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Death of Patricia McCormick (La Matadora)
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 Death of Patricia McCormick (La Mata...
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A lengthy obituary in the Washington Post this morning announced the death of Patricia McCormick at the age of 83. The name "Patricia McCormick" probably means nothing to most on the Foro, but back when I was a teenager in Arizona in the late 1950s and early 1960s, she was one of the few female Matadors (Matadoras) participating in corridas, primarily in Mexico and Venezuela. I remember her being in the news from time to time because it was so unusual for a woman to be a professional matador.
Now, I am not an expert on bullfighting by any means, but I always had an interest in it, even as a teenager. It probably had something to do with my love of the works of Ernest Hemingway. In fact, my introduction to bullfighting came first from reading Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon," and later "The Dangerous Summer," Hemingway's account of the competition (mano a mano) between Antonio Ordonez and Luis Miguel Dominguin during the 1959 bullfighting season. So there was something vaguely challenging (erotic?) about the idea of drinking tinto from a bota with Patricia McCormick. I had the same fantasy of drinking with Ava Gardner. Better judgment prevented me from attempting to turn either fantasy into reality.
In any case, the obituary notes that Patricia McCormick was allowed to fight during the season, but she was never allowed to go through the initiation that male matadors had to go through in order to be awarded the right to wear the "traje de luces" (suit of lights). As a result, she was never considered a full-fledged matador. Nevertheless, she carried on, being gored on several occasions. I probably have not given a thought to Patricia McCormick for 50 years, but her death reminds me of the "What the Hell!" kind of woman she must have been.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Apr. 16 2013 15:37:42
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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My intro to toreo was in the flesh. My father and uncles used to go across the border to Reynosa on Sunday afternoons to see the corridas, and when I was old enough, I was taken along. So I grew up with a different understanding of it than most Americans.
As a teenager I read Hemingway, and enjoyed Death in the Afternoon. I particularly liked the fictional interchanges between the lecturer and the old lady asking questions. When the old lady asked about the metaphysics of the corrida, the lecturer replied, "Whenever I hear the word 'metaphysics' I always think of horse sh1t."
I saw Patricia McCormick twice in Mexico City. In those days she wasn't allowed in the old Plaza Mexico off Insurgentes. Instead she performed in the smaller ring where the novilleros had their actuaciones. Those times she was good, definitely of a professional standard, though perhaps not of the very top rank. But you can't judge a torero [torera?] on just a couple of performances. So much depends on the bull, on the picadores, on the circumstances.
A courageous woman.
RNJ
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Date Apr. 16 2013 18:45:32
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to Escribano)
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quote:
I knew Ava Gardner in the early 80s. She was 60 something, but still...
I know what you mean, Simon. I was always fascinated by Ava Gardner. She was beautiful with stunning eyes, and she lived a full life, with lots of good drink and plenty of lovers, including the Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin. I still fall in love with her every time I see her in "The Barefoot Contessa" (with Humphrey Bogart) and "The Night of the Iguana" (with Richard Burton).
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Apr. 16 2013 22:33:21
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Bardot never let herself be made into an object on the screen. You always had to engage her as a person. I think the same was true of Ava Gardner.
That goes in spades for Ava Gardner. You engaged her on her own terms, if you engaged her at all. As a person, she was very much like the roles she played on the screen. In an earlier post I wrote that I still fall in love with Ava Gardner whenever I see her in the role of Maria Vargas in "The Barefoot Contessa," and in the role of Maxine Faulk, the widowed hotel keeper, in "The Night of the Iguana." When I see those films I think to myself that her screen characters are channeling Ava Gardner. I also liked the way she led her life more or less as a female "rounder," with lots of good drink and, for a while, living in Spain and running around with bullfighters, most prominently Luis Miguel Dominguin. She definitely was a lady to be reckoned with.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Apr. 19 2013 17:59:04
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
Am I the only one here that cheers for the bull when the matador gets it?
I suspect there are others on the Foro who feel as you do, Paul. For my part, I learned about bullfighting as a teenager, first via reading Ernest Hemingway, then by attending Corridas in Mexico and later in Spain. I have also seen a couple of corridas in Bogota, Colombia. These days, I maintain a mild interest, but I would not call myself an aficionado. I don't root for the bull, and I don't especially want the matador to be gored, but I come pretty close to maintaining neutrality on that issue.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Apr. 19 2013 18:09:36
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Leñador
Posts: 5237
Joined: Jun. 8 2012
From: Los Angeles
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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I feel like that snippet looses a little steam when you see it in context to everything around it............No grain offerings either!!
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?
2 Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?”
declares the Lord.
“These are the ones I look on with favor:
those who are humble and contrite in spirit,
and who tremble at my word.
3 But whoever sacrifices a bull
is like one who kills a person,
and whoever offers a lamb
is like one who breaks a dog’s neck;
whoever makes a grain offering
is like one who presents pig’s blood,
and whoever burns memorial incense
is like one who worships an idol.
They have chosen their own ways,
and they delight in their abominations;
4 so I also will choose harsh treatment for them
and will bring on them what they dread.
