Dave O spiels forth about the exploration of rivers and lakes, the impetus for ventures and motivations for trade ~ augmented by autoharp songs by Larry Harper dreaming of floating the Colorado River down Glen Canyon ~ then freeverse – mostly from stumbling around Europa in 1992 – thinking about connectedness, lifespans of mysteries and reasons for peeking into the unknown with Trauben and Funboy providing guitar stylings whilst camping alongside Owl Creek in the British Columbia highlands.

Pull up a stump for Owl Creek Limnology and Exploration – Postcard # 59 (.mp3, 17:15, 14MB)

I use Koss stereophones, MAudio Microtrack recorder & Solo interface and Sony mic – just saying.

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By a campfire on Owl Creek, Dave reads an instructional guide to hitch-hiking about a November trip from South Carolina to Rhode Island with a series of tips including smiling, signs, watches, and going with the flow while Dan Funboy noodles on guitar.

Stick your thumb out for Three Days and Eleven Dollars, Nov. 1991 – Postcard #58 (.mp3, 10:20,10MB)

Edited/Produced plus Album Art designed by Bread the Producer

Note to self: find snapshots from hitchhike (also White House sign)

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While summertime camping alongside Owl Creek and charging the recorder with the sun’s rays, Dave reads a short story written while on the road with ole dead Grandpa called “So the Legends Go” (.pdf) – a portrait of life one morning in Navajo Nation in 1987 – accompanied by adolescent observations and musings. Accompanied by Dan Funboy on guitar and solar-powered vaporizer.

Arizona with Ole Gramps – Postcard #57 (.mp3, 9:40, 9MB)

Edited/Produced and Album Art designed by Bread the Producer

Thanks to Chris Heuer for Solio solar powered charger

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From Halfmoon Bay on Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island, Dave gives it up for zen poet hero Gary Snyder and recounts beat history from The Old Ways and logging culture from Myths and Texts plus poems about hitchhiking, girls, baths, clear-cuts and the Buddha – then finishes with original freeverse poetry about the transient experience called “Railyards Passing By.”

Hit the road to Hitch a Thousand Miles to See a Friend – Postcard #56 (.mp3, 29:04, 26MB)

Music:

• Bex (of Vancouver Island) “Lost Traveller” @bex0r on Twitter
• Rose Cousins “One Love”
• Sean Staples (vocals & mandolin), Rose Cousins (guitar and harmony) La cienega (Ryan Adams) Live at Club Passim, Nov. 2007
  
• Note: check out CBC Radio 3 podcast to discover great indie Canadian music

Big thanks to Chip for crafting the episode, Trauben for music searching and my sweetie for taking me to Clayoquot a couple summer back, and the trees for taking me there in 1993.

More:

Clayoquot Old-Growth Blockade Flashback – Choogle on #44

Clayoquot Snapshots – a set on Flickr

Gary Snyder at Modern American Poetry (U. of Illinois)

Inventory of the Gary Snyder Papers (U.C. Davis)

Gary Snyder, professor (email: gssnyder (at) ucdavis (dot) edu)

Publications:

• Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems (San Francisco: Four Seasons, 1969).
• Myths and Texts (New York: New Directions, 1960,1978).
• The Back Country (New York: New Directions, 1968).
• Earth Household (New York: New Directions, 1969). [Prose]
• Regarding Wave (New York: New Directions, 1970).
• Turtle Island (New York: New Directions, 1974). [Pullitzer Prize]
• The Old Ways (San Francisco: City Lights, 1977). [Prose]
• Axe Handles (San Francisco: North Point, 1983).
• He Who Hunted Birds in His Father’s Village (”the Dimensions of a Haida Myth”) (Bolinas, CA: Grey Fox, 1979). [Prose]
• Passage Through India (San Francisco: Gray Fox, 1984).
• Left Out in the Rain (San Francisco: North Point, 1988).
• The Practice of the Wild (San Francisco: North Point, 1990). [Prose]
• No Nature (New York: Pantheon, 1992)
• A Place in Space (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1995). [Prose]
• Mountains and Rivers Without End (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1996). [Bollingen Prize]
• The Gary Snyder Reader (Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 1999).

