GETTING INTO SAN FERMÍN 2012

I will probably never run with the bulls in Pamplona. I'm too old, and my knees and ankles tend to give out when I run. I'm more of hiker, “a mountain goat” as my wife puts it.
This being the 21st century, I'm a virtual bull runner. The Information Age has made bullfighting a global activity, and the FIesta de San Fermín hasn't had such a boost since the publication of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I can go online and wallow in interweb coverage.
And I have in years past. Here are links to my San Fermín blogging:
Bullfighting: the Mother of All Artforms


The Mysteries of Saint Fermin

Wild in the Streets with Traditons and Mutations
Commercialized Paganism Online

Death Comes to La Fiesta

Running with the Bulls in Cyberspace

The Naked and the Pseudo-Naked on the Road to Pamplona

San Fermin: Bulls and Beyond

Chicanonautica Does San Fermin

Chicanonatuica: La Fiesta de San Fermín Online

Chicanonautica Does a Post San Fermín Show


Chicanonautica: ¡Viva San Fermin!

I'll be writing more on the subject, too, but this year is going to be different: I'm doing research for my bullfighting novel. There's going to be a San Fermín sequence – maybe more than one.
Just as Las Vegas has developed far beyond Hunter S. Thompson's wildest hallucinations, San Fermín has now made what Hemingway shocked the world with look like a quiet tea party. Straight reportage of it comes off like far-out dystopian satire.
If you don't believe it, check out SanFermin.com, for multimedia coverage of not just the runs, but all the other craziness – for those of you who prefer to “watch the realbeasts perform,” as Thompson said about the Kentucky Derby.
Those of you who prefer more artistic and reverent coverage can go to SanFerminEncerrio.com.
And the bullfights can be seen on Ferias Taurinas Online.
It'll be weird. I will be inspired.