jack@inspire: Inspiring Rockefeller Words

I spent today walking New York City with my wife Catherine. We had arrived last evening in the land of Obama direct from Sydney Australia. We spent the evening having a late dinner on 92nd st celebrating a dear friend's 46th birthday along with Tania Plibersek whom I had met on the plane and gratuitously invited to the dinner. Even though we finished dinner well after midnight our bodies we were still on Sydney time zone as we walked the 89 blocks back to our apartment just across from Madison Square Gardens.

Today we woke late around noon and headed upper westside walking across Central Park to the Guggenheim. Usually trips to NYC for me are about work from beginning to end and, in the absence of Catherine, I doubt I would have ventured to the Guggenheim.

We saw a wonderful exhibition "The Third Way" which looks at how the art, literature, and philosophies of the East influenced new visual and conceptual langues of modern and contemporary art in America. Starting the exhibition was a stunning work by James Lee Byars titled "The Death of James Lee Byars". Standing in front of the installation, the gold leaf took me back to our first overseas trip together to Rangoon, Burma in early 1985 where we visited the beautiful Shwedagon Temple which is covered in gold leaf. I mused how it was Catherine that introduced me to things Buddhist and here we were again in the midst of Buddhist influenced American art.

The other special encounter at the Guggenheim was an exhibition by the Hugo Boss 2008 Prize Winner Emily Jacir - two installations that address the October 1972 assassination of Palestinian intellectual Wael Zuaiter in Rome by Israeli secret service agents following on from the deadly kidnapping of Israeli athletes by the Palestinian militant group Balc September at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

After Guggenheim we walk down Fifth Avenue till we come to the Plaza Hotel and head inside for a late afternoon drink. We then decide to head back to our apartment but outside the Plaza we spot the Paris Cinema which has a screening of The Reader in a hour's time. So to bide our time we head down Fifth looking into shops until we reach the the Rockefeller Centre where we watch skaters on the rink

and read John D Rockefeller's inspiring words carved into stone with gold leaf paint:

I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labour, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well ordered living and that economy is a prime requisit of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man's word should be as good as his bond; that character - not wealth or power or position - is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual's highest fulfilment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.

And so inspired by Rockefeller we head back to Paris Cinema to watch The Reader and wonder how many in the audience are Jewish - quite a few it turns out...the first time laughter erupts is towards the end of the film when Lena Olin's character in her exquisite New York apartment comments "there are Jewish organisations for everything".

And as we leave the cinema we wonder whether we just might have walked somewhere nearby the apartment featured in The Reader having left the Emily Jacir exhibition at the Guggenheim having consumed the gold leaf of Lee Byars and the golden words of Rockefeller that love is the greatest thing in the world....

Pizza on 6th avenue, a short walk to the Time Warner Centre and then the A line back down to 33rd and bed - a good day.