Note: your humble podcaster does not own the last 3 books on this list – hook a guy up ‘eh

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Alongside roaring Lynn Creek, Dave recounts a collection of interesting boulders and offers freeverse about his bookshelf, the sea, Mexican painting trips, tranquility, graceful curves and clouds while Wm. Lenker picks and sings the Appalachian folksong, Moonshiner.

Go for a hike for Chronicling Interesting Boulders – Postcard #55 (.mp3, 15:08, 14MB)

Engineered and Produced by Bread
Album art photo by John Bollwitt (art’ed up by DaveO using Picnik)

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From a skunk-scented perch along Mosquito Creek, Dave spiels about feverish dreams in a Mexican clinic, personal archeology, mirages about the Wonder Hotel, and reads verse about late trains, dammed rivers, watching ships, and men in white coats walking past.

Take your vitamins for Post-apocalyptic Skunks and Fevers – Postcard #54 (.mp3, 16:35, 15MB)

Read along at Mountain Highway

One way these tracks

night lake diving

Comfortably Lonely, Cabin Porch

Waiting at Jericho

betwen night and light

Coastal Starlight 2 hours late

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Visiting the Woodshop on Steamboat Island amidst hayfever and national holidays, Dave and Wm. Lenker exchange spontaneous musical freeverse tales of Pennsylvania, Agana Harbour (Guam), Jericho Beach (Vancouver), and Lake Crescent (Washington) while wounded Samson howls along.

Weigh anchor for Howling at Land and Sea – Postcard #53 (.mp3, 17:51, 16MB)

Photo by DaveO on Pender Island, Art’ed up by Bread the Producer

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From a Lougheed skyscraper comes an improvisational reading with guitars – first more ocean-inspired works from Tristan Corbière, Victor Hugo and Dave Olson into a free form spoken word account of trip down the Pacific Coast highway to a haunted roadhouse with sequoias growing an inch a day.

Cheers to Bread and Av (aka Delfar 7) for exceptional musical gamemanship.

Roust yerself for Skyscraper Stories about Oceans and Forests – Postcard #52 (.mp3, 19:46, 16MB)

Nods to Cosmo’s Spacely’s Sprockets (see also Clubside Breakfast Time)

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Starting at the Steamboat Island Woodshed, Dave rambles salty original freeverse with Wm. Lenker on banjo and traces personal poetic lineage winding through French impressionalist/symbolist and Brittany sea-coaster Tristan Corbière (prefaced by Victor Hugo).

Then – as sleet, slush and hail beats down on the Mosquito Creek studio skylight – rolls into the beat American 50s and 60s with John Sinclair’s chronicle Brilliant Corners, Jack Kerouac riding trains from Atop an Underwood, and Gary Snyder arriving from sea from The Backcountry ~ fortified with jazz, joints and hot sake.

Hunker down for Banjo Sea Shanties and Beat Train Rambles – Postcard #51

Nods to Cosmo’s Spacely’s Sprockets (see also Clubside Breakfast Time)

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An aural montage of past new years’ evenings featuring Dave O reading from Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” next to crackling cabin woodstove on Pender Island (note scratching dog and someone with a stuffy nose), followed by a latenight freeverse message to Napoleon, a languid tale recorded in a garage about a bewildering New Years Eve in Japan, and finally a poetic nugget of memory and hope for the future.

Enjoy a visit with the Poetic Ghosts of New Years Past – Postcards #50 (.mp3, 22:25, 18MB)

More Pender island photos

Music
Ohbijou, Steep
Okinawan folkmusic by unknown artist
Wm. Lenker of Steamboat Island – c/o Woodshed Music

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Wrapping up the White Poppies for Remembrance series with a narrative late-night wander through Westminster, London, DaveO meanders past military monuments, victory squares, cenotaphs, palaces, royal parks, war museum, war chambers, riot fences, war protesters, churches, parliament and finishing at St. James park for a sitdown under a weeping willow to consider monarchy, individual rights and responsibilities, and the role of class division in waging war as London’s sirens, trains, and Big Ben fill the night.

