“
For some reason, all the best matadors were Fascists.
”
”
George Orwell (Homage to Catalonia)
“
The History Teacher
Trying to protect his students' innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.
And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.
The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
"How far is it from here to Madrid?"
"What do you call the matador's hat?"
The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.
The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,
while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.
”
”
Billy Collins (Questions About Angels)
“
In bullfighting there is an interesting parallel to the pause as a place of refuge and renewal. It is believed that in the midst of a fight, a bull can find his own particular area of safety in the arena. There he can reclaim his strength and power. This place and inner state are called his querencia. As long as the bull remains enraged and reactive, the matador is in charge. Yet when he finds his querencia, he gathers his strength and loses his fear. From the matador's perspective, at this point the bull is truly dangerous, for he has tapped into his power.
”
”
Tara Brach (Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha)
“
It appeared that even in Barcelona there were hardly any bullfights nowadays; for some reason all the best matadors were Fascists.
”
”
George Orwell (Fighting in Spain)
“
Under the pathologist's microscope, life and death fight in an illuminated circle in a sort of cellular bullfight. The pathologist's job is to find the bull among the matador cells
”
”
Yann Martel (The High Mountains of Portugal)
“
On a ruinous wall I came upon a poster dating from the previous year and announcing that ‘six handsome bulls’ would be killed in the arena on such and such a date. How forlorn its faded colours looked. Where were the handsome bulls and the handsome bull-fighters now? It appeared that even in Barcelona there were hardly any bullfights nowadays - for some reason all the best matadors were Fascists.
”
”
George Orwell (Homage to Catalonia)
“
to whatever extent the Hell’s Angels may or may be latent sadomasochists or repressed homosexuals is to me--after nearly a year in the constant company of outlaw motorcyclists--almost entirely irrelevant. There are literary critics who insist that Ernest Hemingway was a tortured queer and that Mark Twain was haunted to the end of his days by a penchant for interracial buggery. It is a good way to stir up a tempest in the academic quarterlies, but it won’t change a word of what either man wrote, nor alter the impact of their work on the world they were writing about. Perhaps Manolete was a hoof fetishist, or suffered from terrible hemorrhoids as a result of long nights in Spanish horn parlors…but he was a great matador, and it is hard to see how any amount of Freudian theorizing can have the slightest effect on the reality of the thing he did best.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson
“
There is lovemaking that is bad for a person, just as there is eating that is bad. That boysenberry cream pie from the Thrift-E Mart may appear inviting, may, in fact, cause all nine hundred taste buds to carol from the tongue, but in the end, the sugars, the additives, the empty calories clog arteries, disrupt cells, generate fat, and rot teeth. Even potentially nourishing foods can be improperly prepared. There are wrong combinations and improper preparations in sex as well. Yes, one must prepare for a fuck--the way an enlightened priest prepares to celebrate mass, the way a great matador prepares for the ring: with intensification, with purification, with a conscious summoning of sacred power. And even that won't work if the ingredients are poorly matched: oysters are delectable, so are strawberries, but mashed together ... (?!) Every nutritious sexual recipe calls for at least a pinch of love, and the fucks that rate four-star rankings from both gourmets and health-food nuts use cupfuls. Not that sex should be regarded as therapeutic or to be taken for medicinal purposes--only a dullard would hang such a millstone around the nibbled neck of a lay--but to approach sex carelessly, shallowly, with detachment and without warmth is to dine night after night in erotic greasy spoons. In time, one's palate will become insensitive, one will suffer (without knowing it) emotional malnutrition, the skin of the soul will fester with scurvy, the teeth of the heart will decay. Neither duration nor proclamation of commitment is necessarily the measure--there are ephemeral explosions of passion between strangers that make more erotic sense than lengthy marriages, there are one-night stands in Jersey City more glorious than six-months affairs in Paris--but finally there is a commitment, however brief; a purity, however threatened; a vulnerability, however concealed; a generosity of spirit, however marbled with need; and honest caring, however singled by lust, that must be present if couplings are to be salubrious and not slow poison.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)
“
He’d told them what Saturday night meant. The mattress, the plastic sheet. He told them of Matador in the fifth. He said he loved her from the very first time she’d talked to him, and it was his fault, it was all his fault. Clay melted, but didn’t break, because he deserved no tears or sympathy. ‘The night before she fell,’ he said, ‘we met there, we were naked there, and –’ He stopped because Catherine Novac – in a shift of gingerblondness – had stood and she’d walked towards him. She lifted him gently out of his chair and hugged him hard, so hard, and she patted his short flat hair, and it was so damn nice it hurt. She said, ‘You came to us, you came, you came.
”
”
Markus Zusak (Bridge of Clay)
“
Every day I feel more like some defeated matador limping out of the arena after I've been gored, or like some general coming back from a long battle.
”
”
Mary Karr (Cherry)
“
To kill for fun is the job of the psychopaths! And what is a matador, apart from being a mentally ill person?
”
”
Mehmet Murat ildan
“
My daughter pierced her septum,” Patricia said forlornly. “She looks like a bull. My little girl, wanting a matador to chase her down and stick things in her.
”
”
T.J. Klune (Under the Whispering Door)
“
Lo que nos hizo encontrarnos fueron dos historias que apenas se dieron la mano en medio de los acontecimientos. Y lo que aquí no pasó, no va a ocurrir en ninguna parte del mundo. Me enamoré de ti como una perra, y tú solamente te dejaste querer. ¿Qué podría ocurrir en Cuba que me ofrezca la esperanza de tu amor...?
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Charlotte, dressed in a very short-skirted policewoman's outfit, was leading a dancing brigade, jumping around at the front of the room, her long red hair flapping up and down like a matador's cape. She was head girl, and she would shows us how to party if she had to.
I wasn't really sure why Charlotte had decided to come to the party as a stripper. I found myself at a loss for words as she complimented us on our costumes.
"You're a..." I tried to find the right thing to say. "Really...hot cop?"
"I'm Amy Pond," she said. "From Doctor Who. This is her kissogram outfit.
”
”
Maureen Johnson (The Name of the Star (Shades of London, #1))
“
At the heart of all romanticism is suffering
”
”
Brin-Jonathan Butler
“
Poetry by its very nature is subversive . . . It turns words inside out, confounds meaning, changes black and white to ambiguous shades of gray. Never trust a poet.
”
”
Cristina García (The Lady Matador's Hotel)
“
Humankind spends so much time admiring and ritualizing the inventions of humankind! And yet humankind is such a tiny part of all there is. -- Nigel S. Hey, Wonderment(Matador, 2012)
”
”
Nigel Hey
“
I was crazy about goal keeping. In Russia and the Latin countries, that gallant art had been always surrounded with a halo of singular glamour. Aloof, solitary, impassive, the crack goalie is followed in the streets by entranced small boys. He vies with the matador and the flying ace as an object of thrilled adulation. His sweater, his peaked cap, his kneeguards, the gloves protruding from the hip pocket of his shorts, set him apart from the rest of the team. He is the lone eagle, the man of mystery, the last defender. Photographers, reverently bending one knee, snap him in the act of making a spectacular dive across the goal mouth to deflect with his fingertips a low, lightning-like shot, and the stadium roars in approval as he remains for a moment or two lying full length where he fell, his goal still intact.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Speak, Memory)
“
We were brought together by two stories that barely even shook hands with each other in the midst of everything that happened.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Poor Buttercup was not in a very good mood; for she had been lately bereft of her calf, and mourned for the little thing most dismally. Just now she regarded all mankind as her enemies (and I do not blame her), so when the matadore came prancing towards her with the red handkerchief flying at the end of his long lance, she threw up her head, and gave a most appropriate "Moo!".
