014
La Ermita restaurant at the Granada plaza de toros
This looks like it would be a wonderful place to go eat and get a feel of the authentice Fiesta Brava.
I would love to spend an afternoon here, maybe one day I will.
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