Since Rob's definitely moving to Guam and we're planning this trip to Japan in 2005, I've started to immerse myself in things Japanese. Em and I went to the Asia Society on Saturday to see their display of Japanese screens, which was small but fabulous, though not quite as amazing as the one I saw several years ago in DC (and that was actually Chinese screens, come to think of it). This particular set of screens was less impressionistic than the Chinese ones, with a couple of exceptions. The ones I liked the best, though, had a wealth of detail in them: the two screens depicting scenes from the Tale of Genji and the Scholar's Garden screens, which were my favorite. The Scholar's Garden was particularly lovely, I thought, and much more idyllic than the Genji screens, which are gloriously chaotic (as was the horseracing screen). In the latter two, you get to see little slices of life, including a mugging with swords (there's a novelty, even for New Yorkers), especially in the Genji screens, where there are cutaway interior views of the houses showing people going about their daily business, like the Robert Doisneau poster I bought Jen years ago, that's a cutaway of a Paris apartment house. I'm always unhappy with the explanations in museums of pieces like this because I want to know what everybody's doing. Which means, really, that I'm just a high-class voyeur. (These two screens are from the first rotation, which I missed.)
I'd forgotten how cool the Asia Society was, and how great their shop is, too. There were some wonderful glass bowls there that reminded me of some of Dale Chihuly's earlier work, but was even more organic looking. Two of them were very simililar to oyster shells and just beautiful. I may end up with one, eventually, because I can't stop thinking about them. I'm going to go back and get a prezzie for Jen there, probably Friday, so I'll have another look. And I think I'm going to join, at least for the year. There's an Eiko and Koma performance over Memorial Day weekend that I'd like to see, so I'm kind of glad I'm not going to Mediawest this year. Maybe I'll give Victoria a call and see if she wants to go too, if it's cheap.
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