”
”
Louisa May Alcott (Little Men (Little Women, #2))
“
Até matar o primeiro cara a gente pensa que existe essa história de aprender a matar. Aprender a matar é como aprender a morrer, um dia você morre e pronto. Ninguém aprende a matar. Isso é conversa furada de tira. Todo mundo nasce sabendo. Se você tem uma arma na mão já sabe tudo.
”
”
Patrícia Melo (O Matador)
“
Perhaps Manolete was a hoof fetishist, or suffered from terrible hemorrhoids as a result of long nights in Spanish horn parlors … but he was a great matador, and it is hard to see how any amount of Freudian theorizing can have the slightest effect on the reality of the thing he did best.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Hell's Angels)
“
Danny was a matador. Other cast members included a chubby Italian chef, a mime, and, for some reason, a mummy. I found that offensive on behalf of living Egyptian people, but I also knew that Parker McHune’s mother couldn’t sew, so wrapping her son in Ace bandages was the best she could do.
”
”
Molly Harper (The Single Undead Moms Club (Half-Moon Hollow, #4))
“
Ana emerges from the shack with Fuga. His face is clean. His hair, the color of black crude oil, is parted on the side and slicked expertly back from his strong, architectural face. The turquoise suit of lights throws sparkles with each small movement. The man who looked like a murderer now looks like a matador.
”
”
Ruta Sepetys (The Fountains of Silence)
“
When I was fifteen and had quit school forever, I went to work in a vineyard near Sanger with a number of Mexicans, one of whom was only a year or two older than myself, an earnest boy named Felipe. One gray, dismal, cold, dreary day in January, while we were pruning muscat vines, I said to this boy, simply in order to be talking, "If you had your wish, Felipe, what would you want to be? A doctor, a farmer, a singer, a painter, a matador, or what?" Felipe thought a minute, and then he said, "Passenger." This was exciting to hear, and definitely something to talk about at some length, which we did. He wanted to be a passenger on anything that was going anywhere, but most of all on a ship.
”
”
William Saroyan (Short drive, sweet chariot)
“
a second is as good as an eon, if you suceed...and as good as forever if you fail
”
”
Steve Perry (The Albino Knife (Matador #6))
“
To live your life even half right seems extraordinary.
”
”
Cristina García (The Lady Matador's Hotel)
“
All the best matadors were Fascists.
”
”
George Orwell
“
Donovan stared at the car silently, contemplating it the way a matador looks at the bull he is going to fight.
”
”
Michael Connelly (Trunk Music (Harry Bosch, #5; Harry Bosch Universe, #6))
“
Ya para entonces me había dado cuenta de que buscar era mi signo, emblema de los que salen de noche sin propósito fijo, razón de los matadores de brújulas.
”
”
Julio Cortázar (Rayuela)
“
NO DIVINE BOVINE ! The clumsy creature currently inhabiting the White House is a distinctly dangerous animal. Part boneheaded raging bully, part dastardly coward showing signs of advanced stage mad cow disease. Neither of good pedigree nor useful breeding stock, there is essentially very little of substance between the T (bone) and the RUMP, except of course for an abundance of methane and bullshit. It's high time brave matadors for you to enter the bullring, with nimble step and fleet of foot. Take good aim and bring down this marauding beast once and for all. Slay public enemy number one and we will salute you forever. A louder cheer you will not hear from Madrid to Mexico City, from Beijing to Brussels, from London to Lahore, from Toronto to Tehran and ten thousand cities in between.
”
”
Alex Morritt (Impromptu Scribe)
“
Esteban took a step backwards and took his sweatshirt off. He folded it and placed it on the ground next to the wall. He looked like a matador preparing for a bullfight. I opened my mouth and almost said something...
”
”
José N. Harris (MI VIDA: A Story of Faith, Hope and Love)
“
Aura is convinced that the entire country has succumbed to a collective amnesia. This is what happened in a society, where no one is permitted to grow old slowly. Nobody talks of the past, for fear their wounds might reopen. Privately though, their wounds never heal.
”
”
Cristina García (The Lady Matador's Hotel)
“
Always beneath or above concrete events, I remain a prisoner of this alternative: the world as a real object that dominates me and devours me (like Judith) in suffering and in fear, or else the world as a pure fantasy which dissolves in my hands, which I destroy (like Lucrece thrusting home the dagger) without ever succeeding in possessing it. Perhaps, above all, the question for me is to escape this dilemma by finding a way in which the world and myself--object and subject--confront each other on an equal footing, as the matador stands before the bull.
”
”
Michel Leiris (Manhood: A Journey from Childhood into the Fierce Order of Virility)
“
O próprio são Tomás de Aquino diz isso, matarás, se necessário, matarás em nome da lei, diz Tomás de Aquino, quer dizer não é bem isso que ele diz, mas é mais ou menos isso, estou adaptando, entendeu? O que ele quer dizer é quem mata em nome da justiça não é um criminoso porque isso Não é crime, deu para entender?
”
”
Patrícia Melo (O Matador)
“
Realmente não dá para entender como é que um sujeito faz uma bobagem dessas. So há uma explicação: Destino. Antes da gente nascer, alguém, sei lá quem, talvez Deus, Deus define direitinho como é que vai foder a sua vida. É isso. Era minha teoria. Deus só pensa no homem quando tem que decidir como é que vai destruí-lo.
”
”
Patrícia Melo (O Matador)
“
So lonely, so trapped within his own cocoon that he can’t even cry without a spectator to appreciate the effort it takes to shed a tear onstage.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
acabó pegándose un tiro, porque quién sabe lo que pasa por dentro de nadie cuando decide ser nadie.
”
”
Manuel Chaves Nogales (Juan Belmonte, matador de toros: Su vida y sus hazañas (Libros del Asteroide nº 44) (Spanish Edition))
“
Às vezes, eu disse, às vezes, eu tenho a impressão de que o mundo está de costas para o homem, o homem de costas para Deus, Deus de costas para o mundo, uma zorra completa, você não tem?
