Due to popular demand—and the generosity of our host, The Contemporary Jewish Museum, our StoryBooth has been extended through October, 2010!

To celebrate, we’re having a party.

Please join us at the Contemporary Jewish Museum on Sunday, November 8th from 2-4pm to listen to never-before-heard highlights from year one of our San Francisco StoryBooth—and toast to year two!

More information can be found here, on the Museum’s website. We would love to see you there.

In addition, reservations at the San Francisco StoryBooth are now open through February, 2010. We still have some open slots on the calendar, so now is the perfect time to make a reservation to record a conversation with a family member over the holiday season or schedule a Valentine’s Day surprise. Reservations can be made through our website or by calling 1-800-850-4406. Interview times go quickly, so make sure to sign up now.

It has been a true honor to listen to Bay Area stories for the past year, and we are beyond thrilled to have the chance to preserve even more stories from this incredibly diverse community.

Come visit us at the booth one of these days, okay?

Margaret, center, in listening mode

From Margaret:

Last December I was laid off from my dot-com job. It was a blessing, really. A kick in the pants to do something more rewarding. I found that something in StoryCorps. I went to a wine-and-cheese StoryCorps event at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum, and was so impressed by the project that at the end of the evening I cornered Sarah Geis and demanded to volunteer. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my new-found free time.

Luckily Sarah needed someone to meet and greet StoryCorps visitors on Thursday afternoons to explain the project, answer questions, and chat with people waiting to use the booth. Some people already knew about StoryCorps from NPR. Others had never heard of StoryCorps, and approached my end of the hall with looks of interest or confusion. Others gazed at the wall of photos next to me, snapshots of people from all walks of life who had recorded their stories in the StoryBooth (my favorite is the one of the guy with the little white dog), and asked me if StoryCorps was open to non-Jews. “Absolutely!” I told them. Others, often senior citizens, bashfully told me they didn’t have any stories to tell. I’d laugh and tell them that of course they did. Everyone has a story.

As a “merch girl” for touring bands for many years, I knew all about sitting behind a table and talking to customers. But with StoryCorps, I was promoting a project, not a band. And while I couldn’t wave down a horn player and ask him to get me a beer, I got to work in a well-lit, smoke-free, low-decibel environment – and sleep in my own bed every night. More importantly, I got to talk to all kinds of people I wouldn’t have had a chance to meet otherwise, like the founder of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. And the newlywed couple who came to the StoryBooth directly from their City Hall wedding. And the elderly woman who told me about San Francisco during World War II, when she was dating several sailors at the same time (she said she wanted to “play the field”). And the Sudanese “Lost Boy,” who was all smiles and whose struggles I couldn’t even begin to imagine. On my way home from the museum, I’d think about all the people I’d met and marvel at the variety of their lives and experiences.

This week I start a full-time job, so I will no longer be able to take my post outside the StoryBooth on Thursday afternoons. Thank you, Sarah, Frank, Alex, Eloise, and all the people who came in to tell their stories. You were the highlights of my week and I’m going to miss working with you.

And, perhaps most exciting of all, there have been some new additions to our San Francisco team. Let me introduce Facilitators Frank Kingman, Eloise Melzer, and Lena Richardson!

Frank comes to StoryCorps following an over thirty-year long career as a locomotive engineer and conductor for the Southern Pacific Railroad and Amtrak. Originally from San Jose, California, Frank studied history, philosophy, political theory, and sociology at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He lives with his wife, Rhonda, in a designated historic district of San Francisco known as Dogpatch.

Hailing from Wisconsin with a degree in Anthropology from Middlebury College, Eloise has always been fascinated by the stories people tell and what lessons we glean from them. Eloise recently completed the radio program at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, an enriching experience that introduced her to many wonderful people and reinforced the power of storytelling in everyday life.

After earning a Masters Degree in Adult Education and Community Development in Toronto, Lena moved back to her native Brooklyn to spend a year working as a New York City-based StoryCorps Facilitator. Long-time readers of this blog might recognize her from midwest adventures such as this and this, not to mention serving as an accomplice to this wild and crazy act, here. Lena now lives in Berkeley, California, where she works as an acupressure practitioner and continues to study the healing arts. We are so thrilled to have her back!

We couldn’t be happier to welcome these folks to the StoryCorps family. Come by the booth and say hello some time!

When I meet someone new and tell them what I do for work, there’s usually a moment in the conversation where they say something along the lines of, “That sounds cool, but what’s the point?”

I explain that there are a number of points–that StoryCorps provides the time and space for loved ones to sit down together and talk about their lives, that this often can be a transformative experience, that we’re creating an archive of American life in the 21st century, that we are collecting innovative content for public radio, that we are celebrating the lives and stories of everyday people.

