“In bull-fighting they speak of the terrain of the bull and the terrain of the bull-fighter. As long as a bull-fighter stays in his own terrain he is comparatively safe. Each time he enters into the terrain of the bull he is in great danger. Belmonte, in his best days, worked always in the terrain of the bull. This way he gave the sensation of coming tragedy.”
—- The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
Running of the Bulls, New Orleans
“The stretch of ground from the edge of the town to the bull-ring was muddy. There was a crowd all along the fence that led to the ring, and the outside balconies and the top of the bull-ring were solid with people. I heard the rocket and I knew I could not get into the ring in time to see the bulls come in, so I shoved through the crowd to the fence. I was pushed close against the planks of the fence. Between the two fences of the runway the police were clearing the crowd along. They walked or trotted on into the bull-ring. Then people commenced to come running. A drunk slipped and fell. Two policemen grabbed him and rushed him over to the fence. The crowd were running fast now. There was a great shout from the crowd, and putting my head through between the boards I saw the bulls just coming out of the street into the long running pen. They were going fast and gaining on the crowd. Just then another drunk started out from the fence with a blouse in his hands. He wanted to do capework with the bulls. The two policemen tore out, collared him, one hit him with a club, and they dragged him against the fence and stood flattened out against the fence as the last of the crowd and the bulls went by. There were so many people running ahead of the bulls that the mass thickened and slowed up going through the gate into the ring, and as the bulls passed, galloping together, heavy, muddy-sided, horns swinging, one shot ahead, caught a man in the running crowd in the back and lifted him in the air. Both the man’s arms were by his sides, his head went back as the horn went in, and the bull lifted him and then dropped him. The bull picked another man running in front, but the man disappeared into the crowd, and the crowd was through the gate and into the ring with the bulls behind them. The red door of the ring went shut, the crowd on the outside balconies of the bull-ring were pressing through to the inside, there was a shout, then another shout.
The man who had been gored lay face down in the trampled mud. People climbed over the fence, and I could not see the man because the crowd was so thick around him. From inside the ring came the shouts. Each shout meant a charge by some bull into the crowd. You could tell by the degree of intensity in the shout how bad a thing it was that was happening. Then the rocket went up that meant the steers had gotten the bulls out of the ring and into the corrals. I left the fence and started back toward the town.”
—-Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Running Of the Bulls, New Orleans, Louisiana
Ever since reading The Sun Also Rises and The Drifters as a kid I have wanted to go to Pamplona and see the running of the bulls. Will probably never get to do that – I don’t feel the urge as much as I used to.
On my last trip to New Orleans, I was able to do the second best thing. For over a decade they have had a running of the bulls in the Big Easy. Instead of real bulls – the participants run from a horn wearing women’s roller derby team which chases and smacks the participants with plastic baseball bats.
A bit of fun and a great opportunity for photos.
“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans.
Everywhere else is Cleveland.”
― Tennessee Williams
New Orleans, Louisiana
View out of my son’s apartment window, New Orleans.
“On the prow of the wagon, in an attempt to attract business among the Quarterites, Ignatius taped a sheet of Big Chief paper on which he had printed in crayon: TWELVE INCHES (12) OF PARADISE. So far no one had responded to its message.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
Saint Louis Cathedral, Jackson Square, French Quarter, New Orleans
I’m getting packed, getting ready to drive to New Orleans for a week of this year’s Writing Marathon.
“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Kickin Brass Band, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
― Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays
Kickin Brass Band, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
I remember, long ago, having an argument with someone over whether it would be worse to be blind or deaf. I said I would rather be blind and they couldn’t understand. Blindness would be a real pain, I’ll admit, but I can’t imagine living without music.
“We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind—mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality.”
― J.G. Ballard, Crash
Woodall Rogers Expressway, Dallas, Texas
Click to Enlarge
“I wanted to play saxophone, but all I could get were a few squeaks.”
— Stevie Ray Vaughan
Dots Hop House, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
“Black boots, said Rawlins. Aint that the shits? I always wanted to be a badman.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas
Bill Chance 