Each December since 2010, I've dedicated a few posts to subject-specific "Year in Review" lists. (You can view my previous years' lists here.)  In the past, these lists have customarily appraised the highs and lows of politics, music, film, literature or pop culture for whatever year was drawing to its end.  That is to say, I've tended in the past to cover ALL of the main topics regularly treated on this blog except "philosophy."  I think we'd all concede that it's a rare year when Philosophy's truly, incredibly, even microscopically small corner of the Universe manages to generate enough news to warrant its own year-end list.

Not so for 2014.  We made the news. Would that it weren't so.

We did it!  From start to finish, the #JoyfulJoyfulOdetoMemphis project was completed in less than a week. In fact, the studio recording and video editing were done in less than 48 hours!  To get some idea of what an undertaking this was, read the backstory here.  One of my favorite quotes about Memphis (from Robert Gordon's excellent book It Came From Memphis) has always been this:

"Memphis is a place where nothing ever happens, but the impossible always does."

This definitely seemed like an impossible project. It taught me once again, though, to never underestimate the talent, ingenuity and generosity of spirit in the 901.  I'll write more about how we got it all done in a few days when I recover from sleep deprivation, but let me take this moment to express my deepest and heartfelt thanks to all those who participated: Arean Alston, Carla Barnes, Chris McDaniel, Brandon Tolson, James Rigney, Coleman Garrett, Matt Isbell, Vince Johnson, Suavo Jones, Preston McEwan, Robbie Randall and Jeremy Powell.  Also thanks to Ardent Studios for helping make this a reality.

Here it is, a gift of holiday love from Memphis musicians to the city:



The video is also posted on YouTube here and you can download an mp3 of the song PUT ALL THAT JOY ON YOUR PHONE/IPOD by clicking here.

I've never before posted about one of my rando (and, if you happen to be keeping score at home, only inconsistently successful) projects in advance of it actually being finished, *unless* I was relatively positive that said project would see itself to some non-embarrassing completion. (See: American Values Project and/or WORKING IN MEMPHIS: The Documentary for evidence of my better work).  Today's post is an exception.

I'm currently engaged in a project that I've (executively) dubbed #JoyfulJoyfulOdetoMemphis.  We're less than 24hrs now from it coming to fruition, and I'd put the odds at about 70/30 on whether or not it will be a monumental success or a complete disaster. Fwiw, I'm dispositionally inclined to be optimistic, especially with regard to my own endeavors, so if you're betting, you should adjust the odds with those extra details in mind.  But seriously, on average, I'm a pretty solid bet.

Here's the short backstory of my #JoyfulJyfulOdetoMemphis project:
Basically, I just came up with this idea last week (on Tuesday) when I was taking a muc-needed break from grading, sitting at home, messing around on the guitar and thinking that "Ode to Joy" could be rearranged into a really cool Memphis-themed holiday song. So, on Wednesday afternoon, I put up a post on my fb page asking if anyone would be interested in working on something like that. Then, in the way that only the Fount of Memphis Talent overflows with generosity... well, it just sort of became a *real* project. The next day, I called up one of my former students, James Rigney (who is a composer) and we collaborated to put together the (AWESOME) arrangement we have now. I rewrote the lyrics, my friend Preston McEwan (drummer for Ghost Town Blues Band) got us some time at Ardent Studios to record, I started reaching out to other music people around town to fill out what we were missing, and that's about the whole backstory.

These are the letters from the second day of the 2014 Grading War.  If you landed here by accident and don't know what you're reading, click here for the backstory.

Day Four, 11:22am
Dear Charles, 

I post this report on my station during a brief tho welcome respite. Forgive my wretched penmanship. I write quickly & without doubt I shall be summoned back to the front ere long. 

You may recall Josiah, that feckless and Thick-headed mail-boy of whom I spoke during the last Grading War campaign. I regret to report that Josiah is enlisted among our ranks now, where his inborn vices of Gossip, Drunkenness & Scandalmongering have found fertile soil. But to the point. Josiah spreads Rumor in our camp that several nearby Divisions just yesterday declared victory (God bless them if so!) and are at this very moment returning home. 

Could this be true, dear Charles? Our Company does observe ever shrinking numbers among the Opposition day by day in fact. But still they continue to appear each morn, ready for battle. I cannot help myself but to count them again each battle—such Torture those counts! why do I still count?—and my own records confirm they ARE diminishing, a number of Souls fewer each time we meet them. 

Woe to me if I am indulging false hope! If it is so and I am tangled in a web of Lies woven by Josiah’s forked tongue once again, I shall surely die of humiliation before I die of despair, for in my Soul I know that he is not to be trusted. 

Send a True report, post haste, dear Charles. I await such in solidarity, in Friendship and as ever
Yours in Cautious Hope,
 Leigh M. Johnson

These are the letters from the second day of the 2014 Grading War.  If you landed here by accident and don't know what you're reading, click here for the backstory.

Day Three, 9:33am
My Dear Friend Charles, 

Your letter from yesterday was rec’d in due time, and would have been answered ere now, but for the extra duties that have occupied me. It appears our Quartermaster broke ranks and departed to home—a long & lonesome expedition, I suspect, not to mention a slow one. Imagine the extra weight of Cowardice he must be carrying! Alas, as consequence, the principal duties of that Turncoat’s department have now fallen to me, and to one not regularly brought up a Quartermaster, I’ve found the acquisition & distribution of Supplies & Provisions no trifling set of responsibilities. Our troops’ tastes are simple—they subsist for days at a time on salted Pork, skillygallee, hardtack, beans and Bully Soup—but their appetites are ferocious. 

These are the letters from the second day of the 2014 Grading War.  If you landed here by accident and don't know what you're reading, click here for the backstory.

Day Two, 3:05am
My Dearest Leigh,

You cannot imagine my joy upon receiving your letter! I worked ceaselessly to fend off any and all of the dark scenarios that encroached upon my thoughts with regard to your welfare. It does my heart well to know that you were, at least for a moment, comforted – by Rabbit and Potatoes no less! You are quite right – a favored dish of mine. I shared a similar fate when the dreadful call came down to rejoin the ranks for this latest campaign. I was enjoying the company of our good friend Paul Taylor (who sends his greetings). We were licking our wounds and telling lies about earlier battles. Foolishly, I had grown comfortable in my home, with friends and family. I knew The Call to Battle would come; it always does – it is Relentless in that way. And yet, while I knew it would come, some small part of me resisted its inevitability. But, that is all irrelevant now. Here we are, once again, at The Ready, facing a foe that, at times, seems to know no fatigue, and is unremitting in its dubious determinations.

These are the letters from the first day of the 2014 Grading War.  If you landed here by accident and don't know what you're reading, click here for the backstory.


Day One, 12:40am
My Dear Leigh,

My good friend and colleague Charles McKinney and I are continuing our #GradingWarLetterstoHome correspondence this term.  If you're unfamiliar with the backstory of how this hilariously ridiculous endeavor got started, I refer you to the archive of last year's correspondences here, which also explains the origin and style of these letters.

To save you a click (though you *really should* click because last year's letters are pure gold!),  here's the summary explanation of #GradingWarLetterstoHome: Chuck and I write letters to each other, Civil-War-style, reporting on our miserable struggles with end-of-term grading.  Yes, we exaggerate.  No, we do not intend to make light of real wars. If you cannot hear our tongues firmly in our cheeks in these #GradingWarLetterstoHome, you should stop reading after the first.

As I did last year, I will use this post as the "home-base" for this year's letters. You can click on the links to each day from this round of correspondences (below) to read the letters for that day.  Chuck and I also customarily post our letters to our respective Facebook profiles.  (Here's a link to mine.)  If you're interested in playing along, we welcome you to join in and contribute your own letter to this year's archive, which you can do in the following ways:

A pen (or keyboard) has, for millennia, been both the preferred and most essential tool of a philosopher, but I consider my camera to be a very close second as a 21stC philosopher.  Since completing the American Values Project in 2012, I've come to understand my camera as another weapon in the struggle against ignorance and, even more so, as an indispensable instrument for doing what sometimes gets called "public philosophy."

Philosopher Gilles Deleuze once said (in Nietzsche and Philosophy): "Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power.  The use of philosophy is to sadden.  A philosophy that saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosophy,  Philosophy is useful for harming stupidity, for turning stupidity into something shameful."

One of the most egregiously shameful forms of stupidity, in my view, is unreflectively willful ignorance-- a form of stupidity of which I think professional Philosophy tends to be particularly guilty.  Any philosophy that neglects to look outward and around, that pays no attention to the world in which it conducts its business and also that disowns its responsibility to acknowledge the real lives of the real people who inhabit that world has not only failed its foremost charge-- to wonder and question, to sadden and annoy, to evaluate and critique-- but also failed to legitimately take up its historical inheritance in any way that barely approximates a love of wisdom,