This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:10] Susan Blackwell: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in in my spark files.

[0:18] Laura Camien: Spark file will be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[0:23] Susan Blackwell: I pump it in my spark file.

[0:23] Laura Camien: Spark file.

[0:28] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my sparks.

[0:32] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:37] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Sparks File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't do it alone.

[0:42] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:44] Laura Camien: And I'm Laura Camien. If you're an OG listener, welcome back, Sparkler. If you're joining us for the first time, know that all are welcome here. Whether you have put your creativity on pause during this time or whether you've clung to it like a lifeline. Either way, welcome. But you may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file? Where do I get one? What do I file in it? These are such good questions. And you know we have answers. A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:14] Susan Blackwell: Here's the deal. We are makers who make all kinds of things. If you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, or want to be making stuff all the time, you know that the wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry, especially now. But don't despair. Don't despair. We're on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark our creativity and pique our curiosity. Things that inspire us to get up off of our asses and make things like this podcast. Or a passionate love affair with your location. Or a whole host of thrilling creative self-expression sparked by lived experience. Every episode, we're gonna reach into the spark file and exchange some sparks. And from time to time, we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too. And if you're not careful, you might keep learning and growing and learning and growing and changing and learning and growing and changing. So without further ado, let's open up the Sparks file.

[2:12] Laura Camien: Woo! Hi Kim, I'm here.

[2:14] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Blackwell. How are you doing?

[2:17] Laura Camien: I'm pretty good. Full disclosure to the listeners because of our banana soccer schedule. We're recording this really early in the morning. So if I sound a little like these are our morning voices.

[2:31] Susan Blackwell: This is our sleepy morning voices.

[2:33] Laura Camien: We frogs. But I actually like recording and writing and doing almost everything in the morning because I feel like my brain does its best work in the morning. I know that's not true for everybody, but I do know that about myself.

[2:55] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna agree with that. I just didn't write this in the early morning, but we are going to talk about this in the early morning. Wrote it in the well, the we early mornings and then recording now in the early morning. It's all good. You're gonna look at that late night writing with these fresh morning eyes and be like, I've got a few suggestions for myself. Let me pause here and do some edits. I think we, you know, we're just gonna be at peace with that.

[3:24] Laura Camien: We are. What's going on? Anything else to say before we dive in?

[3:31] Susan Blackwell: I went to a workshop this week.

[3:34] Laura Camien: Um you did from Ibram Kendi.

[3:37] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[3:38] Laura Camien: Oh, yes, yes.

[3:40] Susan Blackwell: There's some serious star power there. But it was really, really if you don't know, he is the professor who wrote How to Be an Antiracist. And so like I took pages and pages and pages of notes. And there's so much, and I know you and I will talk about all of it because we like to do that and we like to learn. But he said something about learning itself that made me super excited. He was talking about like redefining intelligence, and that currently how much like we define intelligence based on how much a person knows or how much they retain. But what if imagine if we defined intelligence by how much a person wants to know, wants to learn. Like if we defined it by a yearning for learning. Wow. And I was like, oh, that makes me instantly smarter because I want to learn. We, you want to learn. Like we all want to know, like we want, we want to have that knowledge. And I got so excited by his vision for that.

[4:56] Laura Camien: That's amazing. What an amazing concept. I think about how my desire to learn has only increased the further I get away from institutionalized learning. Now, there are certain institutions where I teach and I visit them sort of at the beginning of the semester, some midpoint, midpoint, midpoint end, and I see how it's almost like they've been eating at this glorious buffet, and they've been exposed to so many just like amazing guest artists and master teachers, and they've been keeping, you know, rigorous hours and all of that. And I see how I see where they're at the at the beginning, they have this sort of hunger and excitement. And then it's almost as the as time wears on, they get full, they get sleepy.

It's almost like it's like they've been eating like course after after course at a banquet. And I caution them at the beginning. I'm like, you are so fresh and hungry right now. And as time passes, there's going to be no shortage of amazing people and ideas and learning coming at you.

[6:14] Susan Blackwell: That's right. But you are going to get filled up, and then you are going to get like really sleepy and full. But here's the challenge: can you just even remain present?

[6:26] Laura Camien: Yeah, I think when we're trained to, we're trained for this idea that we're gonna need to regurgitate all that stuff. That I think it can create this like hyper, like I've got that, I've got that, I've got that. So when the test comes, I'm gonna be able to put that back down on paper and show what I know, which is very different from let me absorb this, let me take this in and mold this over around in my brain and integrate it into my life and try this on and see how this feels. That's a very different learning process.

[7:02] Susan Blackwell: And so totally, you know, Professor Kendi was like, uh, what if we encourage people, you know, to not that they're gonna have to prove what they know, but show how eager they are to know more things.

[7:17] Laura Camien: Curiosity.

[7:18] Susan Blackwell: Interesting, curiosity, exactly. I feel like learning is so much more fun now for a couple of reasons. I will talk about this in my Sparks too. For a couple of reasons. Number one, knowing how to learn. I know now I could stand to learn more about how I learn, frankly. That might be a spark that I do in the future. I was so interested in this thing that you were talking about the other day. We were coaching a client, and you were talking about how students now, certain students now have a much keener understanding of how they best learn.

[7:58] Laura Camien: So they can say from a very young age, I'm more of a visual learner. So it would help me if you blanked, or um, it's going to be easier for me to absorb that information if you read it out loud to me.

[8:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[8:13] Laura Camien: Or if I read it to myself.

[8:14] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[8:15] Laura Camien: And I was like, oh, I could stand to learn more about that. I think there's so much that, you know, has changed in education since we've been to school. But um, I think that but also certain schools have embraced that more, um, helping students learn how they best learn.

[8:33] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[8:34] Laura Camien: As early as possible.

[8:35] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I feel like I learned how to learn in graduate school. Uh-huh. And how I learned was I would take handwritten like uh pen on paper notes, and then I would type those notes up. And there's something about like taking it in through my ears, putting it down with my hand, and then having to process it one more time by typing it up. That I was like, oh, now I know I have a process that helps me learn.

[9:02] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[9:02] Susan Blackwell: And you probably learned that through trial and error just on your own.

[9:06] Laura Camien: That's right.

[9:07] Susan Blackwell: You know, you eventually did that and then did really well on whatever report or test or what have you came next and started to see, like, hey, oh, when I do that works.

[9:17] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[9:18] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. But I think now, in best case scenarios, certainly not in all schools, but in some schools, the awareness that the teacher has and the student has at an early age that that one of their goals is to learn how they learn. And you know, that they have helped figuring that out.

[9:37] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[9:37] Susan Blackwell: I want to do a spark on this because I want to learn more about it. And that's the other thing that I've learned about myself. And it actually flows right into my spark.

[9:45] Laura Camien: Awesome.

[9:46] Susan Blackwell: Is I lean into things that are genuinely interesting to me. And there's a wide breadth of things that are genuinely interesting to me. But I also figured out that you know, you and I have talked on this podcast and off this podcast about there are certain things that are really have historically been challenging for me to absorb. One of those things is history. I've found history when I think of it historically, history class, that sort of thing, it feels sort of dry and brittle and papery, like the pages of a book. It feels just like disembodied numbers and names, yes. And just dusty and dry. And I realized I have realized doing this podcast, I have realized maybe there's a little osmosis of being near you, somebody who is really lit up by history, and I can see the delight in history.

But I think what I've learned is I can absorb history when I have to get inside of it. Like if I'm acting a role and I have to understand like what did it feel like to be in this person, literally in this person's clothing, in their shoes, what was happening around them on a moment-to-moment, day-to-day basis, what kind of furniture were they sitting on, then I can I can it can start to be sticky for me.

[11:12] Laura Camien: But the other thing that I realized is I can learn history when the stories give me a feeling and dates and names, and this was the battle of blue, and it happened at blah on this date. And this is the number of people that were killed. I'm sort of like, mm-hmm. But when it when I have a feeling, when there are I can connect to stories that give me a feeling, that's when I can really not just learn it, but really get like boned up about it.

[11:47] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Yes. And I think that has so much to do with the way it's taught, because they're like, I mean, you cannot count the stories throughout history that would give you a feeling. It's just a matter of like how that material is presented in a textbook and a paragraph that sums it up the way you described is boring. But when um a teacher helps to bring it to life, I mean, and that's where like we could go on and on about like the potential for theater and the dramatic arts to help you learn other things like history is incredible because it literally brings it to life. It literally helps you see like how these people lived and what their thought process was at that time, et cetera, et cetera. And it's just a shame, you know, that we're still kind of trying to fight for those integrations to happen in schools where you can use the arts to really spark a curiosity in other subjects.

[12:51] Laura Camien: Well, I think things like you know, creative endeavors like Hamilton, the Scottsboro Boys, like that's where I think there we're making some ground with things like that. Uh where all of a sudden everybody, everybody knows so much more about this period in history, and it piques their interest to even take a deeper dive.

[13:19] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, and and go further than what is presented even in the musical. So I'm optimistic.

[13:25] Laura Camien: I'm optimistic.

[13:30] Susan Blackwell: Okay. