Philippe Petit, Artist of Life

A young man had strung a wire between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral and walked and juggled and danced on it for three hours, astounding the crowds of people below. Each time I walked past Notre Dame, I kept seeing the photograph that had been published in the newspaper: an almost invisible wire stretched between the enormous towers of the cathedral, and there, right in the middle, as if suspended magically in space, the tiniest of human figures, a dot of life against the sky. Unlike performances in the other arts, the experience of the high wire is direct, unmediated, simple, and it requires no explanation whatsoever.

Source: www.theparisreview.org