Tilda Swinton's speech at David Bowie exhibit launch

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      Tilda Swinton, who starred in David Bowie's latest video, "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" gave a very personal, touching, slightly pretentious opening speech at the launch of the David Bowie is exhibit at V&A Museum in London on March 20.

      The exhibit, which opens on March 23 and runs until August 11, will show 300 Bowie-related artifacts incuding full costumes and hand-written lyrics.

      Bowie, to whom the speech was addressed, wasn't actually at the event—was he just being elegantly absent or did he actually have something better to do than attend a star-studded gala launch of a museum exhibit in his honour? If so, that is so truly rock n' roll.

      Swinton talked about the role of the "freak" in society, and the fact that after all these years the biggest freak of them all is still as relevant and popular as ever is evidence that people truly value those who are brave.

      And if Bowie is anything, he is brave.  

      Below is Swinton's speech, via V&A's website:

      "Dear Dave

      When I asked you if you wanted me to say anything here tonight

      You said 'Only three words, one of them testicular..'

      So i'll pass that on

      Here I am at surely the most eclectic of all the London branches of Bowie Anonymous
      All the nicest possible freaks are here

      We're in the Victoria and Albert Museum preparing to rifle through your drawers
      It's truly an amazing thing

      This was my favourite playground as a child
      Medieval armour : my fantasy space wear

      And, alongside, when I was 12 - and a square sort of kid in a Round Pond sort of childhood, not far from here - I carried a copy of Aladdin Sane around with me - a full 2 years before i had the wherewithal to play it

      The image of that gingery boney pinky whitey person on the cover with the liquid mercury collar bone was - for one particular young moonage daydreamer - the image of planetary kin, of a close imaginary cousin and companion of choice

      It's taken me a long time to admit, even to myself, let alone you, that it was the vision and not yet the sound that
      hooked me up - but if i can't confess that here and now, then when and where?

      We all have our own roots
      And routes
      To this room

      Some of us - the enviable - found the fellowship early in the funfests of Billy's Bowie Nights
      or equivalent lodges from San Francisco to Aukland to Heidelberg and all points in between

      For others, it was a more lonesome affair, paced out in a sort of private morse code like following bread crumbs through a forest

      I'm not saying that if you hadn't pitched up I would have worn a pie crust collar and pearls like some of those I went to school with
      I'm not saying that if you hadn't weighed in, Princess Julia would have been less inventive with the pink blusher
      Simply that, you provided the sideways like us with such rare and out-there company
      Such fellowship
      You pulled us in and left your arm dangling over our necks
      And kept us warm - as you have for - isn't it ? - centuries now
      You were
      You are
      One of us

      And you have remained the reliable mortal in amongst all the immortal shapes you have thrown

      Nothing more certain than changes

      Always with a weather eye out
      Always awake and clocking the fallout

      Those Mayans must have known something when they set their calendar down before
      January 2013

      Because, of course, now all bets are off

      I know, because you told me, how tickled you were to knock Elvis - for once! - out of the headlines on your shared birthday this year

      There's so much for all of us to be happy about since then

      Yet, I think the thing I'm loving the most about the last few weeks
      is how clear it now is - how undeniable - that the freak becomes the great unifier
      The alien is the best company after all
      For so many more than the few

      They wanted a Bowie fan to speak tonight. They could have thrown a paper napkin and hit a hundred.
      I'm the lucky one, standing up to speak for all my fellow freaks anxious to win the pub quiz and
      claim their number one most super-fan tshirt

      I want to give thanks to the Victoria and Albert Museum for indulging us so
      For laying on our dream show

      For showing us - look at their advance ticket sales - that , as is
      written along the bottom of this months Q magazine,
      'why we all live in David's world now'

      To Gucci and Sennheiser for putting up the cash, laying on the sound and vision
      To Geoffrey and Victoria for curating an entire universe so beautifully, on behalf of us all

      When I think of what it used to feel like once
      To be a freak who liked you
      To feel like a freak like you
      - a freak who even looked a little like you

      And then I think of the countless people of every size and feather who are going to walk through this trace of your journey here and pick up the breadcrumbs
      in the great hub of this mothership over these Spring and Summer months..

      And how familiar and stamped you are into ALL of our our collective DNA

      I'm just plain proud

      So

      Where are we now?

      Well
      I know you aren't here tonight, but
      Somehow, no matter

      We are -
      And you brought us out of the wainscotting like so many
      Freaky old bastards
      Like so many fan boys and girls
      Like so many loners and pretty things and dandies and dudes and dukes and duckies and testicular types
      And pulled us together

      Together
      By you
      Dave Jones
      Our not so absent, not so invisible, friend

      Every alien's favourite cousin
      Certainly mine

      We have a nice life

      Yours aye

      Tilly"

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