Philippe Petit

"One more thing: Philippe, you are not a coward--so what I want to hear from you is the ecstatic truth about the twin towers."
-Werner Herzog

So reads the quote on one of the opening pages of To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers by Philippe Petit, the man who secretly capered and succeeded to walk the tightrope between the WTC towers in 1974.

Here's a video that is based on a children's book about the stunt. Yesterday, after watching the towers come down again and again, the sad stories and constant scroll of victim's names, this should cheer you up. It's simply beautiful. It will make your day.

There will always be people who tear down towers. Some people out there think our lives are better spent groveling in the dust, that man's proper state is on his knees.

Then there are those people for whom even gravity can't hold down. They believe man's proper state is to walk tall on the earth and in the sky. If we all have just a bit of Petit in us, we will never grovel.