”
”
Patrícia Melo (O Matador)
“
And are we not guilty of offensive disparagement in calling chess a game? Is it not also a science and an art, hovering between those categories as Muhammad’s coffin hovered between heaven and earth, a unique link between pairs of opposites: ancient yet eternally new; mechanical in structure, yet made effective only by the imagination; limited to a geometrically fixed space, yet with unlimited combinations; constantly developing, yet sterile; thought that leads nowhere; mathematics calculating nothing; art without works of art; architecture without substance – but nonetheless shown to be more durable in its entity and existence than all books and works of art; the only game that belongs to all nations and all eras, although no one knows what god brought it down to earth to vanquish boredom, sharpen the senses and stretch the mind. Where does it begin and where does it end? Every child can learn its basic rules, every bungler can try his luck at it, yet within that immutable little square it is able to bring forth a particular species of masters who cannot be compared to anyone else, people with a gift solely designed for chess, geniuses in their specific field who unite vision, patience and technique in just the same proportions as do mathematicians, poets, musicians, but in different stratifications and combinations. In the old days of the enthusiasm for physiognomy, a physician like Gall might perhaps have dissected a chess champion’s brain to find out whether some particular twist or turn in the grey matter, a kind of chess muscle or chess bump, is more developed in such chess geniuses than in the skulls of other mortals. And how intrigued such a physiognomist would have been by the case of Czentovic, where that specific genius appeared in a setting of absolute intellectual lethargy, like a single vein of gold in a hundredweight of dull stone. In principle, I had always realized that such a unique, brilliant game must create its own matadors, but how difficult and indeed impossible it is to imagine the life of an intellectually active human being whose world is reduced entirely to the narrow one-way traffic between black and white, who seeks the triumphs of his life in the mere movement to and fro, forward and back of thirty-two chessmen, someone to whom a new opening, moving knight rather than pawn, is a great deed, and his little corner of immortality is tucked away in a book about chess – a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board, and does it without going mad!
”
”
Stefan Zweig (Chess)
“
Josef waylays me outside the museum and announces I have driven him to despair: because of the way I’ve treated him, he is leaving Toronto forever. He does not fool me: he was planning to do this anyway. My mean mouth takes over.
“Good,” I say.
He gives me a pained, reproachful stare, drawing himself up into the proud, theatrical, poker-up-the-bum stance of a matador.
I walk away from him. It’s enormously pleasing to me, this act of walking away. It’s like being able to make people appear and vanish, at will.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (Cat’s Eye)
“
THAT DAY, while we were in school, four men in a jeep came to visit Ghosh. They took him away as if he were a common criminal, his hands jacked up behind his back. They slapped him when he tried to protest. Hema learned this from W. W. Gonad, who told the men they were surely mistaken in taking away Missing’s surgeon. For his impertinence W.W. got a boot in his stomach. Hema refused to believe Ghosh was gone. She ran home, certain that she’d find him sunk into his armchair, his sockless feet up on the stool, reading a book. In anticipation of seeing him, in the certainty that he would be there, she was already furious with him. She burst through the front door of our bungalow. “Do you see how dangerous it is for us to associate with the General? What have I been telling you? You could get us all killed!” Whenever she came at him like that, all her cylinders firing, it was Ghosh’s habit to flourish an imaginary cape like a matador facing a charging bull. We found it funny, even if Hema never did. But the house was quiet. No matador. She went from room to room, the jingle of her anklets echoing in the hallways. She imagined Ghosh with his arm twisted behind his back, being punched in the face,
”
”
Abraham Verghese (Cutting for Stone)
“
Soon as she spreads her hand, th' aërial guard Descend, and sit on each important card: First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore, Then each, according to the rank they bore; For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, 35 Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place. Behold, four Kings in majesty rever'd, With hoary whiskers and a forky beard; And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r, Th' expressive emblem of their softer pow'r; 40 Four Knaves in garbs succinct, a trusty band, Caps on their heads, and halberts in their hand; And particolour'd troops, a shining train, Draw forth to combat on the velvet plain.
”
”
Alexander Pope (The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems)
“
Saturday evening, on a quiet lazy afternoon, I went to watch a bullfight in Las Ventas, one of Madrid's most famous bullrings. I went there out of curiosity. I had long been haunted by the image of the matador with its custom made torero suit, embroidered with golden threads, looking spectacular in his "suit of light" or traje de luces as they call it in Spain. I was curious to see the dance of death unfold in front of me, to test my humanity in the midst of blood and gold, and to see in which state my soul will come out of the arena, whether it will be shaken and stirred, furious and angry, or a little bit aware of the life embedded in every death. Being an avid fan of Hemingway, and a proponent of his famous sentence "About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after,” I went there willingly to test myself. I had heard atrocities about bullfighting yet I had this immense desire to be part of what I partially had an inclination to call a bloody piece of cultural experience. As I sat there, in front of the empty arena, I felt a grandiose feeling of belonging to something bigger than anything I experienced during my stay in Spain. Few minutes and I'll be witnessing a painting being carefully drawn in front of me, few minutes and I will be part of an art form deeply entrenched in the Spanish cultural heritage: the art of defying death. But to sit there, and to watch the bull enter the arena… To watch one bull surrounded by a matador and his six assistants. To watch the matador confronting the bull with the capote, performing a series of passes, just before the picador on a horse stabs the bull's neck, weakening the neck muscles and leading to the animal's first loss of blood... Starting a game with only one side having decided fully to engage in while making sure all the odds will be in the favor of him being a predetermined winner. It was this moment precisely that made me feel part of something immoral. The unfair rules of the game. The indifferent bull being begged to react, being pushed to the edge of fury. The bull, tired and peaceful. The bull, being teased relentlessly. The bull being pushed to a game he isn't interested in. And the matador getting credits for an unfair game he set.
As I left the arena, people looked at me with mocking eyes.
Yes, I went to watch a bull fight and yes the play of colors is marvelous. The matador’s costume is breathtaking and to be sitting in an arena fills your lungs with the sands of time. But to see the amount of claps the spill of blood is getting was beyond what I can endure. To hear the amount of claps injustice brings is astonishing. You understand a lot about human nature, about the wars taking place every day, about poverty and starvation. You understand a lot about racial discrimination and abuse (verbal and physical), sex trafficking, and everything that stirs the wounds of this world wide open. You understand a lot about humans’ thirst for injustice and violence as a way to empower hidden insecurities. Replace the bull and replace the matador. And the arena will still be there. And you'll hear the claps. You've been hearing them ever since you opened your eyes.
”
”
Malak El Halabi
“
But, Foley, my lad, it isn't beauty per se that makes wire-walking Zen or makes it art. It's the extremity of the risks that are assumed by each exquisite gesture, each impossible somersault. Here's a more extreme version of the dangerous beauty bullfights used to possess before the matadors became preening cowards and stacked the desk against the beasts. We only rise above mediocrity when there's something at stake, and I mean something more consequential than money or reputation. The great value of a high-wire act is that it has no practical value. The fact that so much skill and effort and courage can be directed into something so ostensibly useless is what makes it useful. That's what affords it the power to lift us out of context and carry us-elsewhere.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Villa Incognito)
“
El hombre, único ser consciente -o al menos creerlo así- entre la multitud de compatriotas que se figuran libres porque malvendían -y era un progreso- su mísera fuerza de trabajo, feriaban por decreto un día a la semana, procreaban regularmente hijos absurdos, discutían con extraña pasión acerca de la rodilla de un futbolista o el muslo herido de un matador de toros, toros ellos mismos y ni siquiera eso, mansos felices que hablaban con arrogancia de lo permitido y se permitían condenar lo condenado, triste rebaño de bueyes sin cencerro, pasto de aprovechados y de cínicos, pueblo heroico en su día -...- reducido al cabo de veinticinco años -¿cómo, dios mío?- a una vana sombra del pasado, a un retintín muerto, cuerpo sobnoliento, quizá, que algún día despertaría.
