Man on Wire

Last night I went to see a screening of “Man on Wire,” a documentary about Philippe Petit and his daring, unauthorized 1974 tightrope performance between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Afterwards, Dick Cavett interviewed Petit and the film’s director, James Marsh, on stage.

As unbelievable as it sounds, Petit managed to sneak into the World Trade Center with a crew of accomplices, rig a cable that stretched across the two buildings at the roofline (1350 feet in the air!) and walk across it not once, but several times. He didn’t just walk it, he performed on it, kneeling and lying down.

I was surprised at how moving Petit’s performance, and Marsh’s film, were. I expected a mischievous movie about a daring stunt, but there was also an exceptional beauty in Petit’s goal and its achievement. It was a kind of performance art that blew apart people’s notions of fear and possibility.

When Petit spoke afterwards, he said he never “tries” to do anything. He just does. You’ve got to admire that kind of certainty and direction!

(Photo: Tarpon Springs, Fla.)

Funny tragedy

Did you ever see a movie or read a book that was supposed to be tragic, but instead was unintentionally funny? This is the essence of camp -- the reason why “The Valley of the Dolls,” for example, has a huge cult following of people who laugh at every pill-popping scene.

I found a new example of this kind of melodramatic hyperbole Tuesday night while reading a novel. The book shall remain nameless, but suffice to say I found it on someone’s stoop among a stack being given away for free. (Which should have told me something, right?)

Allow me to set the scene. A man is visiting his catatonic, religious-fanatic friend in the psychiatric hospital. He is trying to break her out of her stupor by bringing her a Bible.

“Pray for me, Selina. Let me hear you pray.”

I place the palms of her hands together.

“I’ll pray with you, Selina. What do you say? I don’t know how to pray. You’ll have to show me.”

The same blank stare. I put her hands back on the Bible.

Dr. Towbridge pulls me away. “No use. She won’t accept anything in the real world.”

I turn back to her. Touch her hands. “Look at me, Selina. Please!”

She doesn’t stir. Like a mannequin propped in a chair.

“It’s no good.” The doctor touches my arm. “She doesn’t know you’re here.”

“Make her know.” I challenge the doctor.

“Only God can do that.” The doctor sighs. “I can’t reach her. Neither can you. She’s in a different world now.”

“What is to become of her?” I stare into the doctor’s face.

“Nothing.” His lips barely move. “She’s a vegetable.”

“Meaning?” The horror of it defeats me.

“She’ll be hospitalized forever.” He turns away.

Now, am I being mean and cynical, or is this not truly cringe-inducing dialogue? Who would actually say, “What is to become of her?” I picture this entire exchange taking place in dramatic stentorian tones, with wide sweeps of their limbs and exaggerated facial expressions. My Advanced Placement English teacher from high school would weep -- not because of the tragedy, but because of the tragic writing.

(Photo: SoHo, September 2007)

Tarpon Springs

Tarpon Springs is an old settlement in northern Pinellas County, Fla., that became popular with Greek immigrants who specialized in diving for natural sponges. Given its Greek heritage, a lot of the buildings are painted blue and white.

Now that I'm back in New York, I'm having a pretty quiet week. (Which is a good thing, because my stomach began acting up again on my trip. Too much eating out, maybe?) I'm getting back to sitting and staying home in the evenings, reading. It's so terrific to be able to do that -- a vacation from my vacation!

Ancestors

You may remember the last time I went home, my Dad and I spent a lot of time talking about his family. Well, since then, my Dad has gone on a genealogy binge. He’s tracking our family tree not only on his side, but on my mother’s as well -- which is interesting because they’ve been divorced for more than 30 years.

During my visit last week, Dad shared with me his latest efforts, and everything he’s found is pretty consistent with research done years ago by my maternal grandfather and others. There are still a few mysteries, particularly when we get back to the 1600s, when records were scarce, and I’m hoping Dad and the Internet can help clear those up.

