Between David Bowie and the DPRK

Two stray thoughts that have no obvious connections.

First, I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can see David Bowie as in some sense ‘radical’. I do not mean the famous ‘theatrical’ comments about fascism in the 1970s. I mean the supposed radicality of his gender bending. Apart from the fact that this was a pop artist unusually adept at exploiting commercial mediums to be noticed, it is a sad reflection of what radical means in some parts of the world when it primarily refers to...