”
”
Juan Goytisolo (Marks of Identity)
“
No woman had ever managed to stir up such a storm inside his head. Not one had ever been capable of making him lose his concentration with such antics, such lightness of touch. He couldn’t think of even one of the many girlfriends he had given his heart to who was capable of putting on such a show for him, without any audience other than the mountains looming ever higher in the growing shadows. Not a single one, he said to himself, watching her with lowered eyes as he began to feel rather confused. He tried to regain the normal pulse of his feelings. He attempted to return to the cold calculations of numbers and time equations necessary for him to finish drawing up his plans. Because the day was passing quickly and he would not have a second chance to finish or correct them.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
And he says that everything, absolutely everything, is a question of aesthetics and color. That people aren’t really unhappy with you or your government. That the problem is the gray color of your uniforms, such a depressing color, so dull, and it doesn’t go with anything. Do you realize that the only color it goes with is red, it’s the only way to dress it up, make it look good? What a contradiction.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Ian permaneceria na aldeia por alguns dias, para se certificar de que Hiram e o povo de Pássaro estavam de comum acordo. No entanto, Jamie não estava absolutamente certo de que o senso de responsabilidade de Ian fosse sobrepujar seu senso de humor - de certa forma, o senso de humor de Ian tendia para o lado dos índios. Uma palavra da parte de Jamie poderia, portanto, vir a calhar, só por precaução.
- Ele tem mulher - Jamie disse a Pássaro, indicando Hiram com um movimento da cabeça, o qual agora estava empenhado em uma conversa séria com dois dos índios mais velhos. - Acho que ele não gostaria de uma mulher em sua cama. Ele pode ser indelicado com ela, não compreendendo o gesto de cortesia.
- Não se preocupe - Penstemon disse, ouvindo a conversa. Olhou para Hiram e seu lábio curvou-se com desdém. - Ninguém iria querer um filho DELE. Agora, um filho SEU, Matador-de-Urso... - Ela lhe lançou um longo olhar por baixo das pestanas e ele riu, saudando-a com um gesto de respeito.
Era uma noite perfeita, fria e revigorante, e a porta foi deixada aberta para que o ar pudesse entrar. A fumaça da fogueira erguia-se reta e branca, fluindo na direção do buraco no teto, seus fantasmas móveis parecendo espíritos ascendendo de alegria.
Todos haviam comido e bebido ao ponto de um agradável estupor, e houve um silêncio momentâneo e uma difusa sensação de paz e felicidade.
- É bom para os homens comerem como irmãos - Hiram observou para Urso-em-Pé, em seu titubeante tsalagi. Ou melhor, tentou. E afinal, Jamie refletiu, sentindo suas costelas rangerem sob a tensão, era realmente uma diferença muito pequena entre "como irmãos" e "seus irmãos".
Urso-em-Pé deu um olhar pensativo a Hiram e afastou-se disfarçadamente para longe dele.
Pássaro observou isso e, após um momento de silêncio, virou-se para Jamie.
- Você é um homem muito engraçado, Matador-de-Urso - ele repetiu, sacudindo a cabeça. - Você venceu.
”
”
Diana Gabaldon (A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, #6))
“
When I was sixteen, we were at the UK championships in the Winter Gardens back in Blackpool. My partner and I were traveling clockwise around the floor doing a paso doble. I was really into it, envisioning myself as the fierce matador. I was intense. I paid no mind to what was going on around me--not the forty other dancers swirling around us, not the flow of the traffic. I thought to myself, “Man! I am on fire!” Then I heard a voice over the microphone:
“Derek, you’re going the wrong way.”
I froze in my tracks. It was Bill Irvine, the world champion and ballroom legend who was a commentator that day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Corky waving his arms in the air like a madman, signaling me to turn around.
I was mortified, but I didn’t want to show it. So I smiled, pretended I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed, and did a 360, pulling my partner with me. I went right back into the routine, unfazed. Corky always taught me both to be quick on my feet and to think quickly. And if I screwed up, to cover my tracks.
”
”
Derek Hough (Taking the Lead: Lessons from a Life in Motion)
“
Pedro Algorta, a lawyer, showed me the fat dossier about the murder of two women. The double crime had been committed with a knife at the end of 1982, in a Montevideo suburb.
The accused, Alma Di Agosto, had confessed. She had been in jail more than a year, and was apparently condemned to rot there for the rest of her life.
As is the custom, the police had raped and tortured her. After a month of continuous beatings they had extracted several confessions. Alma Di Agosto's confessions did not much resemble each other, as if she had committed the same murder in many different ways. Different people appeared in each confession, picturesque phantoms without names or addresses, because the electric cattle prod turns anyone into a prolific storyteller. Furthermore, the author demonstrated the agility of an Olympic athlete, the strength of a fairground Amazon, and the dexterity of a professional matador. But the most surprising was the wealth of detail: in each confession, the accused described with millimetric precision clothing, gestures, surroundings, positions, objects.....
Alma Di Agosto was blind.
Her neighbours, who knew and loved her, were convinced she was guilty:
'Why?' asked the lawyer.
'Because the papers say so.'
'But the papers lie,' said the lawyer.
'But the radio said so too,' explained the neighbours.
'And the TV!
”
”
Eduardo Galeano
“
Her words echoed in his mind. I love you, she’d said. She loved him. Hope dawned in his face. Someone loved him, not for what he once was, but loved him as he was now. He bent to kiss her but she raised her head to look with desperation into his eyes.
She had to make him understand why she couldn’t stay. “I love you.” She repeated. “I won’t let him hurt you or any of my new friends.”
Enrico had never known fear. He knew it now. She would leave him. He knew she would, her sense of loyalty was matched only by his own. If she thought she could protect him by leaving, she would run rather than put his or anyone else’s life in danger.
She loved him. The words made his heart sing and at the same time brought him the greatest despair he had known since Katrina had betrayed him.
