In the September issue of Esquire, the editors tossed together Werner Herzog (director of such films as Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo, and Aguirre, the Wrath of God) with Philippe Petit (the performer best known for his illegal high-wire walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center back in 1974).

Unexpectedly, as they bantered, I discovered that Philippe Petit already knows one of the main reasons that I write.

Here’s how their dialogue ended:

Werner Herzog: What I do is for spectators. Whether Philippe’s walk between the Twin Towers was witnessed by anyone down in the street really didn’t matter. Philippe once secretly put a cable across a 2,400-foot ravine and walked across it and danced on the rope. Only a farmer who was driving his cattle at sunrise realized that someone was there. He rushed into the village to wake a policeman. And when they came back on a motorcycle, there was no Philippe, there was no wire left.

Philippe Petit: But the cows remember.

I, too, do it for the cows.