Care for a stroll? Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance – Postcards #49 (.mp3, 34:19, 28MB)

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Thanks to:

Jerry Garcia Band (with John Kahn), acoustic, Oregon State Penitentiary, Lonesome Prison Blues, Salem OR 050582 via archive.org

New Riders of the Purple Sage w/ Robert Hunter, April 8, 2006, Venue: Mystic Theater, Petaluma, CA
Source: Schoeps MK4v > V3 > 744T @24/96
Lineage: 744T > Audobe Audition 16/44> CDwav > Flac16
Taped by: Pete Gilmore, Monkey Tunes
Transferred by: Dawne Sacchetti

Pete Stone – Golden Frontier via KEXP Song of the Day

Bonus: (links coming soon perhaps)

The Yuigers – repressed Muslim Chinese in Guatanamo

Moscow weather – winter 2006, winter 1812

Crimean War

More from London:

London Town Wander Night – Choogle on #46

Anarchy and Fungi in the UK – Choogle on #42

Joints on Brighton Beach – Choogle on #38

Back home on the North Vancouver porch, Dave reads from Clay Mcleod’s essay Why I Don’t Wear a Poppy while sending peace and resistance towards the decent lieutenant Magnum in Iraq and the Philippines along with earnest comrades at arms and peaceful strangers in war torn lands. Plus he admonishes the Canadian Legion for blocking the sale of white poppies while banjo-ist Wm. Lenker sings from the woodshed and The Grateful Dead leave this Brokedown Palace … on my hands and my knees, I will roll roll roll …

Sit for a spell with Peace to Soldiers and Strangers – Postcard #48 (.mp3, 16:58, 13MB)

Thanks to:

Clay Mcleod, “Why I Don’t Wear a Poppy” from the TheTyee.ca, Nov. 9 2005

Grateful Dead, Brokedown Palace, Dec. 06 ‘92, Tempe AZ, (Hunter/Garcia)

Wm. Lenker recorded in his Steamboat Island woodshed by Uncle Weed

Meganpru for album photo (this peacelovin’ woman rolls in the volksvegan)

Bread the producer for albumart design

Bonus:

Canadian Legion hassling the Peace Pledge Union folks about selling White Poppies

Be sure to order white poppies early (shipped across the Atlantic) and read the loquacious discourse on this most critical of topics. Make no mistake, the way to honour ultimate sacrifice is to ensure no such future bloodshed is required from man’s inability to get along. And we (all of us) have a right to respect the fallen in a manner which suits our conscience and not a method prescribed by the Legion or anyone else.

Here’s Peace Pledge’s quick overview:

Last year The Royal Canadian Legion through it legal representative demanded that Canadian groups stop distribution them and that the PPU stop making white poppies available in Canada, or else. That was the gist, though expressed in more formal language. According to the RCL’s legal representatives, the white poppy infringes the Legion’s poppy trademark. The PPU replied at length; our central point was that we disagreed with their argument. We have not heard from them since but the Canadian shop at the centre of this complaint regrettably had to acquiesce. You can read more about this at http://tinyurl.com/2mc7pq where you can also find out about the white poppy project and the PPU.

Following the legal threats both the promoters in Canada and Canadians who bought the poppy from us hoped that white poppies would again be available in Canada this year.

White poppies in any quantity are available from us for dispatch anywhere in the world including Canada.

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A story about Iraqi resistance fighters and their personal motivations by a young writer called Waiting in Baghdad is the crux of the next White Poppies for Remembrance episode – read from the homeporch with a Welsh mining lantern and firetrucks rolling past. Written by Chris K, a player on a dave-coached in-line hockey team in Olympia Washington in 2002.

Hunker down for Waiting (and Resisting) in Baghdad – Postcard #47 (22:16, 21MB, .mp3)

[bunker photo by Lt. Magnum, USN]

Music

Black Angels – First Vietnam War, Snipers at the gates of Heaven
Unknown (via Trauben)

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Taking a Remembrance Day respite to enjoy a conscious discussion with ‘Trigger’ at Vancouver’s New Amsterdam Cafe, Dave O listens to the consequences and conditions of space, in tangible and gestalt senses, and reviews the paradigm shifts of Vancouver’s downtown Eastside ‘four corners’ – once one of the grandest intersections in the British Empire.

Later, he wanders and reads Walt Whitman [When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd] and Gord Downie [from Coke Machine Glow] to bring it ’round home for this part #7 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series.

