Never heard of this guy or his bizarre feat. I know that I feel like vomiting whenever I see a photo of the WTC towers and seeing someone walking on a wire in the air between them is even worse.

Well...

I am sorta breathless.

Why did I not remember this event?

Not to impute too much metaphor, but it seems to be the perfect postmodernist Picasso.

My most serious admiration to Philippe and James.

Contrary to Warhol, art is not necessarily a man's name.

Art remains the wonderful ineffable strength of a few, speaking for the many.

Yeah, well, normally I wouldn't do this,but I checked out this gordon guy's letters. Clearly off his meds.

What a glorious achievement was Philippe Petit's "work of art", that wonderful dance on a thin wire suspended between the Twin Towers!

One can only salute M. Petit in breathless admiration.

(And recommend that GW Bush, War Criminal and Incompetent Liar-Thief-Scoundrel - along with his whole Gang of War Criminals and those foolish/criminal US citizens who follow him - should all be forced to watch the movie even though they are utterly incapable of understanding its revolutionary significance).

And thanks for that grand review of a great film!

GSC

...needs his head examined. (I'm serious).

GSC

For Andrew O'Hehir, your style in which the article is written is brilliant. The way in which the human mind works is very mysterious. It takes air to make vision, to create what cannot be seen is partly helped by the writer. It is easy to diagnosis what happens when there is no air to breathe in a story. It suffocates it's readers leading to a impending death of sort. There is no reason to find out why something occurs, there is no good imagery, to reach beyond the facts of a story. The facts may be fine and well, but that does not awake other areas of the brain. The areas specific to the dreams, fantasy, illusion, and yes delusion. In modern times, we are told repeatedly to stop being unrealistic, this hurts our sense of vision, our sense to dream, and yes become bigger than what was ever expected. In the creation of dreams, we take others along, that are also frail in comparison, and have resisted ever acting impulsively. To the writer who shows us that leaving our regular patterns, the obvious reality,the reasonable side of our selves, we also have to have a strong vision to co-exist in the world that is given to so many meanings and insights. Dreams help us to levitate, from the mundane, and know that someplace deep with in, there are simply other ideas, other places to be, other understandings of things. The 70's was a time for much thought provoking enterprise. It was a sleepy time, full of riots, peace, Vietnam, John Lennon,The French Connection, Nixon. The time was very visionary, and filled with a sense of hope that the generation that dealt with the obvious trivialities of drugs, sex, rock n' roll would manage to shape the decade as one where dreams did exist along with the reality and the results were seen with people doing exotic things, such as Man On A Wire, when we think of the impossible, we must also think of the possible. That is where the iron rods of society's rules and regulations are told again and again until the deter our determination to be happy. That is when idleness, and fatigue settle in for the destruction of the imagination a very dangerous thing.

Shoprama:

That was a gracious and graceful compliment to Andrew O'Hehir, whose review of the film was one of the best I've had the good fortune to read.

GSC

I do remember Philippe Petit's feat very well, and I saw him on the Tonight show soon after. I believe the sentence imposed uon him was that he had to give a free public performance of his juggling, unicycle riding, tightrope walking. His observations about life and death are very beautiful: as with any tragic end--John Lennon, JFK - we must remember that the towers' life was more than their death. I'm glad other people feel the same.

I highly recommend Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds, which is available via half.com and elsewhere. It's a lovely, poetic meditation on life and art, and an "art crime" thriller about a frequently arrogant and driven artist whose force of will makes an astonishing dream a reality.

After the stunt, Petit was given a lifetime pass to the top floor of the towers. He visited "his towers" frequently before their demise.

WHEN I RECEIVED THIS EMAIL, I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT OBAMA.........SINCE THAT IS WHAT HE CAN DO

My understanding is that in 1973, a year before this event, the Sears Tower in Chicago surpassed the height of the World Trade Center, which had become the world's tallest building in 1972. If you have other information I'd be glad to hear it.

Some of the footage of Petit's wire walk between the Towers was shown on PBS a couple of years ago, I think on an episode of American Experience. I remember the scenes of Petit looking down on birds from his perch on the wire, and police officers who were laughing and applauding. I don't know if PBS is repeating this series (the PBS stations in the NY area have replayed it several times) but it's worth a look if you can't get to see the film.

The original two-part history of NYC pre-2001 was broadcast on PBS in 2002.A sequel called "The Center of the World" showing the history of WTC including the wire walker was on PBS several months later.

I don't know why, but for some reason I'd had Philippe Petit's name running through my head the past week. Guess I was channeling the release of the flick.

I remember Petit's performance very well -- for some reason I recall part of it being filmed and shown on ABC's Wide World of Sports -- although my faulty memory had it pegged to 1975.

Seems like the movie might definitely be worth checking out.