Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Real life Fight Club (of sorts) in New York City

Apparently last Friday afternoon there was a real "fight club" (of sorts) at Union Square in New York. I guess this is the new "in" thing, replacing the dearly departed knitting fad of some time ago. This is odd and makes for strangely compelling viewing. Almost as if it were an elaborate performance art piece writ large. And violent. And kind of moronic.

From the posting I read about it: "Hundreds of people stood in a big ring right there by the Shoe Mania, cheering and chanting. All kinds of people: old people, moms with strollers, skateboarding teens, foreign tourists throwing Euros around.

They could have been watching some awesome breakdancing group or an unusually good street magician. But instead, two shirtless guys were flopping around on the ground, grunting and grating one another’s faces across the cobblestones. One guy pinned the other and a shirtless ref called the match. Both fighters leapt up, gave each other the universally-approved one-armed bro-hug and left the ring together, laughing.

The rules were simple: find a partner, get in the ring. No face shots, tapping out ends the fight. No settling scores, just fighting for the fun of fighting. No experience or discernible skill required." Good times, people, good times.

I really hope they have a First Rule for their public fight club. That would be cool.

And when you are done reading about the Union Square fight club (I hope I didn't just name it?), make sure to click on the link about William Hundley's art project. Mr. Hundley is, apparently, a real artist living and working in Austin, Texas and this is his art. Really. I don't even know what to say but that might be my favourite picture of the year. For more of Mr. Hundley's art, you can visit his website. This probably doesn't even need to be said, but Austin's city slogan is "Keep Austin Weird".

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