Cross the street for (Meta)Physical Conditions of the Environment – Postcard #46 (18:47, 26MB, .mp3)

Music by:

Drive-by Truckers “World of Hurt” via KEXP

Beethoven Sonata #14

Unnamed spacey something by Merlin (and/or Jahwah) via HempenRoad soundtrack

Sketching the Chaos of the Downtown Eastside (trigger)

discussing the conditions (trigger)

downtown eastside discourse with trigger

Dominion Building behind Victory Park and Cenotaph, New Amsterdam to left

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Part 6 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series considers the opportunity cost of the lost human potential while at the Victory cenotaph in downtown Vancouver – along the way, troubadours sing about Providence, Joyful(ness) along with spontaneous percussion-scapes and city bus brakes.

DaveO examines the value of life with Gord Downie’s swift deconstructions of existence from Coke Machine Glow, Henry David Thoreau’s visionary stories of perseverance and the value of the mindfulness from Walden and a personal declaration of sovereignty and dignity from original Letters from Russia read in hospital to ole gramps.

Come along for “Awakening to the Dawn of Potential – Postcard #45” (17:51, .mp3, 25MB)

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Tune-age by:

Chris Jacobsen, “Providence” from “Houseboat” 1995 Spilt Milk Records (cassette)

Note: Chris is a quick-laughing, semi-salty, ukulele-playing, sea captain in knew in Guam in the 90’s – last heard from in Long Beach, WA or somewhere in Rhode Island – i should have a photo around here somewhere … Message to Chris: I hope to have a brew with you soon! Send a postcard.

Rock Plaza Central, “My Children, Be Joyful” from “are we not horses” Outside Music in Canada and Yep Roc Records in the States

rockplazacentral.com also features singer Chris Eaton’s Novels

See Also: KEXP Suggests Rock Plaza Central (MP3)
Note: Hear Rock Plaza Central songs or order a copy online at their Myspace HQ Rock Plaza Central

Note: they seem like nice enough lads – look for them in your town

Plus:
“New Shed Percussion Scape” by Dave Olson and Miss Sena of Steamboat Island, recorded April 2007

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Part 5 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series continues with Dave at Victory Park, this time reading the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by General Assembly Dec. 10th 1948) with riffs on tolerance, human relations, common understanding and mutual respect, including a healthy sampling of articles on brotherhood, privacy, special treatment for mothers plus a commentary about refugee status and the illegal nature of torture and humiliating treatment.

Then brings it ’round home with a snippet from H.D. Thoreau’s Walden about sovereign man being the origin of the political state while accompanied by lively jazz (via bootleg cassette) featuring Joe Williamson and cohorts in Banff from way back playing about Peace to the Children of our Universe and Common Market offering up replinishing Refresh (ment) live on KEXP.

Listen to Righteous Declarations for Humans (.mp3, 13:24, 15MB)

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Bonus: Snapshots of Joe Williamson

by Baggage Reclaim

by en_ns

Finding Victory Park cenotaph in post-ceremony calm, Dave settles onto a bench for lost sailors with some bagpipers to chat about John Macrae’s Flander’s Field poem and mull the tension between remembering noble effort and embracing jingoistic behavior. This conundrum is evident in snippets of an essay by Stephen Osborne – The Poem and the Poppy – which relates the amazing grace of drinking gin with Gramps who was there – ‘in the void.’

Download Pondering Flanders at the Cenotaph – Postcard#43 (.mp3, 16:14, 19MB)

Props to these peeps:

John McCrae surgeon/poet “In Flander’s Field“
Bonus: Flanders Field (Belgium) museum – Audio book from Librivox – McCrae works at Project Gutenburg

Stephen Osborne “The Poem and the Poppy” in The Tyee.ca
Stephen is also editor-in-chief of Geist magazine

Flanders Fields, First World War (tyee)

Ani DiFranco “Amazing Grace” (trad.) – from Dilante on Righteous Babe Records

Bagpipes and drummers recorded by Dave O in Vancouver, BC 2007 at Saint Patrick’s Day Parade

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Part Three of the White Poppies for Remembrance series (recorded Nov. 2006) features reading from the Dhammapada by Siddhartha Gautama while waiting for the Seabus heading towards Victory Park. Along the way, Dave talks about conscientious objection and military service evaders in Canada, mercy and the state of the downtown eastside.

