Riffs about the glory of journals, diaries, notebooks full of musings and importance of turning off inner-critic and not overthinking while savoring the process of transcription, curation and further creative wonderment from Kura barn in provincial Japan. With evidence with my own process.

Items are Marty Thurston’s backyard studio for “Personal Archeology – Postcard #88”

Plus sorta re-cap how far I got about Circumnavigation poetry book project, tips and tactics for enjoying and “doing something with” your diaries, scrapbooks and so on, having multiple books on the go (and mixing up with all manner of stuff all at once, notes about semantics of freeverse, lyrics, short stories and prose poems, and probably a riff about remembering to forget, questioning “who are you making this for” and where I place the ghosts.

Finally, I read straight from some barely legible poetry scribbles with meanderings about sensory depravation chambers, menthol smokes with Leonard Cohen, Pan Am flights with Zeus, Buddha, Glen Canyon, and solving algorithms with nuclear fusion.

“Personal Archeology – Postcard #88” audio
43:33, 256kbps mp3, 84MB

With special thanks to all who bravely step out with creative endeavors and extra for following along with my projects and what have you.

Namechecks for:
Rogério De Freitas
José Naranja
Jason Emde
Austin Kleon
Gord Downie
Henry David Thoreau
James Joyce

+ Julian, Derek, Diego, JoBot
& others, maybe you

Let’s “Embark on Personal Archeology”

Note: “Personal Archeology – Postcard #88” is available in audio-only via all normal podcast channels.

Nepal Stupa Choruses – Postcard #87

Washing dishes and busted spectacles lead to rowing a lake in Nepal figuring out deity, enlightenment, peace and power with choruses fresh from diaries – plus Royal hospitals, poetic devices and question mark eyebrows. Your turn Buddha, your turn.

Let’s enjoy: Nepal Stupa Choruses – Postcard #87

Don’t climb the mountain: Nepal Stupa Choruses – Postcard #87
(39MB, 21:02, 256kbps mp3, stereo)

For Stanley, For Me, For Pals

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messages to a poet at work

Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86 (at artist Yumeji birthplace museum)

Let’s not lose each other amidst the table cloth being pulled out from under glasses and dishes. Meaning: some technical jibber-jabber about claiming feeds sparks a history of these sporadic, occasional (yet somehow charming, right?) literary dispatches from hand-written XML to various blogs and feeds and meanderings. Plus, about me! My name is Dave Olson (hi, more below). So, let’s continue to spend time together shall we?

clickity-click: Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86

A brief history and future at: Indulge Me, Logistically – Postcard #86
(64MB, 33:29, 256k mp3, stereo)

Special music from The Matinée who have new album coming out called “Road to Hell”. Consider supporting these lovely gents in their most enjoyable endeavours.

{more The Matinée in this archive}

here’s dem boys, The Matinée on tour in Kingston, Ontario, 2017 just leaning up against a postbox as though completely normal behaviour

More about me, really: my name is Dave Olson, sometimes Davey, often Daveo or dvo for short, never David, sometimes Dave Thorvald because there’s a lot of other Dave Olsons out there, some are actors or preachers and I don’t want to be mixed up with that. I live at Tsuchida cottage in an under-known provincial corner of Japan and was born in 1970 in Saskatoon Saskatchewan and left after 10 days (but passed by via VIA train in 2012). I’ve lived and worked in many places around the world from picking grapes in Germany, juggling fire in Guam, mushroom farming in Japan, and various dot-com exploits.

Recently, spent extended periods in Ayurveda hospitals in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, have a secret hideout in Indonesia, a fave quirky guest house in Thailand, a villa conundrum in Jamaica, a lot of friends in Utah / four corners area, used to be a fixture in Vancouver until it broke my heart, ditto on Victoria but in a different (let’s just say there was a bad experience that Royal Jubilee Hospital) and importantly, I love to produce creative projects across many medium: ever since I was a little gaffer with my glasses and my pencil set, wanted to learn about things, go places, collect stories, make friends and share all of the above.

