These are some pretty revealing photos of the last bullfight held in Plaza Monumental de Barcelona on September 25. Oddly enough, this collection by several photographers came to me via my google alert on David Mora and is actually posted in the Denver Post.
I was saddened to learn when I started to look at the photos that it was Juan Mora and not David Mora in this corrida, but the pictures were moving nonetheless. I have kind of a deal with "the last ever" of anything. That mash-up of emotions that makes the corrida fascinating to me in the first place. Is there a name for that? Something about that last roll of Kodachrome film broke my heart and I think the Indigo Girls song Winthrop is probably the saddest song I've ever heard. "And for someone, there is something, never coming back."
Remember when I said that this guy was something special? To mark my words, he was going to blow up? Well, it turns out that the day after I said that, he did. (Seriously watch that.) It was the Festival of San FermÃn in Pamplona. The whole day was hailed as a disappointment except for David Mora.
He was gored twice. Once in the thigh and once in the armpit. And it made me genuinely frightened. I actually thought, "What if I lose him!?"-- as though I actually knew him. But that's just the thing: I feel like I do.
Despite my many conflicting emotions about the corrida, ('fight'-- bullfight, bullfighter-- 'fight' has never been the right word and never the word they themselves use) David Mora makes you reconsider the whole thing. Much like Enrique Ponce was for AL Kennedy while she was writing On Bullfighting, watching David Mora is the closest the corrida gets to a religious experience. (Enrique Ponce, as it turns out, was David Mora's sponsor in his alternativa.) And I think religion is an appropriate way to discuss it. Because I was raised Buddhist, so I don't have an attachment to the deeply ceremonial aspects of, say, Catholicism. But there are some churches, some cathedrals, and some sermons that I have heard by some priests and some reverends that make believe and understand.
David Mora is someone who makes you love something that repelled you, and see something by seeing it the way he sees it.
Without needing to know anything about cape work or rules, you can see-- even I could see!-- from the very first, that he was just plain better than everyone else. Listen to the audiences. Even in the last year or two, he's banished from himself those last flourishes of ego, of strutting. He's all business, and all love. Even with his ass hanging out, even when he went up against the Miura bull, his grace makes everyone else around him look like a hack, like a strutting peacock. Anytime I see a clumsy step or pass, a scurry, I know it's not my David.
Odd, I know. To say "mine." But as soon as I made him Aries Brio, he became mine.
I can't tell you how many videos I've watched, how many websites I've translated. I feel like I could spot his work anywhere. Turns out, matadors are sort of difficult to get in touch with. But I really want to interview him. Like really. I found out his agent is Antonio Tejero, but haven't figured out a way to contact that guy. Anyone know? Can anyone help? (Bernardo Cubria, I mean you!)
If you have to walk around in the rain and cold, even though it's July, I recommend listening to Estrella Morente and pretending you're in Spain. I do this often, and I think it helps. Here's some Tangos de Pepico for your Monday. Estrella Morente is the daughter of another famous Flamenco singer, Enrique Morente, and as it happens has been married to a pretty famous bullfighter, Javier Conde, since she was 21.
, watching David Mora is the closest the corrida gets to a religious experience. (Enrique Ponce, as it turns out, was David Mora's sponsor in his alternativa.) And I think religion is an appropriate way to discuss it. Because I was raised Buddhist, so I don't have an attachment to the deeply ceremonial aspects of, say, Catholicism. But there are some churches, some cathedrals, and some sermons that I have heard by some priests and some reverends that make believe and understand. 
for your Monday. Estrella Morente is the daughter of another famous Flamenco singer, Enrique Morente, and as it happens has been married to a pretty famous bullfighter, Javier Conde, since she was 21. 
, one of my faves. He also participates in the bloodless bullfighting they've been doing in Las Vegas, where the peones stick velcro spears to the back of the bull. That is some crazy dangerous stuff right there. 