Wander along for Buddhas in the Trenches – Postcard #42 (.mp3, 23MB, 20:21)

Page France sings Chariot, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club sings about Mercy, (both found on KEXP S.o.t.D. podcast) and Bill Janovitz from Here Comes a Regular score lays down some background groove – plus some Andean flute, soulful saxriffs and American Pie wisdom from Clayton the seabus busker along the way.

Dedicated to Lt. Talbot Mercer Papineau

Source: Canada’s Digital Collections

Talbot Mercer Papineau – Wikipedia

Talbot Mercer Papineau, MC (25 March 1883–30 October 1917) was a lawyer and soldier from Quebec, Canada. …

He was notable for his letters from the front. He was hit by a shell during the Battle of Passchendale in Ypres on October 30, 1917.

Open Letter from Talbot M. Papineau to Henri Bourassa

Part Two of the White Poppies for Remembrance series finds Dave O eating oatmeal in North Van before heading downtown Vancouver to check in on Remembrance Day remembering activities. While having a bite to eat, he explains the mission of the White Poppies for Peace (a Peace Pledge Union project) folks based in the UK – to abolish war and violence of all kinds and spread peaceful vibes while Rocky Votolato “White Daisy Passing” and Black Tories provide tunes.

Come along for White Poppies on a Rainyday Coat – Postcard #41 (9:29, 9MB, .mp3)

‘War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war.’ PPU pledge
White Poppies for Peace

Down on Lenker’s farm, Dave O checks in on the animal inventory and riffs his own freeverse poetry on canyon exploration, a groaning generation and tense search for authenticity and truth re-mixed with Bill’s Pennsylvanian poetics about frost heaves and nurturing life accompanied with his salty guitar jamble.

Then, in the woodshed, Dave tells a story about a blissful moment of time in Peliliu, Palau – where under the southern cross, everything stopped – while lambs, dogs, rams and a dead chicken go about their lives, seemingly unaware of the literature spieling or the-soon-to-blossom magnolia tree.

Dig into Geological Storytime with Sheep – Postcard #40 (11.6MB, .mp3, 20:06)

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Edited and mixed by Bread the Producer

Embarking on a White Poppies for Remembrance Day series, Dave reads the role of King Agamemnon from the Oresteia by Aeschylus written in the 6th century BC. The King returns to Argos by chariot with a captured royal concubine in tow and tales of plunder and pillage after defeating Troy and is met by his conniving wife.

Here is Vanquishing Grecian Warlords – Postcard #39 (12MB, .mp3, 13:06)

Music by Joe Williamson, “Arco Hotel” music for double bass. Recorded New Year’s Day 199?, Amsterdam, NL

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Busting out a bit of original (un)sung freeverse with a new mic plus guitar-toting amigo Bread, a shaker egg and a stack of freeverse fortified with improvisational bits about the mortar holding the middle of bricks, leaping over hedges, waiting for airplanes and diesels downshifting and being …
so tired but sometimes
so inspired
bewildered and in love with something
we’ve never met
and history yet unseen

Listen to Improvising Over Hedges – Postcard #38 (.mp3, 4:31, 4.5MB)

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(loosely) based on original work Bridges at Mountain Highway

Continuing on with Kerouac’s San Francisco Blues, DaveO strolls down The Mission reading Jack’s choruses written on the same street in 1954 while observing butter trucks, museums and tolling bells and listening to Clayton the Seabus busker sing about going home.

Listen to San Francisco Mission Stroll with Jack (.mp3, 11:32, 13MB)
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Seek Kerouac’s San Fran Blues at Amazon (plus give Dave ducats for wine)
Search for Kerouac’s San Francisco Blues at Powell’s (yup, moolah here too)
Explore rare books at Elephant Books

Stroll on by this post whose sole mission is to validate my legitimacy to the folks of some Podcast directory something or other …

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-c91477162930e744de3309f987904b4e}

In San Francisco on an early morning stroll with a French curled tie, Dave O performs contemporary reconnaissance of an intersection described by Jack Kerouac in San Francisco Blues and discusses Kerouac’s motivations and system for creating these Blues poems.

Geographically speaking, the additional observations include bridge commuters, urine puddles, hot dog and motorcycle tire shops, beer-signed parking lots, a VA condo, a flock of tie wearing folk and apartments with 24 hour concierge service.

