WHEN DAVID BOWIE ATTEMPTED TO MEET CAMILLE PAGLIA:

Oh, lord, that was one of the biggest fiascos of my checkered career! I have no idea what passages he had in mind. A woman called my publisher and said that David Bowie wanted my telephone number. When this was relayed to me, I laughed out loud and hooted, “That takes the cake! Right—David Bowie wants my phone number!!!” I was on TV a lot during that period of the culture wars, and there was always some crazy thing happening, with fans sending gifts or trying to finagle a meeting. We tried repeatedly to authenticate the request, but everything was so vague and shadowy. It made no sense—why would a major star not be communicating via a manager or major entertainment agency? Well, I didn’t know until decades later that Bowie had fired his entire corporate management structure after he went to Berlin in the 1970s and that he interacted with the world through a small cadre of old, trusted friends. I did eventually learn that he was an admirer of my work—for example, he put Sexual Personae on a published list of his favorite books. It’s not surprising, really, considering how profoundly he had influenced me. No wonder he felt at home with my ideas—he was sensing himself mirrored back! Evidently, the suggestion that I write the gender essay for the V&A catalog came ultimately from him, but we never met in person. Nor would I have wanted to, I think. With artists of such towering stature, it’s best to keep a respectful distance.

At the very least, the resultant meeting certainly would have been a fun celebrity-meets-celebrity interview, ala Capote meets the Stones, and William S. Burroughs meets Jimmy Page. And the two certainly had a lot more in common than Bowie and Bing Crosby.