Postcards from Gravelly Beach – Global literature pod dispatches

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…

https://archive.org/download/Postcard48PeaceToSolidersAndStrangers/Postcard-48-Peace-to-Soliders-and-Strangers.mp3

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

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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.

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.

https://archive.org/download/Postcard47WaitingResistingInBaghdad/Postcard-47-Waiting-Resisting-in-Baghdad.mp3

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

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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.

https://archive.org/download/Postcard46MetaPhysicalConditionsOfTheEnvironment/Postcard-46-Meta-Physical-Conditions-of-the-Environment.mp3

Cross the street for: (Meta)Physical Conditions of the Environment – Postcard #46 (18:47, 26MB, 128k mp3)

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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.

Awake ye, awake for: “Awakening to the Dawn of Potential – Postcard #45” (17:51, 128k mp3, 25MB)

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

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

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Finding 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 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.’

https://archive.org/download/Postcard43PonderingFlandersAtTheCenotaph/Postcard-43-Pondering-Flanders-at-the-Cenotaph.mp3

Take a seat for: Pondering Flanders at the Cenotaph – Postcard#43 (.mp3, 16:14, 19MB)

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Part 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 the state of the downtown eastside.

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.

https://archive.org/download/Postcard42BuddhasInTheTrenches/Postcard-42-Buddhas-in-the-Trenches.mp3

Grab a shovel for: Buddhas in the Trenches – Postcard #42 (128k mp3, 23MB, 20:21)

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

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Part 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) 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.

https://archive.org/download/Postcard41WhitePoppyOnARainydayCoat/Postcard-41-White-Poppy-on-a-Rainyday-Coat.mp3

Pin your poppy for: White Poppies on a Rainyday Coat – Postcard #41 (9:29, 9MB, 128k 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.”

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Down 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 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.

https://archive.org/download/Postcard40GeologicalStorytimeWithSheep/Postcard-40-Geological-Storytime-with-Sheep.mp3

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

Edited and mixed by Bread the Producer

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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 then met by his conniving wife.

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

Take a hostage for: Vanquishing Grecian Warlords – Postcard #39 (12MB, 128k mp3, 13:06)

https://archive.org/download/Postcard39VanquishingGrecianWarlords/Postcard-39-Vanquishing-Grecian-Warlords.mp3

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Busting 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 …

https://archive.org/download/Postcard38ImprovisingOverHedges/Postcard-38-Improvising-Over-Hedges.mp3

Leap steady for: Improvising Over Hedges – Postcards #38 (128k mp3, 4:31, 7MB)

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