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LOST THE PLOT (FINDING HOME) – POSTCARD #85

Thinking about “going home in October” or even more, going far away from home via freeverse poetry, read directly from scribbled travel scrapbooks and backed by trains from Moncton to Sri Lanka and tuk tuks from Kerala and Thailand, by a weary fella in an olden barn in provincial Japan. Fondly home. 

Be Lost at Home: Lost the Plot (Finding Home) #85
(17MB, 10:26, 192 kbps, mp3, stereo)

Includes (excerpts etc) of freeverse by dvo

• Flood’d
• Arc the Spark
• Occasionally Free

other scribbles direct from notebooks, diaries, scrapbooks, journals, what have you from rambles

While there is always a Gravelly Beach, this is now home – Tsuchida cottage, Okayama, Japan

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A heart-wrenching poem about an abducted boy called Simon – who lived nearby, was my age and sorta looked like me – in Surrey, BC 1982 – by the “Beast of BC” Clifford Robert Olson (NO relation). Recorded and contributed to Dark Poutine Canadian True Crime podcast – shared here for posterity etc.

RIP Simon and the others.

https://daveostory.com/wp-content/uploads/postcards-84-simon-stolen-shame.mp3

Be wary for: Simon, Stolen, Shame – Postcard #84
(10MB, 5:27, mp3, stereo)

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Along his namesake trail on banks of Lynn Creek comes story of Group of 7 bohemian painter Frederick Varley’s 10 wild years in Vancouver teaching and founding art schools, developing new aesthetics and shacking up in an $8 mountain home with mistress.

https://daveostory.com/wp-content/uploads/postcard-83-varley-trail.mp3

Bring your own brushes: Upon the Varley Trail – Postcard #83
(30MB, 20:50, mp3, stereo)

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[soundcloud url=”http://soundcloud.com/uncleweed/rainy-mystery-alley-with-marty”]

Analog loops, guitars, feedback and poetry about impossible alleys, 8 seat bars, villages with book shops, woolen scarves, Fado, Kathmandu mud, and umbrellas thwarting tactility.

Made by “Thorvald and Thurston” in a Provo basement, 2018

Read along: Rainy Mystery Alley poem

Available via: 

• iTunes
• Spotify
• Soundcloud
• Ggle Play

Love in (most) all forms – from self to romance to heartbreak – explored through poems including: mis-quote from (probably not) Jack Kerouac, Khalil Gibran advising his son, Mary Oliver reminding to trust, (Angela) Anaïs (Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira) Nin’s recklessness, Leonard Cohen recalling flowers to a shy lover, Katie Buemann picking up a sword – plus a variety of relevant freeverse and haiku by myself – while Jerry Garcia describes a Wonderful World and Tanya Donnelly pines for the Atlantic.

https://archive.org/download/postcards-82-what-love-might-be/postcards-82-what-love-might-be.mp3

Fall headfirst for: What Love Might Be… – Postcard #82
(42MB, 25:30, 192k mp3, stereo)

Dave poems: 

• Sapphire Beside Me
• How Shall we Fill This Vessel?
• Contain’d
• Say Your Name Softly
• Close to Me
• Lie to Me (Laurel Canyon)
• Never Coded
• When I am Disappeared
• Rebirth Arrives Disguised
• How Shall We Begin?
• Today, a Letter

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Full of mis-spoken words, forgotten names and other sloppiness comes annotated thoughts (squished through time and space) for shut-ins, drifters and sufferers amidst erstwhile festive melancholy times of disruption and tumult, including poems – read alongside mosquito and rooster sounds – by:

• Sohaib Ahmed
• Alan Halsey
• Charles Bukowski
• David Smalley
• Kat Code
• Dave Olson
• John Monroe
• Allen Ginsberg
• Unknown Urban Legends
• Marc Zegans
• Leif Baradoy
• Evan Leeson
• John Sinclair

https://archive.org/download/postcard-81-transient-cultural-riffs/postcard-81-transient-cultural-riffs.mp3

