Bullfighting in the age of social distancing?
Sirs, I feel compelled to write in with a quandary. This requirement towards social distancing is defiling the very integrity of man. To invigorate the masculine soul, nothing (legal) quite matches an afternoon in the plaza, the smell of blood mixed with hot sand, a thousand comrades imbibed on absinthe yelling with bloodthirst as the torero mounts a fine veronica on a bull racked with equal anger. Perhaps a spirited fisticuffs with a jovial neighbor against whom you've lost a bet, and whom seeks a settlement beyond the cowardly paying of the dividend. I would give a thousand pesos for such an outing.
Alas, I am forced to placate myself at home, pouring from an ample supply of sherry while I hurl axes, bare-chested and blindfolded, at the oak in the backyard. The greatest excitement has come only from an errant throw nicking the siding of a neighbor's garage, and the row that ensues in debate over who shall make the repair. I have used this time to fine means, yes, having finally put pen to paper on memoirs of my time precipitating a coup d'état in the Seychelles, and of rescuing a deposed prime minister from a brothel in Calcutta. Fine tales, both. And this forced rest has finally given my ribs time to heal from the jutting a bull rhino gave them in a midnight bout in Zanzibar in the fall. But, with no present adventure being lived, the temptation is to mire my soul in the written tradition of the troubadour.
Perhaps others feel similarly, and would like to get on one of these Zoom conferences to play a round of roulette in the Russian tradition while keeping the distance required to avoid the rout of this devilish viral plague.
