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gurdymonkeyI just got back from the "Kampai! Sake + Tea" evening at the Asian Art Museum.
"Lords of the Samurai" takes up the two ground floor exhibition rooms with scrolls, screens, armor (all Edo period), textiles (all Edo period, mostly noh costumes, a white wool dobuku with one red sleeve and a blue brocade collar, and a white jinbaori with the Hosokawa mon in black), tea-ware and other articles. It includes a number of "Book of Five Rings" scrolls, plus paintings attributed to Miyamoto Musashi. The folding screens with the geese here are in the exhibit.
There were at least three sword blades that pre-dated the Edo period and a gorgeous matchlock musket with inlays of the Hosokawa mon all over the stock. The tsuba collection is also mostly Edo, but there were a couple of Muromachi ones as well. I understand that items will be rotated, so I definitely plan to get back to see it again later in the summer. (I did acquire the exhibition catalogue - to my dismay, the wonderful screen of dog shooting is reduced to some stupidly small photos, however, there are some excellent portraits, some of which I have not even seen).
Oh, and the eggplant sake and picnic set? There was an even BETTER one, with a silver gourd-shaped sake flask, stacked boxes and plates all nested in a lacquered carrying case.
The DJ - and the person who thought putting a DJ in the echoing atrium of a museum was a good idea - should both be used for cutting practice. It was too flippin' loud! The tea demonstrations were packed, as in, don't even think of getting near it. I did manage to try a tasting flight of three sake ($10) early enough to be able to take my little tray, sit on a stone bench and sip thoughtfully.
Fave of the evening was "Shichi Hon Yari" (The Seven Spearsmen), Tomita Sake Brewery, Shiga Prefecture. Darned smooth for a junmai, with fruity notes. A very close second was "Ken" (Sword), Suehiro Sake Brewery, Fukushima prefecture. this junmai daiginjo hit me firmly in the tastebuds like Hiroyuki Sanada kicking Tom Cruise's gaijin ass with a melon-flavored boken, though not too sweet. The "Sharaku" (Tokun Sake Brewery, Chiba) was a dry junmai ginjo. If you like dry whites, you'd probably enjoy it. While it was my least favorite of the three, it certainly wasn't bad. (Of course, I just looked all these up and they're stupid expensive! I cannot spend $53 for a bottle of sake)
It was too crowded and noisy and I was hitting critical mass by the time I came back down from the upstairs gallery, so I didn't stay for the lecture on sake and samurai.
"Lords of the Samurai" takes up the two ground floor exhibition rooms with scrolls, screens, armor (all Edo period), textiles (all Edo period, mostly noh costumes, a white wool dobuku with one red sleeve and a blue brocade collar, and a white jinbaori with the Hosokawa mon in black), tea-ware and other articles. It includes a number of "Book of Five Rings" scrolls, plus paintings attributed to Miyamoto Musashi. The folding screens with the geese here are in the exhibit.
There were at least three sword blades that pre-dated the Edo period and a gorgeous matchlock musket with inlays of the Hosokawa mon all over the stock. The tsuba collection is also mostly Edo, but there were a couple of Muromachi ones as well. I understand that items will be rotated, so I definitely plan to get back to see it again later in the summer. (I did acquire the exhibition catalogue - to my dismay, the wonderful screen of dog shooting is reduced to some stupidly small photos, however, there are some excellent portraits, some of which I have not even seen).
Oh, and the eggplant sake and picnic set? There was an even BETTER one, with a silver gourd-shaped sake flask, stacked boxes and plates all nested in a lacquered carrying case.
The DJ - and the person who thought putting a DJ in the echoing atrium of a museum was a good idea - should both be used for cutting practice. It was too flippin' loud! The tea demonstrations were packed, as in, don't even think of getting near it. I did manage to try a tasting flight of three sake ($10) early enough to be able to take my little tray, sit on a stone bench and sip thoughtfully.
Fave of the evening was "Shichi Hon Yari" (The Seven Spearsmen), Tomita Sake Brewery, Shiga Prefecture. Darned smooth for a junmai, with fruity notes. A very close second was "Ken" (Sword), Suehiro Sake Brewery, Fukushima prefecture. this junmai daiginjo hit me firmly in the tastebuds like Hiroyuki Sanada kicking Tom Cruise's gaijin ass with a melon-flavored boken, though not too sweet. The "Sharaku" (Tokun Sake Brewery, Chiba) was a dry junmai ginjo. If you like dry whites, you'd probably enjoy it. While it was my least favorite of the three, it certainly wasn't bad. (Of course, I just looked all these up and they're stupid expensive! I cannot spend $53 for a bottle of sake)
It was too crowded and noisy and I was hitting critical mass by the time I came back down from the upstairs gallery, so I didn't stay for the lecture on sake and samurai.
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Date: 2009-06-19 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-19 02:27 pm (UTC)I would like to visit the TrueSake store in SF one of these days, but I'm afraid what it would do to my wallet.
(I need an icon of a monkey pouring sake, I think.)