It was rainy and windy, but I haven't had as much fun in some time. The day started with an offer of instant coffee (I took the vanilla flavored) in San Francisco. Jemagirl arrived and we all talked a while before taking the Muni subway to the Asian Museum of Art.
This museum is ranked as one of the top in the Western world for the size and quality of its collection of Asian art. It's not the type of thing you can find in most US cities and I didn't want to miss it.
The art ranged from the sublime to the grotesque to the explicity and larger than life (relatively speaking) sexual. Some of the sculptures must have been the source for nightmares for many children and adults over the centuries.
Like the one of a female god that had a beard (perhaps this was a gender variant god). Her cape was made of flayed human skin, including the attached hands and feet, of some victim of long ago.
Then there was the attack of the monkeys, with dagger-like teeth, on another god. Some of these monkeys had their teeth buried in the god's extremities. For some reason, it reminded me of the Indiana Jones movie where he was shut in an underground vault crawling with nasty snakes of all kinds.
The great thing about the visit is that I wasn't there by myself, trying to read the little descriptions with my progressive bifocals. I could ask Jesus what it said, although he may be worse off here than me!:)
Jesus knows a lot about the art of Asia and has written an article about one of the carved, miniature Japanese fox figures we saw. This was delicately balanced on its hind legs. Turns out the fox has an extensive role to play in some Japanese folklore. We later saw drawn examples of the ability of the fox to shape-shift into all kinds of benign and some not so friendly creatures, some about the size of King Kong.
So, not only was it great to have Jesus with us for the conversation but he was a great source of information on the art.
Jemagirl made the time at the museum not only more interesting, with artistic complaints (fully justified in my mind) on the placement of art objects and a running commentary of funny interpretations of what the art actually represented, but an adventure. Without Jemagirl along, the museum visit would have been really interesting but not entertaining and fun.
Our last exhibit was 'Drama and Desire', a collection of Japanese art. The door had a warning that this was for adults only. After we'd looked at a number of geishas, courtesans and other figures more or less just 'hanging' around the walls, I was wondering what was the big deal with adult content. 'Uh...Jesus, what's the mature rating for?' He led us to a series of hand-painted scrolls with explicit sex acts between what I'm sure, from the looks of ecstasy (in that subdued Japanese way) on their faces, were consenting adults. Interestingly, the penises were many times the size of any on even the most well-endowed porn star. The women would have been in for a lot of pain if their vaginas were not similarly out-sized. Jemagirl noted what looked like glittery paint stategically place near the various sex organs.
I wanted to visit the museum gift shop, of course, on the way out. It was a good thing Jesus and Jemagirl were there with me. There was this gorgeous silver pendant necklace that I had my eye on. It was the thought of Archive witnesses forcing me to report on that purchase here that stopped me in my tracks
I settled for a $12 Japanese fan ('Jesus, is this authentic??') as a souvenir.
We left the museum to go out in the windy, rainy late afternoon and caught the Muni back to the apartment. Jesus brought out some goat cheese thing, to which Jemagirl and I initially said more or less 'no way'. We are not fans of goat cheese but this was delicious. Perhaps in California goats provide milder milk?
There were crackers, another cheese and two bottles of wine from a local winery. These were superb wines folks, although I am no expert. They were both awarded something like wine of the month by a magazine. I don't normally like red wine at all but this red was really good, as was the white.
Jesus assurred us that he would be shipping barrels-full of California wine to the Midwest MoM coming up in August.
We continued our daylong conversation about things Archive-related, and not, into the evening over really good wine and cheese. I suspect it was Jesus who noted hunger pangs first!
We decided to go to dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant. Both Jemagirl and Jesus are familiar with this restaurant and I'm not at all familiar with good Thai food. I decided it would work best if they chose a selection of dishes for us to share. The food was spicy and really delicious. Jemagirl, who has lived in a number of countries including Thailand (I've only lived in New Jersey and Minnesota - not quite that bad but I haven't even been outside the US with the exception of Canada) told me the food was authentic Thai although not necessarily representative of choices a Thai would make for him/herself.
I, at least, was stuffed at the end of dinner. We walked back to Jemagirl's really cool car and I was given a lift back to my hotel. Jemagirl is not only an artist (having shown us some neat 3D graphics work earlier in the day) who was often found sketching buildings through the day but also has experience as a mechanic and does welding, among other things! For some reason, I was really impressed by this. If I had a welding torch in my hand the most I could do with it would be hold it still, hoping I wouldn't point it in the wrong direction.
It was terrific to meet and have the chance to get to know some things about Jemagirl and Jesus on our Saturday adventure, our own SF mini-MoM.
I settled for a $12 Japanese fan ('Jesus, is this authentic??') as a souvenir.