Latest Thorvald Podcast Episodes
Meditations from the Blockades – Rainforest Dispatches, chapter 2/9
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - September 14, 2009 19:00 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsOut on a trail, Uncle Weed shares a few lessons learned bearing witness to the blockade lines including thoughts about non-violence and pacifism, importance of respecting others, and the common desire for trees which the ecologists and workers unwittingly share. Plus discourse on ways to replace ...
Musings from Clayoquot Sound – Rainforest Dispatches, chapter 1/9
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - September 12, 2009 20:00 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsArriving at a campground between the towns of Tofino and Ucluelet, Uncle Weed sets out to explore the west coast’s unique environment and offer discourse on natural resource-based and tourism-based economies starting with recollections from the noted logging protests in the early 1990s with comme...
Observations about Ecology and Economy – Rainforest Dispatches, Introduction
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - September 12, 2009 06:23 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsIntroducing a series of explorations and soliloquies from the Clayoquot Sound area on the west coast of Vancouver Island during a summertime water outage in the midst of a temperate rainforest. While figuring out what happened, Uncle Weed recollects the tense logging blockades in early 1990s and ...
Forests and Oceans Without End – Postcard #60
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - July 18, 2009 13:56 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFrom a forested pathway along the open Pacific between Tofino and Ucluelet, DaveO reads poetry from Gary Snyder’s Myths + Texts and Rip Rap plus essays about Wobblies, timber-jacks, logging camp culture, and giant trees from Beloved of the Sky then the words Siddhartha the Buddha spoke upon achie...
Owl Creek Limnology and Exploration – Postcard #59
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - April 04, 2009 15:47 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsDave 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 ...
Three Days and Eleven Dollars, Nov. 1991 – Postcard #58
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - March 01, 2009 14:30 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsBy 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 Ele...
Arizona with Ole Gramps – Postcard #57
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 27, 2009 18:47 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsWhile summertime camping alongside Owl Creek and charging the recorder with the rays of the sun, Dave reads a short story written while on the road with ole dead Grandpa called “So the Legends Go” – a portrait of life one morning in Navajo Nation in 1987 – accompanied by adolescent observations a...
Hitch a Thousand Miles to See a Friend – Postcard #56
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 15, 2009 02:05 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFrom Halfmoon Bay on 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, clearcuts and the Buddha plus original freeverse poetry.
Olympic Resistance Network Press Conference – recap + audio
Olympic Outsider podcast - December 02, 2008 20:19Recording of the Olympic Resistance Network press conference on November 20, 2008, including: Arthur Manuel, Garth Mullins, James Lilly, Dustin Johnson, Carol Martin, Laura Track, Anita, Gord Hill… at the Anti-Poverty Committee office on Coast Salish land (know colloquially as Vancouver) downtown...
High-Flying Canadian Snowboarder Crispin Lipscomb – Olympic Outsider #9
Olympic Outsider podcast - October 31, 2008 23:17Fly high for: High-Flying Canadian Snowboarder Crispin Lipscomb – Olympic Outsider #9 (.mp3, 8MB, 9:53) Recorded at the post-Turin Olympic flag tour in May 2006, top-placing Canadian half-pipe snowboarder Crispin Lipscomb talks to host Dave O about his Olympic experience, pre-race rituals and 201...
Chronicling Interesting Boulders – Postcard #55
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - August 28, 2008 04:50 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsAlongside raging Lynn Creek, Dave remarks about boulders which are indeed interesting as the sign pointed out, then reads a haibun about books and statues on a curly maple shelf, and poems about buying hardware and fruit in Bucerias, mysterious curves and clouds, and solace for weary delirious tr...
Post-apocalyptic Skunks and Fevers – Postcard #54
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - July 25, 2008 02:48 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFrom 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-apocalyp...
Howling at Land and Sea – Postcards #53
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - July 21, 2008 10:22 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsVisiting 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: Ho...
The Duff Man! – Olympic Laughs with the Gold Medal Skeleton-ist – Olympic Outsider #8
Olympic Outsider podcast - February 18, 2008 23:58Go downhill, fast! for: The Duff Man! – Olympic Laughs with the Superhero Skeleton-ist Duff Gibson – Olympic Outsider #8 Torino 2006 Skeleton Gold Medalist athlete Duff Gibson chats with Olympic Outsider host Dave Olson about having a beer named after him, life as a Calgary fireman, being Canada’...
Taxi Flashbacks Towards Gatwick – Postcard bonus
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - February 13, 2008 05:44 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsIn a collection of transitory reminiscences, Dave O rolls on from rainy North Van by taxi down venerable Granville St. down the spine of to YVR with indigenous dioramas. Then travels by plane to Gatwick Airport, continuing via train to Victoria Station, then by another taxi to Piccadilly Circus p...
Skyscraper Stories about Oceans and Forests – Postcard #52
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 31, 2008 05:56 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFrom a Lougheed skyscraper comes an improvisational reading with guitars – first more ocean-inspired works from Tristan Corbière, Victor Hugo and Dave Olson into a freeform spoken word account of trip down the Pacific Coast highway to a haunted roadhouse with sequoias growing an inch a day. Roust...
Letters from Russia on “Write Now!” show – Santa Cruz Free Radio (2007)
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 19, 2008 09:06 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsStamp your envelope for: Letters from Russia on Santa Cruz Free Radio (.mp3, 57:07, 26MB) Blurb DJ Snailmail and DJ Anon discuss Letters from Russia with writer Dave Thorvald Olson on the “WriteNow! The Art & Action of Letterwriting” show, Dec. 2007 on Santa Cruz Free Radio – low-power unlicensed...
Banjo Sea Shanties and Beat Train Rambles – Postcard #51
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 12, 2008 07:15 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsStarting 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 ...
Poetic Ghosts of New Years Past – Postcard #50
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - January 03, 2008 07:46 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsAn 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 g...
Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance – Postcards #49
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - November 09, 2007 16:06 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsWrapping 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 ...
Peace to Soldiers and Strangers – Postcard #48
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - October 24, 2007 00:37 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsBack 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...
Waiting (and Resisting) in Baghdad – Postcard #47
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - August 16, 2007 06:25 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsA 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 dav...
(Meta)Physical Conditions of the Environment – Postcard #46
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - July 05, 2007 04:51 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsTaking 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...
Awakening to the Dawn of Potential – Postcard #45
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - May 22, 2007 13:04 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsPart 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 ...
Pondering Flanders at the Cenotaph – Postcard #43
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - April 27, 2007 17:21 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsFinding Victory Square 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 behaviour. This conundrum is evident in snippets of an ess...
Buddhas in the Trenches – Postcard #42
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - April 23, 2007 05:09 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsPart 3 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 Square. Along the way, Dave talks about conscientious objection and military service evaders in Canada, mercy and...
White Poppies on a Rainyday Coat – Postcard #41
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - April 15, 2007 04:19 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsPart 2 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) fo...
Geological Storytime with Sheep – Postcard #40
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - April 13, 2007 22:27 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsDown on Lenker’s farm, Dave O checks in on the animal inventory and riffs his own freeverse poetry about canyon exploration, a groaning generation, and tense search for authenticity and truth – all re-mixed with Bill’s Pennsylvanian poetics about frost heaves and nurturing life accompanied with h...
Vanquishing Grecian Warlords – Postcard #39
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - March 14, 2007 05:43 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsEmbarking 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 ...
Improvising Over Hedges – Postcards #38
Postcards from Gravelly Beach - March 12, 2007 07:03 ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsBusting out a bit of original (un)sung freeverse with guitar-toting pal 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 s...