”
”
Grace Willows (Into My Heart (Weekend Passions #2))
“
Corruption as the expression of the fact that within the instincts anarchy is threatening and that the foundation of the affects, what we call “life,” has been shaken: according to the living structure in which it appears, corruption is something fundamentally different. When, for example, an aristocracy, like France's at the start of the Revolution, throws away its privileges with a sublime disgust and sacrifices itself to a dissipation of its moral feelings, this is corruption: — essentially it was only the final act in that centuries-long corruption, thanks to which step-by-step it gave up its ruling authority and reduced itself to a function of the monarchy (finally even to the monarch's finery and display pieces). The essential thing in a good and healthy aristocracy, however, is that it feels itself not as a function (whether of a monarchy or of a community) but as its significance and highest justification — that it therefore with good conscience accepts the sacrifice of an enormous number of people, who for its sake must be oppressed and reduced to incomplete men, slaves, and instruments of work. Its fundamental belief must, in fact, be that the society should exist, not for the sake of the society, but only as a base and framework on which an exceptional kind of nature can raise itself to its higher function and, in general, to a higher form of being, comparable to those heliotropic climbing plants on Java — people call them Sipo Matador — whose branches clutch an oak tree so much and for so long until finally, high over the tree but supported by it, they can unfold their crowns in the open light and make a display of their happiness.—
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
“
This kind of hostile environment creates division within the cultures themselves, and it pits the bulls against each other while the matador watches from a safe place.
”
”
Thor Benson
“
Women are to be conquered, subdued, the way a mountaineer conquers a peak or a matador slays a bull.
”
”
Allan Hall (Monster)
“
Bullfighting is a horrible sport where a proud, strong animal is teased and tortured until a costumed asshole kills him and cuts off his ears and tail and is cheered by a bloodthirsty crowd. Every once and awhile, the bull gores the matador and kills him. Hats off to the bull.
”
”
Pete Loeffler
“
So, Dani . . . is that short for Danielle?” I searched for you, I tried to convey with my eyes. Scoured the Internet for your sister’s wedding announcement, knowing you shared a maiden name. Hunted through the White Pages . . .
“Danica.”
Ah, no wonder. I hoped every Danielle James in the tri-state area would forgive me for cyber-stalking them. It hadn’t occurred to me there might be a variant. “So, um . . . how’d you two meet?” And where? And when? My brain wanted to scream. And why. Why, why, why?
Nash’s arm slid around Dani’s waist, pulling her against his hip. “We met on tour, if you can believe that. She was a damsel in distress.”
Dani gave a cute snort. “You thought I was a groupie in heat.”
“My bad.” Nash gave a shrug and winked in my direction. “I’ll never forget, seeing her out the tour bus window for the first time. She was standing by this old, broken-down van at the side of the road, waving a white lacy thong like a matador—” He butted his forehead against her shoulder, like a big bull come to rut.
“Oh?” I managed, swallowed hard. The espresso I’d had earlier threatened to burn its way back up my throat.
“It wasn’t a thong , you perv!” Dani gave a tug on his long locks. “It was a camisole. And it was the only thing white I had.
”
”
Jessica Topper (Courtship of the Cake (Much "I Do" About Nothing, #2))
“
It appeared that even in Barcelona there were hardly any bullfights nowadays; for some reason all the best matadors were Fascists. They
”
”
George Orwell (Homage to Catalonia)
“
Ces travaux qui ne durèrent pas plus de 3 mois, occupent cependant dans ma mémoire, une place considérable, car c'est à la lumière du bec Matador que j'ai découvert l'intelligence de mes mains, et la prodigieuse efficacité des plus simples outils.
”
”
Marcel Pagnol (La Gloire de mon père)
“
In Singin’ in the Rain, Lina Lamont provides both an effective “beard” for Don and Cosmo and a foil, representing both the reason for Don’s “unattached” state and the basis for their mutual contempt for women. Yet the signs are all there to be read for those interested in reading them: Cosmo and Don performing as a burlesque team, in which they sit on each other’s laps and play each other’s violins; Cosmo’s comment to Lina after the premiere of The Royal Rascal, “Yeah, Lina, you looked pretty good for a girl”;30 and their bullying, in “Moses Supposes,” of the fogyish diction coach, figuratively drawn out of his closet only to be ridiculed as an asexual “pansy” who can’t sing and dance (thus both confirming and denying homosexuality at the same time).31 On a broader scale, Kelly’s career as a dancer, offering a more masculinized style of athletic dance (in opposition especially to the stylized grace of Fred Astaire), represented a similar balancing act between, in this case, the feminized occupation of balletic dance and a strong claim of heterosexual masculinity. Significantly, the process of exclusion they use with the diction coach is precisely what Cosmo proposes they apply to Lina in converting The Dueling Cavalier into a musical: “It’s easy to work the numbers. All you have to do is dance around Lina and teach her how to take a bow.” But they also apply the strategy to Kathy, who is only just learning to “dance” in this sense (conveniently so, since Debbie Reynolds had had but little dance training, as noted).32 Early on, we see her dance competently in “All I Do Is Dream of You,” but she then seems extremely tentative in “You Were Meant for Me,” immobile for much of the number, not joining in the singing, and dancing only as Don draws her in (which is, of course, consistent with her character’s development at this point). With “Good Mornin’,” though, she seems to “arrive” as part of the Don-Cosmo team, even though for part of the number she serves as a kind of mannequin—much like the voice teacher in “Moses Supposes,” except that she sings the song proper while Don and Cosmo “improvise” tongue-twisting elaborations between the lines. As the number evolves, their emerging positions within the group become clear. Thus, during their solo clownish dance bits, using their raincoats as props, Kathy and Don present themselves as fetishized love objects, Kathy as an “Island girl” and Don as a matador, while Cosmo dances with a “dummy,” recalling his earlier solo turn in “Make ’em Laugh.
”
”
Raymond Knapp (The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity)
“
She could see a police car zooming into the parking lot and she ushered with her hands like a bullfighter on a runway that had lost his cape, but needed to get out of Spain to atone for his sins
”
”
J.S. Mason (Whisky Hernandez)
“
It just broke her heart to hear the sobs of those women who dug around in the rubble, dripping wet from the police water cannons, asking for news of their loved ones everywhere, knocking again and again on metal doors that never opened, trampled by blasts of water in front of the Ministry of Justice, chaining themselves to lampposts with torn stockings, disheveled, clutching their chests so the filthy water wouldn’t tear away the photograph they wore over their hearts.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Matadores nunca perdem a sede de sangue
”
”
Douglas Ribeiro (Presa Fácil)
“
Mil veces que naciera, mil veces que sería matador de toros
”
”
Paco Rabal
“
It's not that I'd been looking for a fight. But I did feel a bit like a matador who'd shown up at the arena only to have the bull politely ask if I needed it to hold my cape.
”
”
Alexis Hall (Husband Material (London Calling, #2))
“
718 A vivid memory of mine is a 1979 viewing of a late night rerun of the ABC TV movie Hot Rod (a.k.a. Rebel of the Road). It’s the story of an outcast rodder, his struggles with a corrupt small-town police force, and an eventual drag strip showdown with an Olds 4-4-2 sponsored by the Munn’s Root Beer company. At the beginning of the flick, the hero drives a 1965 Coronet sedan, presumably an A990. After the cops force him off the road, totaling the Dodge, he swaps the Hemi into a 1941 Willys. You probably remember the movie now. But has anyone noticed that he steals a replacement Hemi out of an AMC Matador cop car? I sure did! It stands as yet another tribute to the mythical legacy of Hemi-powered cop cars on TV and in the movies.
