The man in the arena

“The desire to have a selfie as a souvenir from running with the bulls in Spain turned into a near-death experience an American lawyer says he’ll never forget…

While his daughter and wife cautioned him against joining the crowd that would race the bulls, Alvarez said the energy in the streets of Pamplona on the festival’s opening day was too strong to resist…

His urgent surgery Sunday took 2 ½ hours but Alvarez says his stable condition means he could be discharged as soon as Tuesday. He has promised himself a return to Pamplona to enjoy the festival as a spectator but not a bull racer.”  –The New York Times, July 8th 2019

 

I recently read an article in the New York Times about a man who was gored during the running of the bulls in Pamplona. He is an American, and “when he thought that the danger had passed” he tried to shoot a selfie video of himself standing in the corrida. A stray bull swept along behind him and ripped him through the neck. This incident gave me food for thought. If being pursued by an enraged 1300 pound bull along slick cobbled streets can’t hold your full attention, what can?  

 

I saw a bullfight in Pamplona on the last full day of the San Fermin festival. For those who have not seen a Spanish bullfight, here is a spoiler: the bull dies in the end. The collected works of Ernest Hemingway had left me with the notion that the ferocious bull would be halted mid-charge by a single sword thrust from a stoic, mustachioed man standing tall and alone in the white sand oasis of the enthralled arena. The spectacle would be followed by copious drinking and terse reflections on the nature of Masculinity and Courage.

 

It is not like that. The copious drinking, for one thing, begins first thing in the morning. The matador does not stand alone in the arena. He enters accompanied by a phalanx of bufones and picadors, who harry the bull for yawning minutes before the matador returns to the ring. The mounted picadors sink barbed lances into the bull’s shoulders as he lunges at their horses, and the bufones taunt the bull before ducking behind barriers that the bull slams in his frenzy and rage. By the time the matador enters the ring the bull has already been destroyed. His ribs heave in and out like a bellows, and you can take his pulse by watching the gouts of blood pumped from his wounds with each throb of his heart. He is exhausted by progressive sprints in the hot sun, chasing ghosts that taunt him and stab him and then whisk away to be replaced by a new tormentor just out of reach. Enter the matador.  

 

The matador goads the bull into charging a scarlet cape, but, because he is not distracted by taking selfies, is able to dodge the killer horns at the last moment. The bull is wheezing and bleeding and foaming pink, but can always summon one more charge at the hateful creature that has poked him. The matador’s sword, in the fight that I watched, was more prop than tool. The bull charged until his legs literally gave out under him, and still tried to shuffle toward the sparkling matador on his knees. “Kill him, asshole!” shouted the guys passing a joint behind me, motivated more by boredom than by mercy. The matador obliged, using a knife smaller than the one I use to dice carrots. He leaned delicately over the wavering horns and stabbed the back of the bull’s neck twice, finally severing the spinal cord on his third attempt. Bands broke out in cheerful music, a team of yoked horses cantered in to drag away the carcass, and a team of men set up a special hose to wash away the blood prior to the next fight.

 

The San Fermin festival attracts over 1 million people every year, and the bullring seats 20,000. All the celebrants and spectators dress in white, offset by red bandanas and sashes embroidered with regional crests and images of saints. Posters throughout the city feature municipal employees wishing attendees a safe and happy bullfight. The thousands of spectators and the energy of the crowds are indescribable, and the imagery implicates the church, the apostles, and the nation in this epic showdown of man vs. steer. When the matador’s knife cleft the bull’s vertebrae, it dawned on me for the first time that I was complicit in the violence. I wore the red sash, sat in a paid seat, photographed the spectacle: all of this was a tacit endorsement, and made my individual self indistinguishable from the red-and-white mass around me.  

 

It is the prerogative of the spectator to take sides in the contest they observe. The bullfight is pageantry, with the winner already determined. I can see why the average citizen, José the Plumber, would want to see himself in the matador’s shoes. The matador is a winner, with scintillating clothes and a sharp sword and awesome hair, whose sidekicks get out of the way when it’s time for the final blow to be struck. I wonder, though, if anyone else in the crowd did as I did and saw themselves as the bull. You are confused, exhausted, and bleeding from your flanks. You are alone and surrounded by adversaries. The crowd mocks you, the picadors poke you, and the sparkling guy gets all the credit. Would you give up and look to the barriers for the exit that leads back to your farm? If you didn’t find that exit, would you charge until the lights went out?

Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft (Up the hill, down the hill)

I was excited to learn that there were direct flights between Philly and Zurich, but my trip to Switzerland started inauspiciously.  The boarding time for my flight was pushed back 45 minutes, then an hour and a half, and ultimately we boarded the plane over 2 hours past the posted takeoff time.  Once we were all buckled in the Captain crackled onto the loudspeaker to inform us that we would have to wait at least an hour more for a takeoff window, and I was treated to the unique sound of 300 people exhaling in simultaneous exasperation.  I was seated next to a 12 year old who cycled every 90 seconds between playing space invader games on his phone, flipping through a massive comic book, and punching the back of the seat in front of us where his little brother was seated.  He was travelling alone, and relished the opportunity to have orange soda delivered to him at regular intervals.  

Moments before takeoff, as we finally approached the runway, he decided now was the time to call his father and inform him of his status.  The flight attendant hovered at my left shoulder, apoplectic with uncertainty, torn between her compulsion to see all devices stored before takeoff while remaining conscious of the Gestapo implications of forcing an unaccompanied minor to hang up on his father before an intercontinental voyage.  The boy hung up, the plane took off, and I passed the next 8 hours in a fitful sleep interrupted by jabs to the ribs as my seatmate vanquished particularly stalwart aliens.