For the shut-ins: Transient Cultural Riffs – Postcard #81 (70MB, 48:41, 192kbps mp3, stereo)

++

riffs about John Lennon and Ono Yoko and Marshall McLuhan

&

musical riffs by Chet Baker Quartet with Russ Freeman

Plus name checks for Neal Cassady, Jello Biafra, Dave Madden, Allen Ginsberg’s holy cock, dine and dash, Ken Kesey, Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, Beat Museum, City Lights, Grateful Dead, Beat Museum, City Lights Bookstore, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jim Robson and more… (note to self: add links).

Factchecks: Another fact check for recent “Postcards from Gravelly Beach“ #Podcast via @Marczegans / #poet & @CityLightsBooks founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti is 99 (100 March 24), not 90 as mentioned. Crafting poetry, looking great, an all time champ! More Reading: https://m.sfgate.com/books/article/Ferlinghetti-speaks-out-at-99-his-voice-as-vital-12764802.php?t=28cc8a4a9e — Fact-check for “Postcards from Gravelly Beach” #poetry #podcast via M. @scales / #confirmed! Charles Bukowski & me indeed share a birthdate Aug. 16 (him 1920, Andernach, Germany m; me 1970, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada). Merci! — Not exactly a factcheck but i did butcher #poet @leif’s name in the recent “Postcards frim Gravelly Beach” #podcast / meant to gracefully say “Leif Baradoy” – sheesh i’ve only known him for 8 years… Anyhow, listen to his SMS-sized poems.

If you want it

John / Yoko + Marshall McLuhan interview transcript at Beatles Interviews https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/when-john-lennon-yoko-ono-met-marshall-mcluhan-1969/ On a snowy day in Toronto in December 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono sat down with renowned Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan to chat about their ‘War is Over!’ billboard campaign, which had seen huge proclamations of “War is over! If you want it. Happy Christmas from John & Yoko”erected in 12 different countries. While John and Ono were undoubtably one of the most talked about pop culture figures of the time, McLuhan was no stranger to the spotlight either. He is known for coining the expression “the medium is the message” and for predicting the internet almost 30 years before it was invented.

John & Yoko with Marshall McLuhan: Ontario, Canada 12/19/1969

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Upon turning 70 years old, Dave’s dear sensei (since a teenage Utah community college stint), Larry Harper (among various monikers) curated 70 items of advice (at request of Annie Dandelion).

As such, between licks by Grateful Dead and master potter Marty Kendall, he riffs the list – ranging from practical to mystical to almost comical, many including nudity and space. Oh, also includes his ethereal autoharp songs (rescued from a ca. 1991 Zzyxz Rd cassette).

https://archive.org/download/postcard-80-sensei-larrys-wisdom/postcard-80-sensei-larrys-wisdom.mp3

Gather some wisdom with:  Sensei Larry’s Wisdom – Postcard #80
(45MB, 32:59, 192k mp3)

More Larry

• Listen to Larry Harper’s Zzyzx Rd. ca 1991 album of autoharp songs (via cassette)
• Read Larry Harper-70-Pieces-Advice booklet (pdf)
• Watch Vomit and the Big Chunks jugband at Larry’s 70th birthday party

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Float to Istanbul, Muscat and elsewhere, and check in with Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Francis Drake, Shah of Persia, Adam, Cain, Abel, Lawrence, Ataturk, Czars Nicholas and Alexander, Matt Harding, Russia oligarchs, well-fed stray cats, unidentified shortwave broadcasts, Abraham, Norman, Matt Harding, rowers, drummers, a blonde dog and you and me… finding the edges of the globe.

https://archive.org/download/postcard-79-circumnavigation-of-sorts/postcard-79-circumnavigation-of-sorts.mp3

Set sail for: A Circumnavigation of Sorts – Postcard #79
(25MB, 18:09, 192k mp3, stereo)

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