Beltane Emergence Moon
Le Plaza del Toros. When I sat down in the red and blue wooden seats, the heat from the sun was profound even though I had purchased a sombra seat. The tickets were sold sombra a sol. Beer vendors placed blue and gold buckets filled with ice and Dos Equis up the steep aisles of the Mexico City bull ring, more buckets on aisles closer to the ring, fewer on the ones further up. Another vendor had a long pole from which hung straw hats, mine sits now atop a bookcase over texts devoted to modernism and the enlightenment.
Supposing that the arena would be full early, I had come about an hour ahead of the march of the toreadors, but I was wrong. My seats, the ones in blue near the ring itself and on the sombra side, didn’t fill up until about 10 minutes before the music started.
4:30 pm “I have seen one kill. Took photos, felt my stomach turn and felt a fascination, too.”
“1st a few (two) go at el toro with capes, then the picadors, mounted on padded horses, pierce the bull’s shoulders. Blood streams. The matador does a few passes, then another, much thrusting of hips.”
“A fight between toreadors. The crowd yells at the hero of only a moment ago. Feedback is direct, intimate, abusive. Banderilleros put in their colored lances, banderillas, again into the bull’s massive shoulder muscles. Death has a festive, colorful air.”
“Ole’s reward skill; whistles express displeasure.”
4:40 pm. “There is music for the entrance of the bulls. The crowd first cheers the bull (and in the case of a poor toreador may choose to continue cheering the bull over the matador.), then the picador’s go in and do their ugly task. They look comic, almost pathetic. All the while jets fly overhead.”
“I don’t understand the exchange of the first sword for the second. Matador got gored! Got up. Going back. The crowd loves it. His leg bloody he seems more determined now. Now he seems braver, more confident. (just macho?)”
“Down on his knees, working closer, in the spot where he was gored. Now, the moment of truth. The bull won’t come. He charges the bull, sinks the sword in the first time. Crowd cheers. He walks, starts in front of the bull as it goes down and looks pleadingly at the crowd, then gets up. A last sword has a small horizontal piece near the tip, with it the matador flicks out the the sword he plunged in, then strikes with the odd sword. (a descabello which kills by a thrust through the spinal column rather than to the heart as with the rapier.)”
“Toro has personal attributes. He wants this, does this. My seat partner talks about toro as a person.”
(this is material I wrote back in 1993.)
