Bamboo, Sitar and Tabla

Admission to San Francisco's Asian Art Museum is free on the first Tuesday of each month for the unwashed masses courtesy of a sponsorship by Target.



Two new exhibits opened last week on the ground floor, including a rather dull survey with an impressive name: "Princes, Palaces, and Passion: The Art of India’s Mewar Kingdom."



In conjunection with the exhibit, there was a performance by the Rajasthani Storytellers from India scheduled, but the U.S. State Department decided they were not worthy to travel to our shores and their visas didn't arrive in time.



Their replacement was a young local tabla player named Salar Nader (click here for his website).



He accompanied a fabulous sitar player who was introduced to the crowd, but whose name wasn't on any of the signage or the Asian Art Museum website.



Suffice it to say that their music-making was delightful as it echoed throughout the entire museum from 1 to 2PM...



...and even kept a crowd of Montessori schoolchildren from getting too restless.



The other new exhibit is called "Masters of Bamboo: Japanese Baskets and Sculpture from the Cotsen Collection," which is an astonishing assemblage.



It just confirms that in design the Japanese have few peers in the world.