The Thin White Duke alleged to be a Nazi salute. Bowie denied this, saying that he was simply waving and the photographer captured his image mid-wave. As early as 1976, Bowie began disavowing his allegedly pro-Fascist comments and said that he was misunderstood. In an interview that year in the "Daily Express", he explained that while performing in his various characters, "I'm Pierrot. I'm Everyman. What I'm doing is theatre, and only theatre... What you see on stage isn't sinister. It's pure clown. I'm using myself as a canvas and trying to paint the truth of our time on it. The white face, the
When a white horse is not a horse be found in the widely known "Happiness of Fish" dialogue in "Zhuangzi" (17, tr. Watson 1968:188-9). Huizi says "You're not a fish [子非魚] — how do you know what fish enjoy?" (denying that Zhuangzi is a member of the class of fish) and Zhuangzi replies "You're not I [子非我], so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?" (denying that the individuals Huizi and Zhuangzi are identical). Beyond the inherent semantic ambiguities of "Baima fei ma", the first line obscurely asks "ke hu" "Can it be that …?". This dialogue could be an attempted proof that a white