I am shamefully returning to my loyal dozen or so readers who I know have been anxiously awaiting my next blog post. My absence is definitely a good sign I'd say - I've been busy traveling and working and doing all sorts of fun and exciting things. But I am committed to making a return. I've wondered what exactly I would blog about here, since really most of my blogging efforts are focused on the HubSpot blog and the Inbound Marketing Summit blog and, of course, all my microblogging on twitter.
I decided to try a pseudo live blogging post relaying my visit to San Francisco, where I was last week for the MarketingSherpa B2B Demand Gen Summit. Too often I am inspired at a given moment to write, but by the time I sit down to the computer, the words escape me. I actually took some notes on my BlackBerry as I did my sightseeing and now I'll make sense of it all to relay a bit of my travels. Perhaps if you plan on visiting San Francisco anytime soon, you can get some tips here on where to go!
Yerba Buena Gardens
I arrived Friday afternoon, and once I caught up on some email, went out to grab a bite to eat. I picked something up at a local Mexican type place, and went out to Yerba Buena Gardens to sit outside and eat my quesadilla. The gardens are gorgeous. There are fountains, benches, lots of beautiful flowering trees... The next day I got up and made sure to bring my camera and took lots of photos as I walked all around the garden. You can see the photos here on facebook.
Contemporary Jewish Museum
This was the real highlight of my first day in San Fran. Here's where I really started to scribble down notes on my BlackBerry because I just couldn't handle not sharing and discussing the exhibits with someone. I originally had scratched this site from my list, thinking that I wouldn't have time to go to the museum. But I was sitting in Yerba Buena Gardens, enjoying my quesadilla, and realized that the museum was staring me right in the face! Just across the street, right next to my hotel, was the museum, nestled in a nice little nook between a cafe and a church.
The museum is very new - just opened in June 2008. The museum only has four exhibits, but at least three of the exhibits were incredibly interesting and I could have spent all day there reading every single caption and exhibit detail (which I never do).
The first exhibit that caught my attention was the "John Zorn's Aleph Bet Sound Project" which is a musical exhibit consisting of musical pieces commissioned for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I personally found this so interesting because I have a bit of an obsession with language and also symbolism tied to letters and interpretations of words and discussion of these things is actually quite common in Judaism / Hebrew. It was great to read how some of the musical pieces were developed to express interpretations of different letters. And to even hear about the construction of the gallery itself, dubbed the "yud" gallery after the Hebrew letter "yud" (it is shaped as the letter and pulled on the symbolism tied to that letter). So interesting.
The next exhibit was "In the Beginning: Artists Respond to Genesis" - a collection of artistic representations of the creation of the world as told in the Book of Genesis. It was amazing to see artists' completely different interpretations of the birth of the world. Jacob Lawrence's depictions, for example, were staged with an audience within a temple or church with the different phases of creation showing through the windows. It was interesting enough to have such a "stage" set up, but also to see how the reactions and expressions of those inside the building changed in each step (days 0 through 7). I could go on and one about each print and the details of the symbols and expressions of the audience or the priest... What was also great was the diversity of mediums used across the different exhibits. Ben Rubin created a sound sculpture that actually called out a sound - that of "God's Breath Hovering Over the Waters (His Master's Voice)." The sound came from within the sculpture, and as I peered inside, I had that religious moment where I thought I might be overwhelmed by what I saw. There were all sorts of sounds mixing in the exhibit space and it was really incredibly to hear how they came together, echoed and mixed... There were so many more pieces in that exhibit, paintings and prints and sculptures and video commentaries. I could have spent all day just in that exhibit, reading and listening to every single piece.
The third exhibit was Andy Warhol's 10 Portraits of Jews from the 20th Century. I had no idea that Andy Warhol had done such a project. Warhol was a practicing Catholic and there was a lot of discussion at the time that he created these prints about why he was doing it and how he chose his subjects. When asked, he simply said, he liked the faces. In many cases I was right there with him. Those faces were so different (and often recognizable). They were the classic Warhol 80s silk screen prints, but the subjects were notable Jews of the 20th century, like Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, the Marx Brothers, and others. What I also liked about the exhibit was that it was not simply the final prints, but also explained a bit about Warhol's silk screening process, and included some of his sketches of the faces and different early variations of a few of them.
Like I said, incredible exhibits and I could have spent all day there. But I only had about an hour and a half. The building, too, was incredible in and of itself. When I first walked in, and as I walked around, my mind went to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, which not only is an incredible museum for its content, but also an incredible building. What I was amazed to find out is that the two museums were actually designed by the same architect. The building is very unique and has much symbolism built into its structure, with the yud gallery, strategically placed windows to spell "pardes", and more...
I absolutely recommend you visit the Contemporary Jewish Museum if you are in San Francisco.
Golden Gate Bridge & The Presidio
I didn't have a lot of time to explore the city, but gladly, on my last day there I did make it out to the Golden Gate Bridge and the Presidio, which is known for having the best views in the city. I didn't have my camera on me, but I was able to snap a photo or two on my trusty BlackBerry. The city looked like it was glowing in the distance - a little freaky how heavenly it looked. The Golden Gate Bridge, on the other hand, was completely covered in fog. When we first got there, we could see just a bit of it, but after about a half hour there was no chance we could see beyond the little garden we stood in.
To see the rest of my photos, view the album here.