”
”
Steve Magnante (Steve Magnante's 1001 Muscle Car Facts (Cartech))
“
But no matter where she turned the dial in search of her musical balm, all she heard was the voice of the Dictator broadcast over the government station. What a nightmare! As if that loud-mouthed old pig had never given a speech in his life! As if nobody knew that he was the only one who gave the orders in this fucking country, where you can’t even buy a record player to listen to the music you like.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
In October Bonhoeffer sent a novelty postcard to Rüdiger Schleicher. It pictured him behind a life-sized cardboard picture of a matador and a bull so that his head was on the matador’s body: “The quiet hours in which I cultivated the Arte taurina, have, as you can see, led to tremendous success in the arena. . . . Greetings from the matador. Dietrich.
”
”
Eric Metaxas (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)
“
Except, perhaps, in Iran itself. A new round of musicians had taken up their instruments, and the beat was quickening, growing louder and wilder by the minute. Men and women had gathered to dance again and were stamping like matadors, or circling one another with gazes interlocked. I moved closer, to a marble-topped bar, where the exhausted musicians had swapped their instruments for tumblers of vodka.
”
”
Jason Elliot (Mirrors of the Unseen: Journeys in Iran)
“
I’ll awake you from this living sleep”- Matador, Faith No More
”
”
Karina Halle (The Play)
“
Viator Travel Blog $45 per post (looking for regular contributors) GoNomad $25 per post World Hum Payment negotiated after pitching Gadling (Email editor@gadling.com) $25 per post The Expeditioner, $30 per article BoostnAll $30 – $50 New York Times ‘In Transit’ Blog (Email Monica Drake at modrak@nytimes.com) $50 per 300 word article Transitions Abroad $50 to $150 per piece Matador Network $40 depending on the article
”
”
Kirsty Stuart (How to Start a Travel Blog and Make Money)
“
The bullpen in a baseball park is the best place for matador training.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (99 Cents For Some Nonsense)
“
When summer began, I headed out west.
My parents had told me I needed a rest.
“Your imagination,” they said, “is getting too wild.
It will do you some good to relax for a while.”
So they put me aboard a westbound train.
To visit Aunt Fern in her house on the plains.
But I was captured by cowboys,
A wild-looking crowd.
Their manners were rough
and their voices were loud.
“I’m trying to get to my aunt’s house,” I said.
But they carried me off to their cow camp instead.
The Cattle Boss growled, as he told me to sit,
“We need a new cowboy. Our old cowboy quit.
We could sure use your help. So what do you say?”
I thought for a minute, then I told him, “Okay.”
Then I wrote to Aunt Fern, so she’d know where I’d gone.
I said not to worry, I wouldn’t be long.
That night I was given a new set of clothes.
Soon I looked like a wrangler from my head to my toes.
But there’s more to a cowboy than boots and a hat,
I found out the next day
And the day after that
Each day I discovered some new cowboy tricks.
From roping
And riding
To making fire with sticks.
Slowly the word spread all over the land.
“That wrangler ‘Kid Bleff’ is a first-rate cowhand!”
The day finally came when the roundup was through.
Aunt Fern called: “Come on over. Bring your cowboys with you.”
She was cooking a barbecue that very same day.
So we cleaned up (a little) and we headed her way.
The food was delicious. There was plenty to eat.
And the band that was playing just couldn’t be beat.
But suddenly I noticed a terrible sight.
The cattle were stirring and stamping with fright.
It’s a scene I’ll remember till my very last day.
“They’re gonna stampede!” I heard somebody say.
Just then they came charging. They charged right at me!
I looked for a hiding place--
A rock, or a tree.
What I found was a tablecloth spread out on the ground.
So I turned like a matador
And spun it around.
It was a new kind of cowboying, a fantastic display!
The cattle were frightened and stampeded…away!
Then the cowboys all cheered, “Bleff’s a true buckaroo!”
They shook my hand and slapped my back,
And Aunt Fern hugged me, too.
And that’s how I spent my summer vacation.
I can hardly wait for show-and-tell!
”
”
Mark Teague (How I Spent My Summer Vacation (Dragonfly Books))
“
Dios no existe, pues la voluntad de poder, que lo es todo, que no es ni dios ni ningún otro nombre de dios, no deja lugar a ninguna otra cosa que no sea ella misma. Toqué el sipo matador que me tocó: estábamos hechos de la misma madera.
”
”
Michel Onfray (Cosmos (Espacios del Saber) (Spanish Edition))
“
I reached the end of the street and turned right. There they were, about twelve meters away. The Japanese guy had his left side to me. He was talking to the American. The American was facing me, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He was holding a lighter at waist level, flicking it, trying to get it going. I forced myself to keep my pace casual, just another pedestrian. My heart began to beat harder. I could feel it pounding in my chest, behind my ears. Ten meters. I popped the plastic lid off the paper cup with my thumb. I felt it tumble across the back of my hand. Seven meters. Adrenaline was slowing down my perception of the scene. The Japanese guy glanced in my direction. He looked at my face. His eyes began to widen. Five meters. The Japanese guy reached out for the American, the gesture urgent even through my adrenalized slow-motion vision. He grabbed the American’s arm and started pulling on it. Three meters. The American looked up and saw me. The cigarette dangled from his lips. There was no recognition in his eyes. Two meters. I stepped in and flung the cup forward. Its contents of ninety-eight degrees centigrade Earl Gray tea exited and caught the American directly in the face and neck. His hands flew up and he shrieked. I turned to the Japanese. His eyes were popped all the way open, his head rotating back and forth in the universal gesture of negation. He started to raise his hands as though to ward me off. I grabbed his shoulders and shoved him into the wall. Using the same forward momentum, I stepped in and kneed him squarely in the balls. He grunted and doubled over. I turned back to the American. He was bent forward, staggering, his hands clutching at his face. I grabbed the collar of his jacket and the back of his trousers and accelerated him headfirst into the wall like a matador with a bull. His body shuddered from the impact and he dropped to the ground. The Japanese guy was lying on his side, clutching his crotch, gasping. I hauled him up by the lapels and shoved his back against the wall. I looked left, then right. It was just the three of us. “Tell me who you are,” I said in Japanese. He made retching noises. I could see he was going to need a minute. Keeping my left hand pressed against his throat, I patted him down to confirm he didn’t have a weapon, then checked his ears and jacket to ensure he wasn’t wired for sound. He was clean. I reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a wallet. I flipped it open. The ID was right in front, in a slip-in laminated protector. Tomohisa Kanezaki. Second Secretary, Consular Affairs, U.S. Embassy. The bald eagle logo of the U.S. Department of State showed blue and yellow in the background.
