The Wind

Photos, links, and more at https://thewind.org Become a supporter at: https://patreon.com/thewind When storms blow in from the coast, the tall, jagged Sierra Nevada act as a sharp fence, ripping open the bellies of the clouds and extracting the water from inside. Much of that rain lands on the western slopes, and joins creeks and rivers to run back through California and into the Pacific. But this side, the eastern side, of the mountains is in the rain shadow. The mountains above Gardnerville, Nevada are big, and the high desert flows from the East to butt up against them. Sage, Rabbit, Bitterbrush. Some of the rain that falls on the mountains, and especially the snow that drapes the range all winter, some of that lands on the Eastern side of the ridge, over the divide, and instead of flowing back to the sea—it flows inland. This is the Great Basin and all water flows in, not out. Here, wet places are rare and coveted and often appear as a vein of green quaking leaves in the crease of the hills where a creek has formed. These creeks eventually run into the sagebrush and dissipate in a desert sink or a terminal lake but first they feed the aspen groves and the meadows and the grass. From the main street of Gardnerville, I can see those green creases of aspen on the Sierra, and then… I duck into the JT. // Thanks to Marie Louise, Etienne, J.B. and Anna Lekumberry along with Ryan Lamb and the whole staff at the JT for keepin it real. Thanks to Chris Barkley at Casale’s Halfway Club and Joe Canella at Ferino Distillery. There is a new documentary called PiconLand by friend of the show Mark Maynard and Richard Bednarski. Mark helped out with some of the research and I highly recommend the film which talks to folks all over the region. Thanks to Gage Smith (Picon Drinkers of the American West) and Mike Higdon (The origin of the Picon Punch, Reno Gazette Journal) who spoke with me for the 2017 version, Ravenna Koenig, Sydney Martinez (with more Picon information in her book Finding Nevada Wild), Luka Starmer, Sierra Jickling, Mark Nesbitt and everybody who’s ever picked up a round. Thank you for being here, Cheers! To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

This episode was created entirely by Matt Bunk. You can find Matt’s work at @AllAroundCowboy_Loops on Instagram, and at https://bit.ly/MattBunkArtist To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Part of a series featuring recordings of Aeolian Harps. Each will occupy it’s own place in the Wind RSS feed for 5 consecutive posts.Photos and videos: https://thewind.org/episodes/how-to-make-an-aeolian-harp•••Name: Snake of Truth Wind HarpRecording: Recorded on dry lake bed, Summer 2021Construction: Designed and Built by Eleanor Qull. Large rectangular design of heavy scrap wood. Snake carved into face, intersecting circular hole. Rebar support through center, large bridge, unique hardware and ceramic bowl/bulb built into back panel.Mix: EQ for wind noise, Hint of Reverb. Second recording same, but at half speed with slight panned phaser.Notes: This harp was built by Eleanor Qull at the beginning of my fascination with Aeolian Harps. It originally was strung with steel, but would not sing easily. We replaced the steel string with nylon and it now is sensitive to wind, with a rich and rounded tone. It’s also quite heavy, which keeps it from blowing over.•••This is the final Aeolian Harp in the series. Thank you for listening. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Part of a series featuring recordings of Aeolian Harps. Each will occupy it’s own place in the Wind RSS feed for 5 consecutive posts.Link for photos and videos: https://thewind.org/episodes/how-to-make-an-aeolian-harp•••Name: Mary Blair Harp (Alt: Sunflower Harp)Recording: Recorded on the edge of Snake Valley, near Baker and Great Basin National Park.Construction: Built by Michael Corbitt. Rectangular design, larger than Eureka Harp. Sunflower shaped hole on face. Single String.Mix: Heavily Effected - 2 additional tracks run through saturation, reverb, Pre-amp, compressionNotes: This harp featured a large interior resonating body, and is fairly sensitive. Current location: Salt Lake City, Utah.••• To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Part of a series featuring recordings of Aeolian Harps. Each will occupy it’s own place in the Wind RSS feed for 5 consecutive posts.Link for photos and videos: https://thewind.org/episodes/how-to-make-an-aeolian-harp•••Name: Eureka HarpRecording: Recorded at New Pass Road, Nevada, off of Highway 50.Construction: Rectangular with clover hole on face. Pine wood. Two Strings. Constructed with Michael Corbitt.Mix: EQ for wind noise, Hint of Reverb.Notes: This harp was built for my friends Luka Starmer and Michelle Rebaleati. It features a pyramidal black rock on its crown, collected from a deposit on the edge of Eureka, Nevada. Takes a decent gust to sing, but I enjoyed the 2-string tone. Current location: Reno, Nevada.••• To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Part of a series featuring recordings of Aeolian Harps. Each will occupy it’s own place in the Wind RSS feed for 5 consecutive posts.Link for photos and videos: https://thewind.org/episodes/how-to-make-an-aeolian-harp•••Name: Obsidian Sky Wind Harp (alt: Mountain Lion Harp)Recording: Recorded in Sierra Nevada, Summer 2025Construction: Triangular prism design with 3 holes in face. Pine wood. Single String. Constructed with Michael Corbitt and Eleanor Qull.Mix: EQ for wind noise, hint of reverb.Notes: This harp was built specifically for the episode “Those Who Feast with the Mountain Lion”. It is a fairly small body with a small interior chamber which I believe is why this harp is so quiet. It needs a strong wind to start singing, and does not resonate long when the wind ends. Stained black, referencing the dark desert skies in remote northern Nevada and the obsidian found around Peehee mu’huh.••• To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

