Death in the Afternoon

Thanks to Craig, who had been an avid bullfighting fan in Spain, we actually had a clue what was going on. The progression went something like this: first, at the sound of the judges´ trumpets, the bull comes out of the chute to be goaded by a handful of what I took to be the spandex-clad equivalent of rodeo clowns. Those are followed by two picadores, guys on armored horses with long poles that they stick into the bulls´ necks. Thus piqued, the thousand-pound beast faces two more clowns on foot with hooked, flower-covered, meter-long poles. They also aim for the bull´s neck, jumping away from the horns at the last minute.

Then, once the bull is bleeding and panting, out comes the brave torero. He waves his cape around for a while, goading the bull to exhaustion, then finally plunges his sword down through the bull´s neck and into its heart. If he hits his mark, the beast collapses and is finished off by another round of clowns. If he does extremely well, he is gifted with some hacked-off part of the bull – an ear, two ears, or a tail.

Not exactly the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, right?

N.B: if you´re reading this in facebook, you`ll have to head to my blog to see photos.