Thursday, November 27, 2008

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

"When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk."




It's not often you see a movie that instantly compels you to tell everybody you know, once knew, or might not know yet to see as soon as possible. I'm taking a few days off to get some R&R and recharge after a two week tour and figured I would take in a few matinees in the city. I read about "Man on Wire" in TONY when it first came out and was instantly intrigued. I didn't know about Philippe Petit's famous highwire crossing of the Twin Towers before reading the review, and like any New Yorker was quite affected by any story involving the two spires that are no longer with us.

How often is one's entire life driven my one moment? For Petit, a Parisian street performer, this moment came while sitting in the waiting room of a dentist's office, waiting for some respite from a toothache. While thumbing through a magazine, he saw an article about the building of the WTC, which included drawings of the towers. Instantly, the yet-to-be-completed towers would give him the challenge of a lifetime. Petit, who had been a tightrope artist for years would also cross the Notre-Dame and the world's largest steel arch bridge in Sydney in the intervening years, defying both death and the law in order to do so. However, the sheer height between the towers offered him something far beyond anything else the world had to offer a man of the tightrope.

The movie follows the six-year planning that Petit and his rogue cast went through to fulfill the dream. Every step of the process had to be accounted for in order for the team to rig the highwire and for Petit to cross it. The trials and travails of the group are totally exhilarating, and the characters, a mix of hippies, renegades, and an insurance adjuster on the inside, are totally fascinating. When Petit finally gets up on the wire (after a night of countless mishaps), 450 meters in the sky, it is totally breathtaking. Not only did he cross the span. He danced up there, walking, running, dancing, hopping and even lying down on the wire, spending 45 minutes up there before walking into the arms of police. For the thousands of people who were there to see it, most of them probably on their way to work, it was a sight never to be forgotten. Most of us will never be able to understand how somebody could flirt with death to such an extreme, but seeing Petit interviewed throughout the film, you feel that this was his journey in life, the only way he saw of living. He has no answer to why he did this. Somehow, in all its absurdity, it just has to be.

One can't help but think what could possibly keep Petit going after accomplishing this feat. Certainly, there is little chance any structures side-by-side and quite so high will ever again exist, and modern security mechanisms, especially in this new age of terror, will never allow an amateur team the access to buildings necessary to pull of something of this magnitude. The movie delves very little into Petit's life since, and one certainly wonders how things must pale in comparison with that miraculous journey that culminated so beautifully that summer day in 1974.

In the words of Port Authority Police Department Sgt. Charles Daniels, who was dispatched to the roof to bring Petit down, later reported his experience:

I observed the tightrope 'dancer'—because you couldn't call him a 'walker'—approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire....And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle....He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again....Unbelievable really....[E]verybody was spellbound in the watching of it.

See this movie. Click here to go to the official site.

There is an excellent Gothamist interview with Petit here and one from Psychology Today here.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

let us dream, let us dream

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled -- Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.


— President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama, November 4, 2008

and the band plays....

After spending so many months guarding any optimism, obsessively reading the news and checking polling sites, repeatedly thinking this is to good to be true... what a feeling. I'm still going to the New York Times website obsessively, only this time it is to remind myself that what is happening is real.

We've seen so much damage done in the last eight years, more than anybody could have imagined possible. So much has been based on fear, isolation, and divisiveness. McCain/Palin repeatedly, to the end, played to people's worst, lowest, and most base instincts. We couldn't help but cringe as we saw John McCain, one of our bravest politicians, give up his values and literally sell his soul to appeal to the worst of the Republican base. As the gauntlet descended, his people tried every possible way of attack and refused to repudiate some of the lowest, most dangerous things ever said in a campaign. At last, people have finally begun to wake up to how far we have moved backwards, how much less of a voice we have when everything comes down to blue and red... Obama's decisive victory is a repudiation of eight years of a move away from democracy in this country, away from the values of tolerance, imagination, openness, leadership, and accountability that this country is supposed to represent. Yes, Obama is a politician, and despite the poetry with which he so often speaks and the exuberance he embodies, we must not forget this. Over the last two years, he often fought fire with fire, accepted large sums of money from special interests, and played into the sad, television-dominated electoral system that has so compromised real political debate in this country. He is no doubt a realist, somebody who often plays the odds and in many circles is known for playing it safe. Those of us who dream must remember this and urge him to face the ills of our system before it is too late.

Without doubt, he faces immense challenges, challenges beyond all measure, systemic problems too great to be solved in just one or two presidential terms. Nevertheless, let's hope that he can live up to his promise of something better and do some things to really heal this world, move it forward and inspire us all to lead better lives. This man is the American story in so many ways. By ascending to the top in so short a time, defeating political machines thought to be invincible, he has reawakened people around the world to the possibilities that exist here that make this country what it is. My heart is touched when I think that people in all corners of the world are smiling today as they read the news. As the son of immigrants, I've always been reminded that despite all of America's faults, it's a place that offers things that are unattainable to most of the world. Just thirty five years ago, my parents came here with next to nothing and have gone on to create a life for their children and themselves that they could have never have dreamed possible. There is a reason that millions of people dream of someday coming here, and it is time to act in way that embodies the vision that defines this nation and acts in every way to spread it to the rest of the world. We are an important part of the world, and our actions, both positive and negative, have impact on everybody. Regardless of who becomes the world's next superpower, what we do as a nation can determine the direction this world takes. Future generations will learn not only from our failings, but also from our triumphs.

Not only does Obama's story remind us that anything is possible, but also that it is patriotic to criticize your country when you feel it errs, that dissent truly does lie at the fabric of democracy, and that it is only when we and our leaders ask ourselves tough questions (and, yes, look at the nuance in things) that we can move forward and bring about a change of direction. Let us all be vigilant in holding on to the excitement we all feel right now, but not let our sense of victory at the present moment lull us into complacency. No public servant ever deserves a free ticket into office, and as citizens we have to work to remind our leadership who put them there and maintain a vigilance in making sure that we never again allow ourselves to be lead down any of the disastrous roads of the last eight years.

Cheers.