”
”
Barry Eisler (A Lonely Resurrection (John Rain #2))
“
Todos estão envolvidos, até o mais santo dos santos. O crime começa com Deus. Terminará com o homem, quando ele encontrar Deus de novo. O crime está em toda parte, em todas as fibras e raízes de nosso ser. Cada minuto do dia acrescenta novos crimes ao calendário, tanto aqueles que são detectados e punidos como aqueles que não o são. O criminoso caça o criminoso. O juiz condena o julgador. O inocente tortura o inocente. Em toda parte, em toda família, toda tribo, toda grande comunidade, crimes, crimes, crimes. Em comparação a isso, a guerra é limpa; o enforcado é um delicado pombo; Atila, Timur, Gêngis Khan são desajeitados autômatos. Nosso pai, nossa mãe querida, nossa doce irmã: você sabe os crimes infames que abrigam no peito? Você é capaz de colocar um espelho diante da iniqüidade quando ela está logo à mão? Já olhou o labirinto de seu próprio coração desprezível? Alguma vez já invejou o matador por sua determinação? O estudo do crime começa com o conhecimento de si mesmo. Tudo o que você despreza, tudo o que abomina, tudo o que rejeita, tudo o que condena e procura transformar pelo castigo vêm de você.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Sólo esa vez, excentrado como un matador mítico para quien matar es devolver el toro al mar y el mar al cielo,
”
”
Julio Cortázar (Rayuela)
“
There's just no way I could build a 1976 Fantasy Garage without a Matador Coupe in it. I know that sounds strange, given how repugnant so many people seem to find the Matador's styling, but it's true. I love the face, with the two big round headlights, and the headlight character lines continuing down the hood. I love the creased character line running down the side, and I find the fastback profile sensuous and alluring. The whole thing is just so gorgeous. Family and friends whose opinions I respect respond to me and my love for the Matador as one does to a child who eats dirt--a pitying look spared for somebody so disturbed as to engage in behavior so completely inexplicable. To them, I can only say that this is my fantasy garage, and the Matador is definitively in.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Family and friends whose opinions I respect respond to me and my love for the Matador as one does to a child who eats dirt--a pitying look spared for somebody so disturbed as to engage in behavior so completely inexplicable. To them, I can only say that this is my fantasy garage, and the Matador is definitively in.
”
”
Anonymous
“
There was no desire to kill the matador, just the desire to beat him to a pulp.
”
”
Arthur Wallace (Million Dollar Body - 4 Spicy Tales! [Illustrated])
“
Her sentimental sissy eyes watched as they turned her virginal tablecloth embroidered with so much love into a mayhem of murder and drool. Her seamstress sissy eyes saw the off-white linen turned into a violet-colored crime sheet, the drenched shroud of a nation where her angels and birds were drowning.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Clutching the tablecloth tightly under her arm, the Queen felt for the second time that day a wave of dignity that made her lift her head and see everything at the same height as her batlike eyes. And this is why
You saw me so calmly,
Walking serenely
Under the more than blue sky.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Spring had come to Santiago as it did every year, but this one arrived with splashes of violent graffiti in vibrant colors on the walls, anarchist slogans, the mobilization of the unions, and student protests dispersed by police water cannons. University students stood up to the blasts of filthy water with barrages of rocks and returned again and again, taking to the streets with their tender Molotovs ignited by rage. A sudden explosion and the lights would go out; then everybody would rush out to buy candles, hoard candles and more candles to light up the streets and the sidewalks, to stoke the coals of memory, to stamp out the sparks of forgetfulness. As if a comet had descended, its tail brushing against the earth in homage to so many disappeared.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Pink clouds of plum blossoms and their magnificent aroma languished in their wake, leaving a snow-drift of petals stuck to the windshield. They look like dead butterflies, she said, with a touch of sadness, and turned on the radio so she wouldn’t start crying, so she could run away from there, escape from that burst of happiness into the bewitched halo of the bolero.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
Nothing is perfect, she told herself, as she closed the door and put the flowers in water, opening the faucet all the way so that the stream of water would dislodge the fluvial knot jammed in her throat. Nothing is ideal, she insisted, in order to feel the crystalline warmth of pain moistening her eyes, barely wetting the blue watercolors of the wilting flowers that awaited the bitter histrionic dewdrops of her tears. But she couldn’t cry, no matter how many sad songs and sentimental arpeggios she tried to remember; she could never drain the tormented ocean of her life.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
She could hear them giggling when she was already halfway down the block, but she pretended to be deaf; she didn’t care. She had calluses from being teased so much.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
When the only thing she wanted was for him not to show her some of that notorious respect. For him to throw himself on top of her and suffocate her in his stench of a macho in heat. For him to rip off her clothes, strip her bare, leave her as naked as an ill-used virgin. Because this was the only kind of respect she had known in her life, the paternal poke that had split open her sissy-boy faggot ass until it bled. And with that respectful scar she had learned to live, as one learns to live with a clawed hand, stroking it, taming its fierceness, smoothing down its sharp nails, growing accustomed to its violent blows, learning to enjoy its sexual scratch as the only possible expression of affection.
”
”
Pedro Lemebel (My Tender Matador)
“
He saw El Lagartijo—“The Lizard”—one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain, and he met Cara Ancha, the celebrated Andalusian matador. When he was only nine years old, Pablo completed his first painting, Le Picador, a portrait of a man riding a horse in the bullring. Two years later, Pablo’s family moved to a new town, La Coruña, on Spain’s Atlantic coast. Don José got a job as an art teacher at the local college. Even though he was much younger than the other students, Pablo enrolled in his father’s class. He also took courses in figure drawing and landscape painting. By the time he turned thirteen, Pablo’s skill level had surpassed his father’s. Don José was so impressed that he handed his son his brushes and vowed never to paint again. When Pablo was fourteen years old, his family moved again, this time to Barcelona, where Pablo enrolled in the prestigious School of Fine Arts. His teachers quickly noticed his skills and allowed him to skip two grades. But just as in Málaga, Pablo had trouble adhering to the school’s rules. Before long he was back to his old tricks, cutting class so that he could wander the city streets, sketching interesting scenes that he observed along the way. Pablo repeated this behavior at his next school, the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. This time, Pablo’s father refused to tolerate his son’s antics and stopped his allowance. At age sixteen, Pablo found himself on his own for the first time, forced to support himself on nothing but his artistic ability. It has been said that the older Pablo grew, the more childlike his art became. During some periods he painted almost entirely in blue or depicted only circus performers.
”
”
David Stabler (Kid Legends: True Tales of Childhood from the Books Kid Artists, Kid Athletes, Kid Presidents, and Kid Authors)
“
Sometimes, matadors got gored (...) Aficionados viewed their dramatic deaths like martyrdom in a holy war. Some animal rights activists also marked these gruesome occasions in their mental calendars.
”
”
Rachael Adam (Sangre De Toro)
“
The Ballad of the Woe of the Children of Polaris
How, being lost,
Will we find ourselves,
In this labyrinth of the Soul,
Where everything is deception, lies, and depravity?
