Uriel Moreno

Plaza de Toros Oriente, 16 September 2012

Uriel Moreno

Plaza de Toros Oriente on 16 September 2012 at 7:00:27 p.m.

Plaza de Toros Oriente

Mirafuentes de Anda

La 3ª Novillada en San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. 10 agosto 2012.

Plaza de Toros Oriente

Uriel "El Zapata" Moreno

Uriel "El Zapata" Moreno in the moment of truth. His colleagues on the afternoon card, Juan Luis Silis farthest left and Antonio "El Chihuahua" Garcia center right, are watching. Plaza de Toros Oriente on 16 September 2012.

Food for the Poor

Sides of beef for the poor outside Plaza de Toros Oriente after the corrida at 8:36 p.m. on 16 September 2012. It is only another abattoir. A little more tricked out than the others is all.

Sunday Afternoon

Antonio "El Chihuahua" García
Plaza de Toros Oriente, 16 September 2012, 5:54 p.m.

Plaza de Toros Oriente in August

The Corrida

Preface to the Corrida [From the Archive]

 Lascaux Cave Painting, Approximately 12,000 B.C.

Reluctantly, I have had to admit to myself that it is necessary to explain further several seemingly unrelated things. I am calling this a preface. I have no idea what to call the last entry. A foreward?

The Corrida [From the Archives]

Anything capable of arousing passion in its favor will surely raise as much passion against it. --Ernest Hemingway.

I have been writing a piece without any intention of posting it here in my blog. I simply wanted to record an extraordinary Sunday afternoon at the bull ring while it was still fresh in my memory. It was the competitive end to a series of corridas in the days leading up the biggest fiesta here, La Alborada. Perhaps I will leave it with the many other private things that I I have written that will not be published in a blog or anywhere else, for that matter.

The Baffled Dilettante

New Year's Eve

Sunset after La Corrida: New Year's Eve, 2009.

Testing. Testing. One. Two. Three.

There is always ten percent who do not get the word. Today I was among that ten percent. The event today at the ring was not a corrida. I thought it was strange that a corrida would be staged at noon on a Monday. But then I thought, “What the hell do I know? This is México. I don't know anything for sure about México.”

A Statement of Intent--I Mean It--I Really Do--I Am Going to Get This Done.

Two things have conspired to cause me to paw over memories as only old men can paw over memories. The first is that I am going to the corrida again tomorrow.

This will be the first time that I have ever attended one in cool weather. It will be different, perhaps drastically so. Tickets are sold in three main groups: sombre or “shade,” which are the most expensive; sol y sombre, or “sun and shade,” which are middling expensive; and sol, “sun,” which are cheap.

For the first corrida that I ever attended, I sprang for the sombre tickets. Never again. It was a typically turista thing to do, and there they were. All moderately to severely drunk. . . . Let me not be too condemnatory there. I, too, have attended drunk. Let us be clear about that. . . .But there also will be the self-appointed aficianado explaining the difference between the picador and his horse to the women. There will also usually take place the obligatory discussion of the morality of the thing. In loud voices. Loud voices.

La Corrida

I am certainly not going to undertake a full disquisition on the morality of this spectacle. My own feelings concerning the matter, unlike my feeling about so many other things, have not changed one bit since I attended my first corrida 38 years ago in Pamplona, Spain. They are feelings of great ambivalence. This is a very close question for me. On Saturday I resolved the question the way I always do. They were going to conduct the corrida whether Steve Warbasse attended or not. So I decided to attend.

I may very fairly be accused of rationalizing my attendance, but here are just a few observations for what they are worth.