This is part of a series featuring recordings of my Aeolian Harps. Each will occupy it’s own place in the Wind RSS feed, for 5 consecutive posts. Link for photos and videos: https://thewind.org/episodes/how-to-make-an-aeolian-harp•••Name: Stovepipe Wind HarpRecording: Recorded on dry lake bed, Fall 2025.Construction: Made of a metal stovepipe: 4 strings, diamond shaped hole cut into face. Stovepipe salvaged from house fire.Mix: Mostly Dry. EQ for wind noise, Hint of ReverbNotes: This was my 2nd harp, and first to work well. I built it at the end of the episode “How to Build an Aeolian Harp.” Since initial construction, I added a string and have experimented with tunings. I’ve found that the sound has mellowed out over 3-4 years, sounding less distorted or ‘buzzy’. I hand cut aspen plugs to place inside the stovepipe, which is how the hardware is fastened to the body. Will sing pretty easily with a light breeze.••• To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Pictures and videos will be available here:https://thewind.org/episodes/how-to-make-an-aeolian-harpFor the next 5 episodes, I’ll be playing audio of Aeolian harps (built by myself, Eleanor Qull and/or Michael Corbitt). The episodes will not include introductions or narration, so they’ll just be harp sound, with detailed information in the episode descriptions.•The first harp sound will drop tomorrow, and then they’ll drop in every day this week.Thanks for being here, and I hope you enjoy listening to the wind harps. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Extra Extra!! From the banks of the Reese River, a newspaper that propped up a honest-to-goodness LIARS CLUB, no lie, and a story from the city who built itself on such falsehoods. The secret history of bitcoin? The Toiyabe Mole Man in the mines of ERN, NEVADA? The TRUE story of TOTAL LIARS and the history they invented for themselves, and for us. Links/Images: https://thewind.org/Subscribe/Follow: https://thewind.org/subscribeSupport: https://patreon.com/thewindA story about lies, hoaxes, squibs and narrative foundations poured directly on top of rock-hard truth in some places, yet in others, onto the shaky ground of an earth pocked with tunnels and holes To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Folks of many religious persuasions have ways of doing it, sometimes around or between temples, sometimes encircling specific mountains, like the Kora of Mt Kailash in Tibet.In the 1960s, poets Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and Allen Ginsberg began annual circumambulations of Mt. Tamalpais in the SF bay area. Snyder learned the practice from Zen Bhuddists in Japan, and the three explained their walk as “opening of the mountain.”Though there is at least one Tibetan group that calls for a counter-clockwise direction, most clearly denote the clockwise movement an important directional distinction, to avoid throwing order into chaos.So as the sky illuminates to the East I head clockwise, down the mountain.Thank you to Michael P. Branch who read the Mark Twain passage (Highly recommend his book How to Cuss in Western) Mark Maynard, Eleanor Qull, Scott Mortimore, Mike Corbitt and all of the folks who’ve helped support the show this year, there are too many to list.MUSIC:Two tracks from Haana Lee’s new album called TexturesEmily Pratt, who makes music as Howls RoadFriend of the show Yclept Insanand a few tracks from the Public Domain through Free Music Archive.Further reading: The Way Around by Nicholas Triolo • The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane • The Living Mountain by Nan SheperdThank you for being here, and keep listening. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Subscribe | Patreon | WebsiteI’ve been thinking about the radioAbout the towers on the mountainAnd the people far away who choose what’s on them.Some Scared and angry and building bunkers, the men who own the ways we communicate, all just a line item somewhere in the lowest dustiest corner of a spreadsheet. Some of this thought path has been paved — the short postcard form of this program is now on a dozen terrestrial stations and counting. Though these are of course of the public radio variety, with different gate keepers. Though the gates abound, it seems that swinging them open is more likely than pleasing the algorithms: the response controlled, non-human machine-learned attention-eating beasts that have snuck into our dining rooms, our living rooms our bedrooms, the place where I stack mybooks. But the place where my desk is, out in the mountains, still feels a bit untethered, even as I tether it with my presence. Likewise it is Not untouched, as there is no such thing, as it’s all touching each other all the time. Here by default, the sound is an archive. The artisan well and all the willows that the out of place water has fostered, how the long grass it’s grown moves in the wind. The missing limbs and branches of trees long felled, the planes and cars and whirring of snow makers on distant but earshot mountains. All the story of the place in wave form This year I’ve been digging into my own archives, examining the sounds I’ve collected, and assembling them in new ways. As the access to information feels increasingly precarious, flooded, owned, bent…I’ve been imagining new networks of distribution, looking for some that others have built; networks that flow both ways. I’ve been examining my own archive of ideas and audio and, somewhere on the edge of the landscape that the algorithms can just barely reach, I keep a folder of sounds it could never understand. What does wind —or a wind harp—or an idea that can’t quite be explained, what does that sound like to an artificial ear? Probably nothing. But to us, it can sound like everything. I’m Fil CorbittAnd this is year 6 of the wind To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

