On Sunday, the listening event we’d been planning for weeks went off 100% hitch-free. A large audience of nearly 50 people, including community partner prospects, StoryCorps fans and passersby, came together in the presentation hall at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.
A silence fell over the room as the late Studs Terkel began a soliloquy on the human voice, a passionate portrait of man’s devotion to the art of storytelling. I could tell it was well received when the audience failed to notice the bumbling amateur photographer (me) rushing to each side of the room to take essentially the same photograph. Site Supervisor Sarah Geis followed the the recording of Studs with a proper introduction loaded with audio goodies and a basic breakdown of the StoryCorps essentials.
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For our San Francisco StoryBooth listening event this past Sunday, Facilitators Alex Lyon and Patricia Hemphill created a slide show of the StoryCorps experience. Enjoy!
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As I read about the ongoing efforts of Proposition 8 opponents here in California this week, I am reminded of Helen Haug and Pamela Calvert who came in to the San Francisco StoryBooth to record their story of getting married to each other five times now and counting.
Their first wedding was a traditional Quaker marriage in New York, in all but the name since at that time their Quaker Meeting was not recognizing same sex unions as “marriages.” Their next four attempts to get their relationship recognized have happened here in the state of California.
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Cathy Dew and Andrea Pook are best friends.
This is clear to anyone who happens to be in the same room (or booth) with them at any given time. Their conversation ebbs and flows with a comfort and familiarity that only comes with years of comraderie. They don’t finish each other’s sentences because they don’t need to; it’s already understood.
When they first arrived at the booth, both seemed a little unsure of exactly what it was they were getting into. The conversation started off a little timidly.
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On Saturday, October 25, the San Francisco team set up shop at the Moscone Center to talk to women of all varieties who had come together for a common purpose: self-empowerment, inner-fortitude, and to see the Queen Bee herself, Oprah Winfrey (cue theme music).
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Our San Francisco StoryBooth is now official. On Sunday, October 26, StoryCorps founder Dave Isay traveled out west to officially launch our StoryBooth at the Contemporary Jewish Museum and to read from his book, Listening is an Act of Love. Special thanks for all their help to Connie Wolf and Lisa Chanoff from the Museum, and to Matt Martin from partner station KALW (whose adorable daughter Reba definitely stole the show).
As we continue listening to incredible stories here in the Bay Area, our thoughts are turned to master oral historian Studs Terkel, who passed away earlier this week. For more on Studs, see here, here, and listen here. We will miss him greatly.
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Ten-year-old Ida Cortez is special. Just recently relocated to San Francisco after surviving Hurricane Katrina, Ida is in a new school, on a new coast, and making new friends. Ida’s mother Kim Wargo brought her in for an interview to talk about leaving New Orleans and to share her experience living with and learning through dyslexia.
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Tina Olson and John Heinsius
A guy could get used to this. After my first week as a Facilitator at the San Francisco StoryBooth, I have already had the pleasure of meeting people with truly inspired stories. The interesting thing is, I have almost started to look back on their stories as if they have been a long lost memory of my own.
Of course, they’re not. They are Jack Heinsius’s memories of his mother from when he was a child, and Tina Olson’s stories of her father hiding in haystacks to avoid capture by German soldiers. They are Peter Nathan Roberts recounting the old Union songs his parents would have him sing at the dinner table when he was young. I never took a bus to the March on Washington in the 1960s as Peter did, nor have I ever started an organization to raise money for hungry children around the world as the Fredricks family has.
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From left to right: Alex Lyon, Kasha Ho, and Patricia Hemphill
These are the smiling faces of our San Francisco Facilitators! Our first day of interviews is tomorrow, and for the past few weeks they have been working tirelessly to prepare. Read a little about each of them after the jump:
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Check out some photos from the first day of StoryBooth construction at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Sorry for the occasional blurriness–but man, these folks move fast!
*I recommend speeding up the slideshow by placing your cursor on the black bar above the photos–more of a flipbook effect.
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Hello from StoryCorps’ newest home, our StoryBooth at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco!
Photo: Bruce Damonte/Courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco.
This past June, the Contemporary Jewish Museum began a new chapter in its history by opening the doors to a new building by the architect Daniel Liebskind—an adaptive reuse of the 1907 Jesse Street Power Substation. Inspired by the Hebrew phrase L’Chaim, meaning “To Life,” the building is the physical embodiment of the Museum’s mission to bring together tradition and innovation in a celebration of life and shared humanity. The Museum is designed not only as a space to experience works of art, but also–more importantly–as a space to experience other people through conversation and debate.
Sound familiar? We couldn’t be more thrilled to be here.
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