If I seek water and find oil,
If the light no longer illuminates,
If love no longer loves,
If kindness no longer gives;
And then, the one who once left will return,
And those who yearn will receive their Reward,
Of the sweetest Wine,
Of the softest Flute,
And of the most resounding cymbal,
They will hear the Sound and the Clamor,
And in the Direction of the North Star,
The proudest and strongest bull of the Flock,
Will be slaughtered by the weakest Matador,
And the fields will not be sown,
And the waters will become poison,
And the wind will bring plague, and the sky will darken,
The ground will tremble in the desert and your Castles will become ruins,
Your gold will turn to iron,
And your lying lips
Will continue to murmur blasphemies,
But your tongue will be cut,
And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,
And those who bear the symbol of redemption
In their hearts,
Will be tested,
And in the end, they will be Saved,
Only in Spirit,
For Salvation is not of this world,
And, afterward, those who were not given to drink
Will be intoxicated with the water of the sweetest Stream,
And those who were not given to eat
Will be satisfied,
Your hard and wicked heart
Will be softened and turned to Water,
So that you may, once again,
Drink from the Fountain of Living Water,
The one that never ceases to flow,
From the Oriental Gardens.
”
”
Geverson Ampolini
“
The bare feet dancing upon the floor and her slender legs, elegantly sculpted and revealed by a short and provocative crimson hànfú that teased and ignited like a matador in the arena...
”
”
Leilac Leamas (Devil's Puzzle: Love, Sex & Espionage)
“
Existeix una frontera precisa que separi l'horror de l'humor? La resposta és doble.
Sí, hi ha una frontera: Allà, al centre de l'hecatombe, en la matança de milers de persones, en l'assasinat organitzat; en qualsevol lloc on la injustícia supera la imaginació. Han existit i existeixen llocs i moments en que ni el sarcasme més agre és capaç d'ultrapassar les cortines de l'espant. Podria definir-se l'infern com aquell estat de coses, aquella combinació del temps i de l'espai en què l'humor és per se impossible.
I tanmateix es podria considerar la validesa de l'humor, justament, per separar l'individu de la circumstància, el matador del context.
”
”
Albert Sánchez Piñol (Pallassos i monstres)
“
Don't be a doormat, be a matador. - Hamza
”
”
hamza
“
Don't be a doormat, be a matador.
”
”
Hamza.
“
Dylan, Duende, Death and Lorca
Does Bob Dylan have Duende?
DUENDE dancers perform moving, unique, unrepeatable performances
Does Bob Dylan have duende? Do you have duende? What is duende?
Duende is a Spanish word with two meanings.
A duende is a goblin or a pixie that probably lives at the bottom of the garden and gives three wishes to old ladies who deserve a break.
The duende was best defined by Spain’s great poet Federico García Lorca during a lecture he gave in New York in 1929 on Andalusian music known as cante jondo, or deep voice. ‘The duende,’ he said, ‘is a momentary burst of inspiration, the blush of all that is truly alive, all that the performer is creating at a certain moment.’
The difference between a good and a bad singer is that the good singer has the duende and the bad singer doesn’t. ‘There are no maps nor disciplines to help us find the duende. We only know that he burns the blood like a poultice of broken glass, that he exhausts, that he rejects all the sweet geometry we have learned.’
Some critics say Bob Dylan does not have a great voice. But more than any other performer since the birth of recorded music, Dylan has revealed the indefinable, spine-tingling something captured in Lorca’s interpretation of duende. ‘It is an inexplicable power of attraction, the ability to send waves of emotion through those watching and listening to them.’
‘The duende,’ he continues, ‘resembles what Goethe called the demoniacal. It manifests itself principally among musicians and poets of the spoken word, for it needs the trembling of the moment and then a long silence.’
painting off hell by Hieronymus Bosch
Hell & Hieronymus Bosch
Four elements can be found in Lorca’s vision of duende: irrationality, earthiness, a heightened awareness of death and a dash of the diabolical. I agree with Lorca that duende manifests principally among singers, but would say that same magic may touch us when confronted by great paintings: Picasso’s Guernica, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, the paintings of heaven and hell by Hieronymus Bosch.
The duende is found in the bitter roots of human existence, what Lorca referred to as ‘the pain which has no explanation.’ Artists often feel sad without knowing why. They sense the cruel inevitability of fate. They smell the coppery scent of death. All artists live in a permanent state of angst knowing that what they have created could have been better.
Death with Duende
It is not surprising that Spain found a need for the word duende. It is the only country where death in the bullring is a national spectacle, the only nation where death is announced by the explosion of trumpets and drums. The bullring, divided in sol y sombre – the light and shade, is the perfect metaphor for life and death, a passing from the light into darkness. Every matador who ever lived had duende and no death is more profound than death in the bullring.
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Clifford Thurlow (Sex Surrealism Dali & Me)
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It is not surprising that Spain found a need for the word duende. It is the only country where death in the bullring is a national spectacle, the only nation where death is announced by the explosion of trumpets and drums. The bullring, divided in sol y sombre – the light and shade, is the perfect metaphor for life and death, a passing from the light into darkness. Every matador who ever lived had duende and no death is more profound than death in the bullring.
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Clifford Thurlow (Sex Surrealism Dali & Me)
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—¿Y ya te has decidido? —inquirió Jace—. ¿Vas a ser cazador de sombras?
Kit vaciló. No sabía exactamente cuándo había sucedido, pero había sucedido. Se dio cuenta de que fue en la playa, con Sombra, cuando por un momento temió no ser un nefilim.
—¿Qué otra cosa iba a ser?
La boca de Jace se curvó en las comisuras en una sonrisa descarada.
—Nunca he dudado de ti, chaval. —Le alborotó el pelo—. No tienes entrenamiento, así que diría que el arco, la ballesta o los cuchillos arrojadizos no son para ti. Te buscaré algo, algo que diga Herondale.
—Podría matar con mi hiriente sentido del humor y mi encanto matador — bromeó Kit.
—Mira, eso sí es Herondale. —Jace parecía muy complacido—. Christopher... ¿puedo llamarte Christopher?
—No.
—Christopher, para mí la familia nunca ha tenido que ver con la sangre. Fui siempre de la familia que escogí. Pero resulta que es agradable tener un pariente en este mundo.
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Cassandra Clare (Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices, #3))
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much like a when a bullfighter comes home he struts through the matadoor
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J.S. Mason (A Dragon, A Pig, and a Rabbi Walk into a Bar...and other Rambunctious Bites)
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Time's Magpies by Stewart Stafford
Time’s magpies swoop to taunt and rob,
And pluck out hair and gums carefree.
Opportunity and energy drained by mob,
As we duel pitiless reality.
The cat’s jowls swelled in uproar,
His gut sags and snarls with pain.
Feathery barbs of a matador,
Feline fleeing to copse again.
A younger cat enters the fight,
Ousting the aged tom.
Crown prince routs thieving flight,
A proud lion of dawn's sun.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
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Stewart Stafford
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One day early in his career, Franklin killed the two bulls that had been allotted to him, then, taking the place of two other matadors, who had been gored, killed four more. This set off such an emotional chain reaction in the ring that another bullfighter dropped dead of excitement.
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David Remnick (The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from The New Yorker)