[the quote, below, is from Dancing on Air by Noy Thrupkaew, posted to The American Prospect on October 23, 2008]
Nearly three decades before the World Trade Center towers became sites of real-life tragedy and mythic icons of the war on terrorism, they served as the staging ground for an entirely different act. On August 7, 1974, a tiny figure stepped out into the space between the buildings. He didn’t fall, nor did he jump — although audiences watching James Marsh’s Sundance award-winning documentary Man On Wire may be reminded of the terrible images of those who did during 9/11. Philippe Petit was actually balancing on a wire suspended between the structures, but from the ground, it looked as if he was walking on nothing but air.
The diminutive Frenchman capered on his wire for 45 minutes — dancing, lying down, kneeling and saluting, and traipsing across the void between the buildings no less than eight times before he delivered himself into the arms of the police, who promptly handcuffed the funambulist. Petit responded by balancing a policeman’s cap on his nose.
He handled the American media’s questions with equal irreverence. According to Man on Wire, reporters were obsessed with one main question: “Why did you do it?” Fifty-eight-year-old Petit, his voice crackling with amusement, recounts his response to those “so American” questions: “There is no why.”
Now you tell me.
-Julie