It was fascinating for me to comb back through my mom's records, which include letters from long-dead relatives and pages from family bibles, as I tried to confirm what Dad has found.


The biggest boost came when I found a seven-page essay written by my grandfather about his family and his childhood. When I was a kid, I remember sitting on the couch with him as he told me a story about a turkey roosting in a tree, as strange as that sounds. I was young -- my grandfather died when I was 9 -- and I could never quite remember that story. It always bothered me, because I knew it was family lore he meant to hand down to me.

Well, on page five of his essay, there it was:

“Father’s parents raised turkeys. One old Tom roosted in a tall white pine back of the house. His position in the tree became a weather indicator. At one time his father remarked about a position the old Tom took and predicted a severe storm. What followed was the blizzard of 1886, which has not been equaled in these parts to this day.”

It may sound inconsequential, but I was so glad to find that paragraph!

(Photos: My mother's parents in their younger years.)

Back again

Back in New York now, safe and sound after visiting the family in Florida. I had a great time, despite choosing one of the rainiest weeks in recent memory as my week to visit. Anyone who’s ever been in a Florida rainstorm knows they can get a little crazy, and I had to drive through one in particular that was like a half-hour-long car wash. (Me with my rusty driving skills!)

I love those storms, though -- their power and the blasted-clean feeling of the landscape after they pass. They cool things down and remove that hot, sweaty stickiness from the air. (Well, as much as it can be removed.)

I love Florida in general. It still feels like home to me. I know it so intimately -- all the lush summery grassy smells, and the plants and bugs and birds, and the architecture of the clouds. New York feels like home too, but in a different way -- culturally, maybe, and intellectually. Florida feels like home viscerally.


I always tell people I wouldn’t move back, but who knows. As my life’s circumstances change, anything is possible. I certainly still have roots there. The downside is, so much of what I love about Florida is constantly under siege -- the landscape, the flora and fauna, the old cracker culture. It can be a painful place to live, watching all of that fall to bulldozers.

The two sightseeing highlights of the week were going to Dunedin and Clearwater Beach with my mom, brother, sister-in-law and adorable niece, and driving up the coast from Tarpon Springs to Hernando County on a different day with my mom. I also saw lots of friends and spent time with my dad and my family on his side.

And now, back to the grind!

(Photos: Top, coastal Hernando County, Fla.; bottom, sponge boats in Tarpon Springs.)

Vacation!

I went to a gallery show of street photography last night, where this photo by my friend Jesse was among those exhibited. It was interesting to see what caught the judges’ eyes, and to speculate about what made each photo successful. I love Jesse’s pic and most of the others, but a few were a bit bewildering. Several of us agreed that good street photography involves a precise combination of luck and skill -- being in the right place at the right time with the right equipment and settings. Sometimes those mysterious powers converge and a brilliant image is the result.

Starting today I’m off on vacation -- a 10-day trip to see my family and friends in Florida. I don’t plan to blog during this time, because I think I need a vacation from blogging just as much as I do anything else! (Besides, I don’t travel with my computer, so I’d have to use my mom’s, and that involves more complications.)

I’ll be posting again on the 21st and thereafter. Everyone stay cool until then!

(Photo: Chains and shadows in Dumbo, Brooklyn, June 2008)

Space

“The land was marble-smooth and it rolled without a pucker to the horizon. My eyes grazed across the green band of ground and the blue bowl of sky and then lingered on a dead tire, a bird in flight, an old fence, a rusted barrel. Hardly any cars came toward me, and I saw no one in the rearview mirror the entire time. I passed so many vacant acres and looked past them to so many more vacant acres and looked ahead and behind at the empty road and up at the empty sky; the sheer bigness of the world made me feel lonely to the bone. The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not empty and huge but full of possibility. If I had been an orchid hunter I wouldn’t have seen this space as sad-making and vacant -- I think I would have seen it as acres of opportunity where the things I loved were waiting to be found.”

-- Susan Orlean, “The Orchid Thief”

(Photo: Street art in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Sept. 2007)