Saturday, September 09, 2006

Afro-Latin Fire via Adorable Brits: Ondo.co.uk



Another magnificent YT find: the Ondo boys. The Cubano-Brasileiro skills are ABSOLUTELY BREATH-DEFYING, the resume includes work with Reel People, Gilles P., Artful Dodger, Soul Avengerz, and Stereo MC's—and they happen to be mightily adorable.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Are you the same Brian Baltin who wrote this review of my book, Valley?

"Mike Daily's sensibility is seriously skewed. It allows him to swing from Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, Kenneth Patchen, and proto-Surrealist misanthrope Lautreamont to Beat Happening, Jethro Tull, Fantasy Island, and tenth-rate Italian gladiator films, with only giant elliptical potholes in place of continuity between his wildly disparate reference points. Daily's novel Valley [Bend Press, 1998] reads like a travelogue into the space between the ellipses, or into every dense and erratic mechanism and quirk (of which there are plenty, thank you very much) of its author's mind. It's an epic of fragmentation and disjointed thought processes, cutting in fits from genre to genre (screenplay, poetry, journalism, even college science lecture), with deliberately unrelenting commentary in the form of writing in the margins, footnotes, snapshots, bludgeoning headline-size type, and illustrations bleeding off the page. It should logically be a jarring, disjointed read.

"Miraculously it isn't. The reason is Daily's uncanny fluidity and rhythm. Valley episodically relates the action and inaction of Mick, writer for a BMX magazine (and more valorized ends) and the author's thinly-veiled alter ego, and his run-ins with a motley, to say the least, barrage of friends, co-workers, and strangers. As Daily skates from one hilariously baffling and convoluted episode to the next--accelerating to white-knuckle speed, slowing to near-deadlock, or gliding at a sweet mid-tempo--the dizzying jumps between mental associations that should register as assault with a deadly amount of brawling clutter, here, inspire, thanks to his dextrous splicing, and giddy, disbelieving stupefaction. His protagonist, Mick, collects used books for the marginalia, or remnants left by past owners. Like the act of shaking a book to see what topples out, Daily shakes Mick's numbingly banal daily life for all it's worth--eking out so much exotic result that flashes of color that have nothing to do with anything (a young black girl screaming 'It sure was a big-assed bite taken outta that Pop Tart!' or a conversation with a doltish stranger degenerating into a ludicrous exchange on Hungarian, Polish, Irish, and Italian descent) end up being commonplace, and actually add to the book's rhythm. As do the amazing rapid-fire exchanges between Mick and his girlfriend, Freya, that make up much of the early part of the book. Not only do Mick and Freya complete each other's every sentence, they do it without ever missing a beat. It doesn't seem to be merely the sort of understanding that old married couples tend to have, but genuine telepathy. Daily's knack for telepathic dialogue comes out elsewhere, if to a lesser degree, in Mick's exchanges with his dizzyingly neurotic friend and collaborator, Earl Parker; the anonymous co-worker that he constantly trades quips with; and even in the interviews with the fictional--and hilariously hostile--'legendary' poet referred to as 'The Giant' in the gorgeous Tales of a Giant chapbook in the book's center (complete with lavish illustrations by Evan Hecox).

"While the book's rhythm hits something of a lull midway in the temporary abscence of such rapid-fire dialogue, it ends up being a great service to the running text in the margins. Here the sideline text goes from being a mantra-like reiteration of, and wry commentary on, the action in the main narrative, to completely exploding it in one incredulously brilliant sequence where all hell breaks loose between Daily's straight diary of a party and the psychedelia spewing from Mick's booze-addled mind as a guest at that party. If this is Valley's most genius-like feat, it certainly isn't its only. Daily manages to stupefy again, and again, even in the mellower, more lucid tone that marks much of the book's end, right up until the epilogue indirectly explaining why dubbed Italian B-films are crap but entertaining crap. If one hadn't already been taken in by the book's charms, how could they possibly resist its last sentence: 'You scumbag.'?"
--Brian Baltin, Blend Magazine (UK)

If so, please contact me!

Looking forward to checking out your wonderful online presence and print accomplishments, very SOON.

I'm also on MySpace:

DAILY
http://www.myspace.com/dailymike

O'GRADY
http://www.myspace.com/mickogrady

Regards,
Mike Daily

12:11 PM

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