I landed in Zurich and met DW at the airport.  I have known DW for 27 years, 94% of my life, and we operate on a similar wavelength.  The first order of business was to take the tram to center city and swim in the Limatt.  The Limatt runs through the heart of Zurich and flows extremely fast: one of us sat with the bags while the other hopped in the river, was ripped downstream by the current, and then hiked up the bank to trade spots.  We returned to his charming wood-framed apartment, demolished some pasta, and returned to Zuri Fest, the tri-annual bacchanal.  It was an amazing juxtaposition of Dionysian revelry and Swiss pragmatism.  Revelers downed cans of Swiss lager, and then recycled them carefully in color-coded bins—I saw hardly any trash in the street.  People strolled west along the Limatt into the sunset, and donned free sunglasses from a local supermarket to protect them from harmful UV rays.  

The pinnacle of Zuri Fest, for me, was watching a rave in a cobbled square where backpackers tripped out blissfully to House tracks spun by a DJ in a booth covered with flowers and vines like troll’s den.  In between the dancing cigarette tips and glowstick tracers, a uniformed municipal employee with a broom and bucket swept up all cigarette butts and beer cups as soon as they fell to the ground.  It was beautiful.  It was orderly.  The night was capped by fireworks over the Alps and a punctual train home.

The next morning DW and I woke, bought bread and meat and cheese, and then headed to Interlaken.  Our objective was the Alps: we would sleep in a hostel tent camp, rise early, and then climb the face of Harder Kulm to see the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks.  Our trip to central Switzerland was astonishingly beautiful.  The mountains jut out of the land at impossible angles, and one can see the schist and waterfalls along the peaks of ancient mountains from the window of the train.  The lakes are shockingly, impossibly blue, and the goats wear bells around their necks.  The tent camp was simple and fulfilling.  We slept in a 6-bunk wall tent with 4 other travelers.  We rose by 7h, cleared our bunks, and set off for the flanks of Harder Kulm.

The climb was laughably vertical.  Like, 45 degrees vertical.  Some merciful soul had carved switchbacks into the mountain, but no amount of switchbacks could hide the fact that we were going straight up.  The tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is 2,720 feet tall.  By 13h we had climbed the equivalent of 1.7 Burj Khalifas from the ground to the pinnacle.  We started in a dense alkaline forest, passed through goat fields maintained by intrepid shepherds, and ultimately were swallowed by the clouds.  In a single step we were suddenly in a world of cloying humidity and visibility limited to the soil, trees and rocks in front of us.  When we gazed off the edge of the trail, we saw a pure and milky blankness: no village, no Eiger, no Interlaken, nothing.  In the whole hike we saw only two other people on the trail. 

We reached the top, devoured rude sandwiches of salami, mustard and cheese, and then scrabbled down to the bottom of the face, our quads ablaze.  The timetables we had received that morning at the Interlaken Hauptbahnhof were correct (of course), and we were able to intercept the regional train on the shore of the Brienzsee and connect to Zurich via Luzern.  We disembarked in Zurich, rode electric bikes along a path that transitioned from industrial sites to farmland, and finally landed in the sleepy town where DW lives.  I lay awake, tormented by my fibrillating gastrocnemius, until sleep finally overcame me.  I awoke beneath an open skylight to the unworldly squawks of DW’s roommate’s pet cockatiel.

So.  I quite like Switzerland.  I love how environmentally and socially conscious the people are.  Air conditioning in Zurich is strictly verboten, recycling is sorted into four bins for plastic, aluminum, glass and trash, and the supermarkets sell lumpy organic produce at a reduced rate.  Public transportation is universal and reliable, and supermarkets impose a hefty toll on those who forget to bring their own bags.  When one walks around Switzerland, one gets the impression that the economy is driven by Toblerone bars, Victorinox knives, Sigg bottles, and the sale of dirndls to tourists.  Clearly there’s more to it than this: there are too many BMWs and $50 entrées for their economy to be maintained on nationalistic commerce.  I’m curious to know what the staid bankers of Zurich’s office towers are up to: their taxes have clearly paid for superlative public infrastructure, and it’s a marvel that the Swiss have summoned such innovation and collective grit from a mountainous, landlocked country.

Two weeks ago I was in Mali, which may be the diametric opposite of Switzerland.  It is hot, chaotic, cheap, and libertarian.  One may rejoice in the short term about not having to abide by any rules, but that joy is quickly tempered by the knowledge that no one else is abiding by any rules either.  There’s no easy tradeoff.  On the train back to Zurich from Interlaken, I used the (scrupulously clean) train bathroom.  I was halfway across the carriage when an older woman shouted at me, in German, that I had left the door to the bathroom ajar.  I crossed the carriage, cheeks burning in shame, to correct the rent that I had torn in the social contract.  I am remarkably privileged, and extremely curious, to experience the extremes of human society firsthand.  It helps me place myself: do I seek more rules, or more freedom?  Do I want a network of trains that run on time, or the freedom to buy a motorcycle and ride it into the horizon?  Is it better to have a sanitary bathroom and be shouted at when you fail to close the door, or a hole in the ground with no encumbering expectations?

This morning I flew from Switzerland to Spain.  There are palm trees here, white sand beaches, spicy food, cheap beer, a new language cajoling me from the advertising hoardings.  Once again, I have stepped off the plane to find a new world.  Details to follow.