PicoBlog

Warning: this article includes in-depth analysis of some of the language used after Barry's death to feminize him and depict him as a cisgender woman. I have tried to discuss these topics while also adhering to the name and pronouns Barry chose and used for himself as best I can but this topic, by its nature, runs counter to that. Generally, according to most modern secondary sources, Dr. James Barry is credited as having the full name of James Miranda Barry or sometimes James Miranda Steuart Barry.

Dear Classical Wisdom Member, I love it when a plan comes together. One of my all time favorite Classical Wisdom writers, Mary Naples, emailed me last week with this piece. Let me know what you think of Helen, she casually mentioned...  I was immediately enthralled!  Mary is quite the expert on Bronze Age women (in fact, we’ve been working hard to publish her book on the subject - an ebook version will be available exclusively for members next month!

Psalter: Psalm 50:1-6 Old Testament: 1 Kings 11:26-40 Epistle: 2 Corinthians 2:12-17 ___ O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to … ncG1vNJzZmiZnKGur77Bnq2eqpVjwLau0q2YnKNemLyue89orqGnXayutHnJnqmomp%2BWug%3D%3D

Last week I traveled to Ireland to run a communication workshop for a company’s annual retreat.  After the retreat finished, I had a morning to explore Dublin, a city I first visited as a college student 20+ years ago. After visiting Trinity College, I found myself passing the city’s famous statue of Molly Malone. The name ‘Molly Malone’ instantly makes me think of pubs, as I’ve seen Molly Malone pubs from New Zealand and Australia to the US and Europe.

Where, exactly, does the history of hedonism begin? The answer to this question hinges, naturally, on how we use the term hedonism. If we use the term in a broad sense, to mean any way of life where one seeks to promote pleasure and avoid pain, hedonism is no doubt extremely old. This, however, is not the sense that is most relevant in the context of philosophy. In philosophy, hedonism refer to the view that pleasure (Greek: hēdonē) is the only thing that is good in and of itself, and pain the only thing that is bad in and of itself.

I’m starting out my regular posts here by doing something a little bit different. There are many movies I could review that have come out recently, but I want to review something that I watched on YouTube. Kevin Perjurer is a YouTuber/content creator on the channel Defunctland who recently released a 90 minute video titled “Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery.” In this video, Perjurer goes looking for the person who composed the four note theme that played during The Disney Channel’s station identifiers that help transition from the program to the commercials and back to the program, often with one of the stars using a wand to draw the mouse ears.

by T. Bloom There isn’t much to say about Alice Clark that hasn’t been said elsewhere already, but mostly that’s because there just isn’t much to say. Even less was known when I first happened across her music back in 2009. Nowadays she has a Wikipedia page containing a few scant details about her personal life. But even these are enigmatic — a suggestion that she grew up in Bed-Stuy, and this quote from album collaborator Billy Vera:

At the beginning of the year I posted a whole roasted cauliflower video and was completely overwhelmed at the reaction - it’s been viewed nearly 15 million times which is kind of unbelievable. I have had thousands - genuinely thousands, of messages from people all over the world who have cooked it and loved it and it’s completely blown me away. Most people hadn’t tried cooking a cauliflower whole and it was really exciting to be able to introduce so many people to a new way of cooking something.

I recently rewatched one of my favorite movies with my family: The Ten Commandments (1956). It’s a movie I’ve probably seen close to ten times, but it’s one that never gets old to me. Indeed, every time I watch I notice things I’ve missed before, including entirely new themes. Until my last viewing, I never realized that the film, directed by the great Cecil B. DeMille, is as much a paeon to freedom as theism.