For when I called, no one answered,
when I spoke, no one listened.
They did evil in my sight
and chose what displeases me.”
5 Hear the word of the Lord,
you who tremble at his word:
“Your own people who hate you,
and exclude you because of my name, have said,
‘Let the Lord be glorified,
that we may see your joy!’
Yet they will be put to shame.
6 Hear that uproar from the city,
hear that noise from the temple!
It is the sound of the Lord
repaying his enemies all they deserve.
_____________________________
\m/
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Date Apr. 19 2013 18:44:18
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
Do you have to put an animal’s life on par with a human’s to object to your fellow creatures being tortured for fun?
Well animals that grow on feed lots or in those cages have a lifetime of torture. Miura bulls live on an open range and only fight the last day of their lives and for 45 minutes and they get to kill the human if they can.
Bullfighting really is more fair. And in the end it's Spain's karma, and karma of the US for the feedlots is the karma of the US. Everyone is responsible for themselves or as a nation. for how they live.
In ancient times, from the times the bullfighting came from and the biblical Bronze Age, there was a concept called single warrior combat. Two chosen fighters from each side would fight on behalf of their group. You can also look at this idea that the drama of two, a protagonist and an antagonist, settles a complexity within a society and the loss is negligible. Like they say on Vulcan: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...to use a saying from science ficition...which usually makes more sense than the bible.
I remember a debate in which I saw Camille Paglia defend the Catholic Church even though she could cite it's many problems, as an institution that helped society get things off it's chest by the ritual of confession. She said it was a thousand years before Freud proposed the "talkign cure" that the church practiced this talking format. She said priests had heard confession and that it served the purpose of giving people a way of self examination, albeit through the filter of Christianity, but an outlet none the less even as convoluted as the church can be.
During the cold war the US and Russia were involved in the Space Race and in this book The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe proposed the idea that the space race was a form of single warrior combat, Yuri Gagarin was warrior number one and so on until Apollo wins the fight. With minor side characters and sub plots like Gary Francis Powers being shot down in his U-2 over the USSR.
All this is to say ritual is very much alive in modern times and Spain practices a form of ritualistic sacrifice that may serve an unconscious purpose for that society.
In the US there are equally brutal cultures that are done for sport or pleasure, but not for art. And not done with the result of unifying a group of spectators and bonding them to an ancient cultural ritual. Take one form of hunting in the US that is thought of as the more "sporting" or skillful means to killing an animal, archery hunting.
Archery hunters sit in wait for a wild animal, they shoot it with hunting tipped arrows and if they do not make an instant kill, they have to track the animal until it bleeds out. A poor or even well skill bowhunter can't always nail the instant kill. It takes the right position, a heavy bow and luck to drop a deer and kill it with an arrow through the heart. The shot is taken from afar. Often the hunter has to track the animal while it limps, bleeds. Finally the hunter finishes the animal while it cowers hiding in a dense thicket, or lay prostrate and helpless on the open ground, alone, with no other witness of it's death.
A matador must stand between the sharp horns of an angry and extremely dangerous bull and place a sword between its shoulder blades to drop it and kill it in one stroke. A society that understands ths sacrifice bears witness to the brave bulls death.
Every culture bears it own karma. And that is the only truth.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Apr. 19 2013 20:05:10
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Paul Magnussen
Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to Morante)
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quote:
Spanish culture is not American culture.
Certainly not. But cultures change, sometimes even for the better. For instance, the execution of heretics and blasphemers is no longer a matter of public entertainment — in some countries, anyway.
Britain finally got rid of foxhunting, not without a bitter struggle.
And the anti-bullfighting lobby in Spain is growing, as I understand — although of course it still has a long, long way to go. Even 30 years, it didn’t exist, as far as I could make out. Bullfighting was like the air you breathed; kindly old men said to me, in gentle astonishment, "¿No te gusta los toros?" (Being a guest in their country, I felt constrained not to criticise it; but I did say that I didn’t want to watch it.)
I’ve been told that it’s mostly the tourists that prop it up now, but I don’t know whether I believe this.
_____________________________
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Date Apr. 19 2013 23:54:34
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Death of Patricia McCormick (La ... (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
Oh well, I guess that’s OK then. Tell you you what, maybe someone could organise a gladiator combat between between Prince Charles and Prince Andrew — secutor vs. retiarius, say? (they’ve had comfortable lives to this point, so they should’t complain about 45 minutes of pain. Princess Di vs.Camilla would have been better, if course, but I suppose it’s too late for that now).
Of course bullfighting is ok, humans who play football in the NFL come out with traumatic brain injuries, completely messed up bodies ans it public spectacle to watch men break each other, and quite artlessely compared to bullfighting. Nobody who has NFL tickets really cares that players brain injuries as matter of course. Why stop at bullfighting, just about everything should be banned.
So in football it's city state vs. city state in a contest to see who is tougher and quicker...same ol' gladiator rituals, only we have b=nto goten to the point where we kill them, yet. Just wait, Rollerball is the future.
Oh not to mention cage fighting, that is disgusting.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Apr. 20 2013 1:01:20
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