Listen to “Kerouac Choruses at Third and Harrison” (.mp3, 9:21, 13MB)
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Seek Kerouac’s San Fran Blues at Amazon (plus give Dave ducats for wine)
Search for Kerouac’s San Francisco Blues at Powell’s (yup, moolah here too)
Explore rare books at Elephant Books

Along with Mr. Lenker of Steamboat Island and his guitar, large hounds and varied livestock, Dave reads poems Refined, Not Created and Aye Carpathia, while Bill sings about the Man with a Rebel Soul – followed by Dave reading This and That with guitar improvisation from deep in the woodshop studio.

Listen to “Sea Rescue Spontineity from the Woodshop” (.mp3 17:16)

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Dave reads a smattering from Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac and original verse written in Germany in 1992.

Joined by Trauben the hitchhiking acupuncturist (who toils to understand a Welsh miner’s lantern), the lads chat about flowing chi, Cascade mountain lookouts (NY Times article) the author as a young writer and attempt to communicate with racoons – possibly bearing gifts.

Listen to “Lanterns for Welsh Miners” (.mp3 20:29)
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Music: snippets from Gord Downie singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and Stuart Dempster’s experimental live recording with didjeridoo and trombone from KEXP Sonarchy Radio Podcast recorded at Jack Straw non-profit recording studios

DaveO checks in with the words of Chinese literature aficionado Lu Ji with his notes on the writer’s craft after a recent batch of related inspiring events including a Dalai Lama (photos by Scales) visit, Chinese medicinal tea from Dr. Wu and the works of Gary Snyder, then ends with a track called Helicopters by The Stills (live on KEXP’s Song of the Day podcast (iTunes).

Listen to “Tea with Chinese Masters” (.mp3 15:42)
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Continuing from the corner garden in the unnamed park, Dave reads from French symbolist (and hopeless romantic) Charles Baudelaire who continues with Joseph Conrad themes of ships, youth and beauty with a piece called “The Beautiful Ship” before gracefully giving way to a song by the Black Tories.

Listen to “Baudelaire Considers Ships, Youth & Beauty” (.mp3 6:10)
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snapshot: Fishing boat in Steveston, Richmond

DaveO reads from Joseph Conrad’s “Youth: A Narrative” from the community garden in the park with no name near Cambie-land, Vancouver and meanders on about riding trains, steamer ships, expansive seas and ertswhile adventures while immersed in foreign culture and ends with a bit of a seascape tune from an original piece called “The Ferry Changes Tack.”

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #31 (.mp3, 17:04)
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snapshot: bloom and rusted pipe near cambie

On a North Van hillside, DaveO reads a few choruses from Jack Kerouac’s “San Francisco Blues” and talks about “Ti Jean’s” writing life, including his dexterous style and notable substance – plus expresses affection for Vancouver and the joys of rediscovery.

> Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach podcast #30 (.m4a, 10:12)
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Snapshot: Moon over North Van

At Granville Island Market on a breezy spring day, DaveO talks about another influential writer, Czech/German/French writer Rainer Maria Rilke and reads Letter # 10 from “Letters to a Young Poet,” plus offers discourse about the writing life, dealing with creative conditions and personal honesty – plus chats about the charming Market on Vancouver’s False Creek waterfront.

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach podcast #29 (.m4a, 7:30)
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Snapshot: Granville Bridge from Granville Island Market

Enhanced and stirring, this poetry postcard was recorded for Grandpa, Robert Louis Stevenson (RIP) on the windy banks of the Columbia River and features Walt Whitman’s “To You” read by DaveO sitting under a weeping sage tree with toiling barges, endless trains and snowy Mt. Hood in the distance.

