Where in the world am I today?: At Sea aboard the Coral Princess (Caribbean)

Over the past several months various friends have told me I should check out “Man on Wire,” the 2008 documentary that tells the story of Philippe Pettit’s historic tight-wire walk between the World Trade Center Towers on August 7, 1974. Well, I finally did and it was fantastic and haunting all at the same time!

While watching the film I was reminded of a conversation that I had had with fellow performer Glenn Singer years and years ago… Glenn and I were talking about various performers and the philosophies that motivated them to pursue careers as performers. Then… right smack in the middle of the conversation he drops a bomb on me –

“Ya know Dave, if we didn’t want to make money, we could make history.”

In that one statement Glenn seemed to put me on trial for some of the choices that I’ve made and continue to make. I know he wasn’t directing it at me in a bad way, as an insult or criticism, because the statement, on some level, made me question the path that I had chosen, it had a profound importance and stuck with me.

Watching “Man on Wire” brought up those feelings of doubt again because the story so clearly documents the story of a guy who chose the other path – the path to make history.

Admittedly when Philippe Petit started his journey –

 “as a poet conquering beautiful stages”

– (as he states in the documentary) the world was a different place and it would be hard to imagine a similar feet in today’s world of ultra tight security, but the documentary does an amazing job of showing the lengths to which he went to conquer the obstacles and the sheer impossible-ness of the act and the resulting emotion in having pulled it off.

Of course it was against the law, but again, as the documentary states –

“Against the law, but not wicked or mean.”

Philippe’s walk between the world trade towers captured the imagination of the World and history was made. The 45 minutes he spent on the wire between the towers is about the length of an average show for many performers, but setting an impossible dream, accepting that it was impossible and achieving it anyway is a sort of poetry that very few performers give the world. It left me feeling like I should hold myself to a higher standard and perhaps shift my priorities a bit…

Hmmmm…food for thought. If you get the chance I highly recommend you check it out.

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