The Rear-Naked Dope: The MMA Files moves on

I started writing Mutable Gestures some years ago simply to doodle with ideas that struck my fancy. MG is a clearing house for writing that doesn't quite fit into my usual day-to-day writing concerns. A catch-all for the vagaries of my short attention span.

More recently, you may note that this space has been almost exclusively devoted to ruminations on the sport of mixed martial arts. This is quite a surprise to me personally for several reasons. I have never been a sports fan of any ilk. I also tend to loath most of the MMA fans I have had the misfortune to communicate with. Boorish oafs, meatheads, and spotty geeks for the most part. And the fighters themselves tend to be nearly as oafish and boorish, and very often come from a place of almost fanatical conservatism and religious zealotry.

The sport itself, the-fighters-as-fighters, and the fans-as-fans, represent a fascinating tripartite intersection of masculine fantasies, masochistic obsessions, and a level of commerce that blends true athleticism with pure spectacle.

Frankly, I can't get enough of it. And to witness a cultural phenomenon like MMA as it moves from awkward adolescence to plausible maturity is the proverbial once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The narrative is compelling, the characters are intriguing, and the opportunities for deep analysis are inexhaustible.

So it seems I am hooked. I will be writing about MMA in this informal, digressive way (as befits the blog format) now and for the foreseeable future. For that reason I have started a new blog, simple titled The MMA Files. Mutable Gestures will continue to be a place of occasional writings and rants.