Postcard from Gravelly Beach #28 (4:27, .m4a)
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Snapshot: Columbia River Gorge, North-Eastern Oregon

First sampling (albeit rather raw) from the Shelter Crescent session featuring Brad Rees playing electric guitar while I talk and yodel my way around some free-verse – seems to be thinking about waiting for a red-headed girl in San Francisco while drinking.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #27 (10:31, .mp3)
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snapshot of Brighton Beach, Vancouver

This sixth (and possibly final) installment of the Woodshed Session again features Bill Lenker’s guitar stylings and singing, and me comtemplating the edge of the Earth with Henry the Navigator.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #26
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Woodshed session extract number 5 choogles along with a free verse extravaganza with Bill Lenker playing on the guitar and singing inbetwixt as I spiel forth words, memories, ideas and rhyhmes – topics include George Washington bridge, Providence, postcards to friends, and going nowhere.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #25
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Another Woodshed session, … Bill Lenker on guitar and singing, and me (DaveO) busting some narrative about items on a bookshelf and reminscing about Caye Caulker, Belize.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #24 (7:22, .mp3)
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Rolling along with the Woodshed Sessions, here’s number 3 … again Bill Lenker’s guitar and songwriting/singing skills along with my free verse and lyrical snippets – this time about lighthouses, aspen trees and an insinuated scandalous incident.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #23 (7:50, .mp3)
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Part two of the Woodshed Session again features Bill Lenker on guitar and DaveO with free verse and lyrical snippets. This time, observations from a rainy night in Vancouver is the tangible topic – the intanglibles are for you to determine.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #22 (4:34, .mp3)
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At last a Postcard, … this one (and the next few) from a woodshed session with Bill Lenker’s guitar and vocals (see Postcard #13) dove-tailing with my orginal free verse and lyrical works – fortified with spontaneous wordification. First up in this series combines Bill’s song with me adding verses about riding trains through Cascadia.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #21 (11:48, .mp3)
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Out on a nighttime walk, Dave sits in the frosty grass under a tree, by a pond, with a Guiness and reads ‘post-modern’ stories by Murakami Haruki, Raymond Carver, Kelsye Nelson and himself, as well as offering up festivus gift ideas.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #20 (.mp3)
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From a snowy porch with raccoons chirping nearby, Dave reads from Richard Brautigan, Phillip Whalen, ee cummings, Walt Whitman plus his original free verse while enjoying Pernod and ginger-ale.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #19 (.mp3)
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On a foggy morning with Osmanthus tea, Dave reads tales by professor Larry Harper – “The Man Who Loved Provo,” and his own “Right (as in Correctly)” plus a snippet from Natsume Soseki’s very wabi-sabi classic “Kokoro.”

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #18 (18:22, .mp3)
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With a head full of cold medicine, Dave reads a haibun poem for Remembrance day and then enjoys John Cairney reading from Robert Burns’ exploits and indiscretions in Edinburgh in a mighty brougue.

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #31 (17:04, .mp3)
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On a rainy day in North Van, Dave – with strong coffee – reads two more “Letters from Russia” plus a breathy bit of Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #16 (.mp3)
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Dave – on a couch with red wine – reads short story snippets by Gordon Cavenaile and himself, plus a poem by John Barta and part of Hans Brinker to celebrate his new hockey skates.

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #15 (.mp3, 16:46)
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Dave – from a porch in Vancouver’s North Shore – dedicates his favorite part of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” to a friend, plus reads some of his own short story called “About Being Stabbed in the Forehead.”

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #14 (.mp3, 9:32)
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Dave starts the reading on a pier at Capitol lake and continues days later at Bill’s woodshed on Steamboat Island where he reads original free verse written in German countryside as well as works by French poet, Arthur Rimbaud.

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #31 (11:48, .mp3)
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DaveO – feeling chillaxed – reads from Kerouac’s Some of the Dharma, Bukowski’s Barfly and some of his own love junk while Christopher provides guitar and vocal stylings from the backyard at the Puget house.

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #12 (12:09, .mp3)
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From Quenn Elizabeth Park in beloved Vancouver, DaveO reads from J.D. Salinger’s “For Esme with Love and Squalor” and part of a “Letter from Russia” until disc golf hi-jinx ensue!

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #11 (10:27, .mp3)
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From a backyard in OlyWa, Dave reads from Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and a bit of hitch-hike narrative of his own recounting a trip up from North Carolina to Rhode Island during a cold November – backed with more smoking jazz tracks by Joe Williamson and colleagues in Banff circa 1990.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #10 (10:18, .mp3)
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Dave Olson’s original essay about Glen Canyon Dam “Dam the Damn” (.pdf)

Dave O reads a Utah writer variety pack from Pe Ell, Washington featuring Françios Camoin, Levi Peterson (Alibris), and Ed Abbey (more Ed – interview and article in Canyon Country Zephyr) plus an original essay about Glen Canyon Dam.