!! More at https://www.futureecologies.net/ !!Dear Wind Listeners. It’s the off season right now; currently working on Year 6 but I’m here to ask for a quick favor, and then play a guest episode from one of my favorite podcasts, Future Ecologies.In this algorithmic big-tech world, it can be very difficult to find new listeners. For the last 5 years one of the ways I’ve been trying to reach new people is by turning to public radio. In addition to this long-form podcast here in the feed, I also make a 2-minute segment specifically for public radio. It’s called "Postcards from The Wind" and it airs on 7 stations now across the US, including on my home station KUNR in Reno. BUT, I’d really like to get Postcards on more stations, and that is where you come in.I’m asking Wind Listeners to reach out to your local public radio station and request that they air Postcards from The Wind. If you’re up for helpin’ out with that, I will send a Wind Listener Patch and sticker as a thank you. Here’s how it works:1. Email me: fil (at) thewind (dot) org2. Use subject line “listener”, and include your mailing address.3. I’ll send an envelope with a pre-stamped postcard and a form note to copy, plus a Wind patch + sticker enclosed. You will then copy that short form letter by hand, or write your own and address it to your local station.4. Then drop the postcard in the mail.That’s it. So if you’re up for helping out, send your mailing address to Fil AT thewind DOT ORG subject line listener.---The guest piece in this episode comes from one of my all-time favorite shows, Future Ecologies (website here) You can subscribe to them in your podcast app, or HERE. This piece is called Cosmopoetics, and it's one of their episodes that has stuck with my long after listening. Hope it'll do the same for you. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

The end of Year 5 of The Wind. Thank you for being here // and keep listening. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

The Wind is a podcast from a desk in the mountains. This episode was recorded live in the woods as a self-titled sort of thesis.This episode is also available as a video -- if you'd like to watch me read this piece at the desk, visit https://thewind.org or head to https://www.youtube.com/@thewind_podcast Thank you to everybody who made this season of The Wind possible. This episode features the voices of Irvin Jim Jr., Jennifer Runyon, Sandra Coutinho, and John Luther Adams.This independent podcast is listener supported. If you’d like to join the community, head to www.Patreon.com/TheWindThank you for being here // and keep listening. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

