"Now the towers are gone."

Of course, you all know that something unspeakably terrible happened on this day at this minute ten years ago.

9/11.
the world trade center.
a day of madness.

But in 1974, in that same place, something beautiful happened.

French tightrope walker Philippe Petit strung a cable between the two half-constructed towers and made a glorious walk between them. For forty-five minutes, he ran, danced, jumped, laid down, and gave knee salutes on a wire one thousand, three hundred, fifty feet above the ground.

I read a book on it - a children's book called The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.



It is my favorite children's book.

It tells a beautiful story. The pictures, and the very concept of being so entirely in the air, so isolated with the light rain and the wind and the sky and the city so infinitely far below... it's beautiful. It electrifies my mind in Owl-City-ish ways. It's just glorious.

To my dismay, as I researched this possible-new-hero, Philippe, I found that he was, of course, not perfect. He had (has; for he lives still) issues with immorality and narcissism (and obeying authority >_>). Nonetheless, his walk between the two unformed towers was courageous, and it is to me very beautiful.

Philippe was arrested for his stunt. Secluded from the astonished press, while cuffed to a chair in a police station, Philippe kept himself occupied by picking his handcuffs with a paper clip and balancing an officer's hat on his nose. Such classic mischief. :) He was later given the grave sentence of performing for children in a park.

Although the actual walk between the towers was not captured clearly on video, several pictures were taken. Good ones are in the news report below, as well as footage of his post-arrest stunt with the hat.

See the report to the confused and smiling world.

Philippe was not perfect, and his stunt was not exactly wise. But his walk between the fated towers made beautiful a place that, decades later, would be a scene of terror and chaos.

Go check out the book from your library - The Man Who Walked Between the Towers - and spend a few moments reflecting on the quiet awe of standing on an inch of steel, in the air atop the world, entirely alone and untouchable.

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"Now the towers are gone."



"But in memory, as if imprinted on the sky, the towers are still there. And part of that memory is the joyful morning, August 7, 1974, when Philippe Petit walked between them in the air."