Then, Lewis and Clark check in from their homestretch after scoring some whiskey, and Dave enlists the Jerry Garcia Band’s help to send evocative empathy to the post-Katrina, Gulf Coast.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #9 (27:30, .mp3)
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snapshot of Ed’s old shed gutter in Pe Ell, WA

In Volume 8, DaveO read from Lewis and Clark’s journals as they lose horses on Sept 3rd, and Ed Abbey foretells the future in his modern classic, Desert Solitaire while and Uncle Weed continues telling a story about responsible eco-tage and desert enjoyment to the kids.

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #8 (14:57, .mp3)
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Snapshot: Columbia River Gorge near Goldendale, WA

Dave Olson’s original (free-ed) haiku collection Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe -  Occasional haiku -1992 – 2004 (.pdf)

Dave Olson’s original haibun collection Four Haibun For You (.pdf).

In Volume 7, Dave, chillaxing with sake some smoking jazz tracks, reads from Kerouac’s “Lonesome Traveller,” “Mexico City Blues” and “American Haiku” plus Gary Snyder from “The Backcountry” and haiku from masters Issa Kobayashi and Basho and his own original haiku (.pdf) and haibun.

Postcards from Gravelly Beach#7 (14:22, .mp3)
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Snapshot : DaveO and the Mayor of Misasa, Tottori, Japan circa 1992

Dave O’s original “Letters from Russia” (.pdf).

In Volume six, DaveO sits with ducks at Olympia’s Capitol Lake on a windy day and reads from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s “Confessions” and offers a bit of discourse on transparency, plus reads two more original “Letters from Russia” (.pdf).

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #6 (10:00, .mp3)
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“lucid blue of your eyes” – watercolor pencil by Dave Olson, Manzanita, Oregon

In Volume five, DaveO hangs out in the dark at Olympia’s Seven Oars park and reads Part 2 of Uncle Weed’s Red Rock Adventure, chats about Edward Abbey, and reads from Ed’s “Desert Solitaire” (scored fresh from Olympia’s Last Word Books).

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #5 (11:44, .mp3)
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snapshot of DaveO at Arches Nat’l Park, near Moab, Utah, circa 1991

In Volume 4, DaveO reads from his own “Letters from Russia,” Leo Tolstoy’s epic “War and Peace” and a bit of French poetry while fumbling with pronunciation and enjoying a Guinness in the nighttime garden.

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #4
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Countryside, watercolour pencil by Dave Olson from “Letters from Russia”

In Volume 3, DaveO reads from Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” and “Civil Disobedience” plus Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “100 Years of Solitude” and his own Portuguese Snapshots.

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #3 (13:20, .mp3)
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Snapshot: fishing boats at rest in Salema, Algarve, Portugal

Dave Olson’s original short story, “I Remember Florida” (.pdf)

Volume 2 in which DaveO reads from Gary Snyder’s “Left out in the Rain,” Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” and from original short story, “I Remember Florida.”

Listen to Postcards from Gravelly Beach #2
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(this curious image was scavenged from the interweb, if someone takes credit, please let me know)

DaveO’s original work “Uncle Weed’s Red Rock Adventure” (.pdf)

In podcast Volume 1, DaveO reads from his original “Uncle Weed’s Red Rock Adventure” plus a snippet from Richard Brautigan’s “Trout Fishing in America” and introduces the spoken word literature show thusly:

“Postcards from Gravelly Beach” is an occasionally-brewed podshow featuring spoken word with bits of literary discourse and maybe some tunes from time to time. I’ll read a little something of my own – a short story, essay, letters or maybe some free verse and also read something by someone else, likely a literary favorite from over the years – maybe even tying into a theme of some kind – or maybe not, we’ll see what happens. Mostly Postcards from Gravelly Beach podcast is about chillaxing with a beverage, digging the view in front of you, and listening to something new.”

Download Postcards from Gravelly Beach #1 (.mp3)
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DaveO’s character Uncle Weed as drawn by Brandon G. Kiggins of NYC, circa 1988

A collection of short, haiku-type poems written by DaveO between Tottori, Japan and Olympia, Washington between 1992-2004, called “Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe.”

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

a Japanese Obaasan (Grandma) in the hills near Saji-san, Tottori-ken, Japan