Then, five times out of ten, the person will ask, “So, do people ever get into really big fights in the booth?”

This question makes me laugh, but, when you think about it, it make a lot of sense. Rarely do we read in a newspaper or watch TV about two people sitting quietly across from each other showing how much they care. Instead: Lindsay and Samantha Brawl Again! Octuplets’ Mother’s Mother Speaks!

What I am trying to say is this: Last Thursday, StoryCorps hosted a Love-themed Listening Party at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. It was really lovely. And it wasn’t hard to choose which clips to play–because, when two people sit down in a StoryBooth and really listen to each other, there is no fighting, there is love. And you can hear that on the tape.

So many people came to the event that we ran out of chairs! Above, our fantastic volunteers Peter and Frank help us out with some emergency chairs. Don’t worry, CJM, we were very careful not to block the fire exits!

There was wine and snacks and mingling.

And then, we listened.

Not only is our San Francisco StoryBooth our first StoryBooth on the west coast, but it’s also our first StoryBooth housed at a museum. The Contemporary Jewish Museum, to be exact.

Sometimes, on non-recording days, I like to sit in the booth and watch as museum visitors browse our display of participant photos and listen to the loop of StoryCorps clips playing from the speakers. Usually visitors start to listen standing up, but by the time they get to George Hill talking about his experience being homeless (“I can’t begin to tell you the misery of rain…”) they take a seat on one of the Museum’s little orange and green stools. They are planning to stay for a while.

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.

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:

Patricia Hemphill: Patricia left her original home of Dallas, Texas, to study History and Theatre at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Since then, she has sought to combine her interests in media, history, and social justice through her work with the Freedom Archives, an Oakland-based project chronicling the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international solidarity movements. New to StoryCorps, Patricia is thankful to be on-board and excited to begin listening! Patricia’s Favorite StoryCorps Clip (click to listen): Jerry Johnson interviews his mother, Carrie Conley, in Detroit, Michigan.

Alex Lyon: Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Alex spent most of his adolescent years in cities up and down the coast. With interests ranging from political theory to performing and recording music, he became involved in documentary work, eventually producing his own late night radio show. Upon graduating from the University of California Santa Cruz, he packed up his things and drove to New York City. After an internship in the MobileBooth Department of StoryCorps, he was lucky enough to land the role of Facilitator at the San Francisco StoryBooth. He is currently wondering if there is any place on earth more beautiful than the Bay Area. Alex’s Favorite StoryCorps Clip (click to listen): Robert Madden talks with his friend Tom Kurthy in Santa Monica, California.

Kasha Ho: Kasha caught the urge for recording people’s stories while working on her thesis for Smith College, interviewing activists about the Native Hawaiian and environmental resistance against geothermal energy development in her home of Hawai’i. Kasha is a public radio junkie who listens to StoryCorps at home while cooking, quilting, and crafting. She sees the value of recording everyday people’s stories as in line with her work as a community organizer for social justice, and looks forwards to StoryCorps’ work to give back to the community here in the Bay Area. Kasha’s Favorite StoryCorps Clip (click to listen): 10-year-old Rasheed McKenstry interviews his mother, Rhonetta, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Make a reservation to record a conversation with a loved one and meet our team of incredible listeners at our San Francisco StoryBooth, located at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Online: www.storycorps.net
Phone: 800-850-4406

*I recommend speeding up the slideshow by placing your cursor on the black bar above the photos–more of a flipbook effect.

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.

We are also pleased as punch to have two fantastic public radio stations as broadcast partners: KQED and KALW.

Throughout the next couple weeks, check back here to see behind-the-scenes photos of the StoryBooth in progress, meet our incredible team of San Francisco Facilitators, learn about some of the other programs taking place at the CJM, and–if we’re lucky–read a Q&A with some folks from StoryCorps’ Facilities and Archive Department, the quiet powerhouse behind all that we do.

I have to scurry–there are booths to build, Facilitators to train, listening events to plan! But I want to leave you with a slideshow of some of my favorite images of the Museum and its exhibits.

L’Chaim! To life, to listening, and to a wonderful year here in San Francisco!

To see photo credits and additional information, click on the image.

Reservations for the San Francisco StoryBooth will open on Sunday, October 12, at 9:00am PST. For more information, check out the reservations page on our website.

And Save The Date! We will celebrate the StoryBooth’s Grand Opening with a Listening Party and a book reading by Dave Isay at the CJM on Sunday, October 26th, from 3-5pm. Event free with museum admission.