Introduction: Quadraversaries and the Kentucky Dillby
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 158 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting directly from the subterranean depths of the bunker, your hosts, Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle, return to the microphones for another delectable discussion of Greco-Roman civilization.
The episode opens on a highly celebratory note. Dave points out that in just a few days, the podcast will officially reach its four-year anniversary, or what he terms their “quadraversary”. Jeff fondly recalls the humble beginnings of the show, crouching under a quilt deck to create basic acoustic ambiance.
The banter quickly shifts to athletic pursuits, as Dave shares that he recently took up the incredibly popular sport of pickleball. He jokes that his initial outing went so well, he is strongly considering going professional, perhaps entering prestigious tournaments like the “Kentucky Dillby,” the “Vlasic Classic,” or the “Dilltona 500” . Dave also shares his wife’s witty observation regarding the game: “I think the goal of this game is to get old people moving and to make the scorekeeping impossible so they have to think hard about it”.
Jeff also has reason to celebrate, having recently marked his 20-year wedding anniversary. He recounts a story from the early years when he and his wife accrued some stupid debt. While his wife worked extra shifts at a diner to pay it off, Jeff admits he completely shut down, hocked his six-string guitar, and spent his days just laying in the sun on a friend’s dock. Just as the listener begins to heavily judge Jeff’s marital conduct, the punchline drops: his wife eventually confronted him, famously stating, “Look at our debt, we’re halfway there, but you’re just loafing on a pier“. Dave groans at the elaborate Bon Jovi setup, proving that the podcast’s commitment to terrible musical puns remains as strong as ever.
Listener Mail: The Flynn Files
Before welcoming their special guest, Dave opens the mailbag to address a frequent correspondent, Thomas Flynn. Dave jokes that Flynn has become a permanent fixture of the podcast, comparing him to a persistent sweat bee circling a picnic.
Flynn writes in to playfully point out that he has received three separate shout-outs on the show, the latter two entirely unprompted . He notes that under the adverse possession laws of the state of Michigan, he must continue living rent-free in Dave’s head for another 15 years before he can legally claim ownership thereof. Flynn signs off his letter with the Latin phrase Purgas in aeternitatem, which Dave charitably translates as “Yours ever,” but literally translates as “May you continue on into oblivion”.
Interview: Joe Goodkin, the Accidental Classics Major
The core of Episode 158 features a wide-ranging interview with Joe Goodkin, a modern troubadour and wandering bard based in Chicago. Joe travels the world performing his original, one-man folk-opera retellings of Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad.
Joe explains that his journey began as an “accidental classics major” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1990s. Initially taking a Greek 101 class simply because he found a few Greek words in a history book intriguing, he quickly fell down the academic rabbit hole. By his second semester, he was enrolled in Greek 102, Greek mythology, and Greek archaeology. As Joe jokes, when a freshman shows that much interest, a good classics advisor will “tackle that student in the hallway and force them to become a classics major”.
Joe studied under a legendary roster of professors, including Jeffrey Wills, Patricia Rosenmeier, Jim McKeown, Laura McClure, and the famous Barry Powell. He particularly credits Powell’s massive, 550-student mythology lectures (sometimes delivered without a microphone) as a major influence on his own performative style.
Following graduation, Joe spent a decade working as a paralegal at a large Chicago defense firm. This stable job provided the essential health insurance he needed while actively figuring out how to build a music career that incorporated his love for the classics.
Creating the 24-Song Folk Opera
Joe developed his musical Odyssey—a 24-song folk opera—partially as a reaction against other modern receptions of the epic. While studying the Odyssey in a comparative literature class, he watched cinematic interpretations like Waterworld and O Brother, Where Art Thou?. He wanted to create something vastly simpler: one person sitting in a room with a stringed instrument, singing songs and telling stories to an audience.
He structured the performance to be physically demanding, requiring him to play straight through for 35 minutes without stopping. He specifically designed this endurance test so the audience could viscerally feel the push and pull of a difficult journey physically affecting the performer.
Finding an audience willing to sit still for a 35-minute acoustic folk opera proved challenging. Joe eventually found his perfect, if intimidating, demographic: 14-year-olds in high school freshman English classes. He jokes that 14-year-olds can “smell fear,” and after surviving years of performing for teenagers, playing at Ivy League universities like Oxford and Cambridge felt like a breeze. Joe has now performed his Homeric pieces nearly 500 times, successfully reaching all 50 U.S. states.
The Blues of Achilles and the Oral Tradition
Joe eventually composed a second Homeric piece, The Blues of Achilles, a 17-song cycle exploring the Iliad. Jeff notes a fascinating parallel between Joe’s work and the early Delta Blues tradition of wandering musicians like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Joe agrees, viewing early blues musicians as modern participants in the same ancient oral tradition that produced the Homeric epics. He views the advent of audio recording for the blues in the exact same light as the invention of writing for the Homeric poems: a technology that finally captured and fixed a fluid, oral performance.
When writing about the Iliad, Joe deliberately chose to minimize the presence of the Olympian gods. He felt that introducing supernatural elements would pull modern audiences out of the gritty, human reality of the war story he was trying to tell. This stripped-down, brutally human approach earned him the fantastic moniker, “Thucydides with a guitar”.
To truly understand the emotional weight of the Iliad, Joe spent time interviewing real warriors. The breakthrough for his writing came during an interview with a Gold Star father who had lost his son in Iraq. The father’s agonizing grief and desperate search for closure directly inspired Joe’s song “Hands of Grief,” written from the perspective of King Priam begging Achilles for Hector’s body in Book 24. Joe performs a beautiful, haunting rendition of the song live on the podcast, playing a custom-built, metal-body resonator guitar from the Michigan-based company Mule.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Before sharing the parting shot, Dave and Jeff thank the fantastic sponsors who support the podcast.
- Hackett Publishing: For 53 years, Hackett Publishing has provided academics and casual readers with beautiful, highly affordable translations from their offices in Indianapolis and Cambridge. Jeff praises their use of exceptional translators like Stanley Lombardo, noting that his own students deeply appreciate the quality and affordability of the texts. Build a phenomenal library at hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2024 to receive a 20% discount and free shipping on your entire order.
- Ratio Coffee: If you are tired of brackish, tangy coffee, it is time to upgrade to a Ratio machine. Entrepreneur Mark Hellweg designed the gorgeous Ratio 8 and Ratio 6 machines to deliver a pristine automated pour-over. Dave happily announces that he plans to purchase the upcoming Ratio 4, a sleek, agile machine designed for brewing half-batches. Visit ratiocoffee.com and enter the promo code ANCOP8 for 15% off your order.
Latin Per Diem: For listeners wanting to read the original texts without spending thousands on private tuition, Dave’s courses are the perfect solution. By visiting latinperdiem.com, dedicated students can master the Latin language entirely from the ground up utilizing Hans Ørberg’s renowned Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata curriculum. Dave is currently running a back-to-school sale: use the code BACK2SCHOOL15 for 15% off any Greek or Latin course.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
To officially wrap up Episode 158, Dave delivers an amusing Gustatory Parting Shot courtesy of the famous 19th-century American author, Washington Irving.
Pulling a quote from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Dave highlights Irving’s brilliant description of the perpetually hungry schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane:
“The revenue arising from his school was small and would have been scarily sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder. And though Lank had the dilating powers of an anaconda… to help out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts… boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed.”
A special thanks goes out to Mishka the sound engineer for her consistently excellent work, and to Scott Van Zandt and Ken Tamplin for the blistering guitar riffs and vocals. Support modern bards, beware the “Spread Poet Society,” and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
