Summer and Starlight

well, i’m home.  sometimes i enjoy road trips immensely; this was one of those times.  exhausting as it was, there is no substitute for forced quality time with yourself.  also i read “the audacity of hope” and “slaughterhouse five” via audiobook on the way.  

one true mark of a genius is the ability to break down relatively ‘complicated’ concepts into simple terms.  example:  people have written entire books about how to use an analog synthesizer – and while this is by no means comprehensive, bob moog does more in this video than some ’scholars’ have done in entire master’s theses:

as great as that was, the best part of that video is the awkward pause/smile right after the narrator introduces him.

amen, brother.  RIP.

“We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us.  Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them.  And if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful.  How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.  Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”  

-From “Letters To A Young Poet,” chapter 8 

well, my official time as an artist-in-residence at the CMC is coming to a close.  the weather is beautiful.

today i learned more about goats and sheep (and the fibers they contribute to the world) than i will ever need to know.  (lanolin?)  it was also the second-highest paying gig i’ve ever had.  that’s right, i’m talking about Fiber Fest 2008.  only on martha’s vineyard.  

also, Tom just posted this.  pretty spectacular.  this is from one of his lectures, and i didn’t remember until today just how profoundly it affected me.  

yours, 
justin

Open Mic Night @ Galileo’s in Oklahoma City w/Samantha Crain @ 9:30 (ish)

w/Samantha Crain @ 10 p.m.

May 17 – Samantha Crain, Rachel Rome, Brine Webb, and Justin VanHaven @ The Red Cup in Oklahoma City 

8 p.m.

May 16 at 9pm @ Sauced in Oklahoma City

with Samantha Crain

so, i’ve been mulling over some recordings i’ve been making for the past couple of months, and today i just had the liberating thought that the songs are the same songs regardless of the style of production in which they are presented. which in turn spurred the old me who used to geek around tweaking all sorts of stuff on recordings instead of just letting them breathe on their own. i feel like now i have a happy balance, knowing that the songs exist as themselves whether or not i can present them the same way live, and the fact that they can be interpreted in many different ways is not discouraging or scary but actually liberating. so that puts more stuff on my plate to work on in the (very) near future.

i can’t wait to go home though. i miss people, whether or not they miss me.

jvh

The worst thing you can ever see on the internet is “Hi, welcome to my website, I’m still working out some kinks but please poke around and maybe leave a comment!  I hope you enjoy your visit!”  So we’ll try to get over that hump soon enough.  In the meantime please excuse me while I work out some kinks.  

-Justin