Joe's Odyssey

24 years ago today, December 5, 2001, I started writing my Odyssey.

As of this year, I've now been singing these songs for half of my life.

That hit me as I was talking to a myth class at UIC…

This is the tenth year in a row that I've performed for students at UIC. 

I've performed for them in the weird brutalist classrooms that I love for the intimate distance from the audience and how the cinderblock walls absorb…

I've played both my Odyssey and The Blues of Achilles on the same day only six times.

Three of those were at NJCL conventions ('23-'25). I also did them both in the same day at University of Kentucky (2022), UC-San…

Since my Odyssey shows at the 2024 NJCL Convention, I've played the piece only three times. But for a last minute unexpected (and welcome) booking at Lake Forest Academy this spring, the Odyssey shows at Miami of Ohio for the…

The day I'm posting this, March 17, 2025, marks exactly 23 years since I played the Odyssey for the first time in front of an audience in my parents' living room in Oak Park.

That's almost half of my life…