Arrived in the middle of the Sanfermines, after the whirlwind of a long weekend in which Pamplona seemed the center of the world, there are sorrows, long live joy, today, things are calmer (if we can talk about calm from 7 to July 14) it was time – for those who sign – a day of reunions postponed due to the covid years.
Because, as one would say in the new political language, that’s what Sanfermines is also about: celebrating life and friendship.
By the way, and before going into detail about the bullfight, an also political note:
Yesterday the head of the Sumar list, Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labor, dispatched on Twitter commenting on a video of Animal Naturalis (its president in Spain is part of the team of advisers of the government program of the aforementioned political formation) in which they claimed for the “withdrawal of subsidies for bullfighting” with images of the celebration that opened the Sanfermines in which the steer is shown after the lunge. The leader of Sumar wrote that since its formation “we want to put an end to this being subsidized with public money immediately.” It turns out that precisely in Pamplona the management corresponds to the House of Mercy, which allocates all the economic benefits of the Fair (the two years without it due to the pandemic were very hard precisely for those who needed it most, the elderly) to its welfare work. Anyway.
The morning started very busy with a running of the bulls in which the Fuente Ymbro bulls ran like Verstappen in his Formula 1, taking everything they found in their path, that is, runners and also those who make the tancredo gift next to a wall or a fence marking a disguise. The somersaults, the bodies plummeting on the asphalt of Santo Domingo, Mercaderes, Estafeta or Telefónica, were outrageous.
And he saw all this in situ and on the huge screens in the square where Daniel Luque advertised for the afternoon bullfight. Ofu, what a drink.
And 18.30 in the afternoon arrived on all the clocks.
To open the square, a precious soap holder with respectable horns was received by Miguel Ángel Perera with verónicas of good and bossy lines, since the bull charged with a certain brusqueness. Later, the tercio de banderillas turned out to be expensive.
Perera did not hesitate to kneel in the middle, after the toast, and in this way he began the task, passing the bull from behind, in front and to the bias. And La Pamplonesa started playing.
Standing up, the bullfighter from Extremadura linked round series temperate and powerful at the time. For the left python he lowered the tone since the one from FY was dotting the crutch.
Perera did not hesitate to get back on his knees for two turns and in the end tight bernadinas arrived. He gave himself up in the lunge, rebounding out of the match. It all added up to, just, prize.
Daniel Luque could not show off with the cape in his first shift while first El Rey and then La Chica ye yé thundered on the lines of a righteous sun.
With crutches from below, Luque began the bullfighting task before fighting round with mild softness. The bull was not a paragon of irtudes, even less when Luque took the left, charging with his face high and without travel. Back to the right he stayed under him and the python touched his left thigh. This was great and, surprisingly-Pamplona and his stuff-the award was reduced to an ovation.
The third one sported two hangers that Ginés Marin passed close by with warm reception veronicas. Ginés was also on his knees in the first round crutches and a task in which he alternated right hands and natural ones well finished off with chest ones.
Half-height face of the bull, which took away from the proposal of the bullfighter who, even so, sought all the resources, including the final arrimon, to please the staff. Effective lunge and, now yes, ear to song.
And while the shadow and the sun strove to prepare food and drinks, the sad news arrived of the death, at the age of 68, of the Madrid journalist Alberto Anaut (he was deputy director of El País) and cultural promoter (founder of La Fábrica, Matador magazine, Festival Ñ, Festival Photo España…) who, moreover, without considering himself an amateur, always defended bullfighting and its cultural value. A loss that comes too soon and even more so in times like these
But life goes on and, with it, the San Fermin bullfight, already in its fourth bull, which passed without history in the first two thirds. Following an unwritten script but already too common in this arena, again opening work on his knees, as if he were a holy hand to claim scattered attention. This time Perera fought in the round and, already on his feet, he continued at it, with temper and established shoes. Low hand in naturals, long and bossy. Then, with the bull already delivered, Perera passed between the pitons and, with the large door at the point of his sword, a lethal blow and not one but two ears, which he walked with undisguised satisfaction around the ring.
A leading man the fifth, picked up by Daniel Luque with a bunch of lilting veronicas. Without evidence, Gerena’s right-hander began to fight naturally, but the bull passed by, such that he did for the right. Half-height face, not a shred of caste, which Luque wanted to overcome with the luquesinas, which turned out clean and tight Lunge entering straight and in a good place and, now yes, a prize for singing.
Arriving at the last one, Ginés Marín’s work was based on the technique and expression that he gives to the crutches. It also had the merit that (put to the credit of the bullfighter) the bull was improving in its attacks.
The final Bernardines looking at the line (of the sun) finished warming up the torrid atmosphere and the lunge, although fallen, put the signature. Two ears fell and with them the main door, in whose triumphal exit he accompanied Perera.
Quite an excess, but we are in Pamplona and long live joy-