This independent podcast is listener supported. If you'd like to help me make this show, visit https://patreon.com/thewind to set up a monthly donation.Thank you to Dean Barlese for trusting me with this story. Also a big thank you to BC Zahn Nahtzu (a co-defendant in the case that also held a long-distance staring contest through binoculars with mine security. BC is an artist with an Etsy store here), Max Wilbert (a co-defendent who provided pictures), Olive Greenspan, Tara Tran, Ray Pang, Kate Cowie-Haskell, Taylor Wilson for talking to me about the chemical properties of Lithium and Daniel Rothberg for speaking about mining’s effect Great Basin water tables. Daniel has a newsletter called Western Water Notes which I highly recommend if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Also a shout out to the podcast Boomtown; a Uranium Story by Alec Cowan.Tags, Topics and Mentions: Peehee Mu'huh, Thacker Pass, Thacker Pass Lithium Mine, Ox Sam Camp, Ox Sam, Protect Thacker Pass, People of Red Mountain, Snake War, Fort Mcdermitt, Nevada, Lithium, Lithium Mining, Protest against lithium mine, Dean Barlese, Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, Numaga, Pyramid Lake, Sand in a Whirlwind, Mountain Lion Harrah's Casino in Reno, Sagebrush, Mining, Lithium Carbonate, Winnemucca To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

The sun sets over Sunset Boulevard; the palm trees silhouette. In the front garden of a big house off the main drag, the puppet show begins.••This independent podcast is made with listener support. If you like to become a patron, head to patreon.com/thewind and set up a monthly donation.A huge thank you to all of the residents of Ag Lago for speaking with me and for hosting me over the years. Reve, Jeremy, Vita, Josh, Donnie, Storai, Theo, Arden, Sarah and Eleanor. Also a big thanks to Emily, Spoorthi, Greyson, and all the folks that were part of the puppet show and the countless folks that were part of the Ag Lago community.Music in this episode was Timex by pas Doo, thanks to Pat Mesiti-Miller for letting me use it, Deville by friend of the show Yclept Insan and 2 songs from the public domain, Auld Lang Syne performed by the Princes Band and this song Marionette by Felix Arndt. The chapter markers were read by the great Cal Bannerman of the podcast Stories from The Hearth. Highly recommended.Photos, links and more at www.thewind.org/episodes/aglago To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Up the freeway a few miles from Downtown Los Angeles, the streetlights flicker on and I approach the warm glow of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Inside, I meet organist Edward Torres. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewind Subscribe at thewind.org

Cowboy poetry is often very structured. The good poets play with that structure and surprise you with twists or a pauses, jokes, word play. Henry’s poems do somethin’ else entirely. They feel like suddenly you’re walking down a path and you don’t know where it’s goin’, or if it’s goin’ anywhere, but it usually does and then you’re somewhere a little different and he says thanks and puts his hat back on and sits down in a chair at the back the stage.The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering started in 1985, becoming an annual roundup of cowboys, ranchers, poets, artists and the many combinations therein, hailing from all parts the American west and sometimes beyond. Hosted by the Western Folklife Center, the gathering is always held in January/February when folks’ ranches are dormant. Elko’s oft-snowy streets are then marked by the soles of boots, mostly of the cowboy variety, some rounded, some pointed, and most of them pointing into the Western Folklife Center’s Pioneer Saloon, or up the front steps of the Elko Convention Center. To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

Subscribe hereLinks, photos and more at www.thewind.orgA song bounces from slope to slope, emerging from the valley as an echo. Just of out earshot from Spokane Falls we meet star Taiwanese yodeler, Ho Lan.Ho Lan • Bandcamp | Website /// Tags, Topics and Mentions: Ho Lan, Echo from Deep Valley, Yodeling, Yodel, Taiwanese Yodel, Puli, Spokane, Washington, Spokane River, Spokane Falls, Expo '74, Manito Park, Yodeling cowboys, Hawaiian yodel, Mike Hanapi, Vicente Fernandez, Josaya Hadebe, Bulawayo Blue Yodel, yodeling in nature, waterfalls, birdsong, Hsia-jung Chang, the wind, eastern washington, high desert, silent night To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org

The word “transit” comes from the Latin “transitus”, meaning to pass across or through. Off the subway in Brooklyn, down the stairs into the busy green room of On Air Fest, we meet Jazmine (JT) Green.|| Ephemera, change, sound. ||This episode features a piece called:Transformation through Repetition (feat. Jemma Rose Brown) - aired on Jazmine’s experimental audio podcast U+1F60CThanks to: Eleanor Qull, Jemma Rose Brown, Ray Pang, all the folks at On Air Fest.Jazmine's album "As A..." available here To support The Wind, become a patron at www.patreon.com/thewindSubscribe at thewind.org