Plotinus, as depicted by Raphael in “The School of Athens”
Plotinus on the soul:
The souls of men, seeing their images in the mirror of Dionysus as it were, have entered into that realm in a leap downward from the Supreme: yet even they are not cut off from their origin, from the divine Intellect; it is not that they [...]

Voltaire on the natural human tendency towards domination:
“All men are born with a sufficiently violent liking for domination, wealth and pleasure, and with much taste for idleness…”
(The Philosophical Dictionary, section II of the chapter on equality; translated by H.I. Woolf, 1924).

Klee’s “Insula Dulcamara” (1938)
Paul Klee on intuition in art
According to Paul Klee, the technique of the brush stroke is a great deal, but the crucial factor in painting is intuition. “We construct and construct,” Klee wrote in a Bauhaus prospectus, “and yet intuition is still a good thing. A considerable amount can be done without [...]

In “The Queen’s Throat,” David Koestenbaum writes that opera queens are distinguished by their propensity to keep lists of operas that they’ve seen. So here’s my list of operas that I’ve seen and/or heard live or recorded:
1607 L’Orfeo (Claudio Monteverdi)
1640 Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Claudio Monteverdi)
1642 L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Claudio Monteverdi)
1683 Dido and Aeneas [...]

Judith Butler, self-appointed arbiter of race relations everywhere
Judith Butler has an uncanny knack for self-aggrandizement, and casting herself as the voice of LGBT people of color in Germany is only the latest and most outrageous acts of ruthless self-promotion.
Berlin’s biggest LGBT pride event is Christopher Street Day, and Butler was invited to speak at the event [...]

Saami shaman working (1674)

Reclaiming Our Spiritual Legacy as Transgendered People
By Pauline Park
18 June 2000
I was asked to speak on spirituality and the transgender community. It seems to me that the connection is an intimate one, far closer than we may realize.
For we as transgendered and gender-variant people lie at the interstices not only of the [...]

The Beekman Boys: Josh Kilmer-Purcell & Brent Ridge
Who says drag queens can’t make good (organic) farmers…? That’s the question I asked myself while watching The Fabulous Beekman Boys on Planet Green. The ‘boys’ are Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, two very urban gay men in New York. Josh is the former drag queen and Brent is [...]

Henry David Thoreau might well have been thinking of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist when he wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” While Thoreau’s “Walden” long predates Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” short story and the Ang Lee film based on it, the transcendentalist philosopher’s magnum opus remains as relevant [...]

Isfahan: Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque

First North American LGBTQ Muslim Conference Held in New York
By Pauline Park
Lesbian & Gay New York (LGNY)
3 June 1999
Think “Islam and homosexuality.” The mind immediately conjures up images of a gay man in Iran being stoned to death by an angry mob while an imam fulminates against the abomination of men who lie with men and women [...]

…an 18th century-style double-keyboard French harpsichord of the sort for which most Baroque keyboard music was written…
“Music for a while shall all your cares beguile” (from “Oedipus”) is one of my favorite songs of Henry Purcell, widely considered the greatest of English composers. Music has always been an important part of my life, and these [...]

One of my favorite places on earth: Frying Pan Creek in Mt. Rainier National Park…
Awhile back, a friend of mine suggested I do ‘25 Things’ on Facebook, but I was a little reluctant to do that application on Facebook (too much like a chain letter), so I’m doing it my own way, here on my [...]

Campus Pride names Pauline Park to its ‘hot list’ of LGBT speakers
I was delighted to receive this message just today:
“Congratulations! You’ve been chosen by students, campus activity professionals, and other Campus Pride constituents for the 2009 Campus Pride HOT LIST! The list is made up of the top twenty-five speakers, lecturers, and performers from around the [...]