“The Odyssey is a mirror in which you see yourself for who you are in that moment, a story about identity that pulls your own identity out (sometimes kicking and screaming) from wherever you've hidden it in the recesses of your heart and mind for a forced confrontation with whatever ideas you had about it previously.”
- some version of me, writing 6 years ago, today
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There are so many different numbers by which to consider my Homeric performances.
The last months of 2024 are the 23rd anniversary of when I composed the Odyssey.
March of 2024 marked 22 years since my first performance of the Odyssey and 4 years since my first performance of The Blues of Achilles.
2024 makes 10 years since I committed to an organized and meticulous booking process that resulted in most of my college performances for the last decade.
In September I achieved my 100th performance of The Blues of Achilles.
November 8 marks one full year since I performed the Odyssey in my 50th state.
And November 10 at Pomfret School in Connecticut I performed the Odyssey for the 381st time.
By the numbers, 2024 was what has passed for a fairly typical post-pandemic year. After a final Blues of Achilles show next week back in Connecticut, I will have played my Homer pieces 37 times (4 less than last year) with 24 Blues of Achilles and 13 Odyssey performances in 2024. Notably, over half my Odyssey performances (seven) were international: Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland accounted for those. In fact just about one third of all my Homeric performances were international.
Last year at this time I wondered what my post-50 state goal life would look like and I think this year I got a good answer.
The Blues of Achilles is coming into its prime as a performance. The next two to three years will likely be a push to bring that show to as many places as possible. The Odyssey will… abide. It will always be there for me. Maybe the Odyssey-based movie The Return will mean some extra work and interest next year. But I’m okay with it just existing and being there for me when I need it.
My Odyssey performances this year were some of my favorite ever not just because of the exotic locales but because even after two decades and hundreds of performances, I am still discovering myself in it. The story continues to spin general and specific human truths out and I somehow managed to embed them into my songs even at the young age I wrote them.
I also managed to make progress on a host of Homer-related projects from a stage musical adaptation of The Blues of Achilles to a screenplay about my Odyssey to a long form piece of writing about my path to all 50 states. I also recorded non-Homeric music that will be released next year and will add even another album this winter. I even thought seriously for the first time about a possible next Classics-related adaptation and the universe delivered some suggestions that I might be on the right track.
In the same warm lodge space at Pomfret I played in 2019, 2022, and 2023, I listened for the familiar echo of my voice off the timber rafters. The up-lights had the appearance of ancient torchlight. I felt like Demodokus or maybe Phemius. 24 students listened attentively as I sung, fighting a bit of a cold but ultimately bringing it home.
After our discussion, I hopped back in my car and drove to Boston. The next morning I was on a 5:30 am flight to Austin where my creative partner and I got a chance to workshop the first act of our Iliad musical with a group of faculty, students, and local musicians. It went great. We have a long way to go to get it produced but we both came away from the reading/singing feeling like we have something that is working and is worth pursuing.
After a classroom talk the following morning in which we got more great feedback about our piece, I was back to the airport and headed home to Chicago after an intense 48 hours of travel and Homer. Every year I do this, I understand Odysseus a little better.
I think we go through our lives thinking largely about our goals: Make it home. Play in all 50 States. Make a new piece of art.
And those goals are important.
In 2025 I hope I will reach the milestone of my 500th total Homeric performance. I hope I will creep towards my 400th Odyssey performance. I hope I will release at least one and possibly two new albums, maybe even with some industry support. I hope we will find the resources we need to realize the next steps of our musical. I hope some of my longer form writing projects will come into focus for me and I hope the universe will keep guiding me towards new projects and opportunities.
But I hope most of all that I can continue to pursue a winedark life.
For a long time I thought that Homer and Odysseus gave me a winedark life but I’m beginning to suspect it’s more complicated than that. I think the winedark life was always inside of me and the Odyssey has helped me understand and embrace it.
Two weeks ago I was invited to perform at the Hellenic Museum in Chicago as part of a Homerathon, a two day recitation of the entire Odyssey from start to finish.
I performed a new song I wrote this year, a song that has ties to the Odyssey, to my screenplay, and to one of my new albums.
A song called Winedark Life.
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“On the long drive I couldn't stop thinking about… that unmoored feeling of being just a vessel for a performance with no agency and no sense of self.
This was the feeling of what an ancient bard was expected to be. He was supposed to disappear in the service of the Muse to tell that night's story and I had experienced this acutely: for 35 minutes or so I was nearly a Nobody.”
- some version of me, writing six years ago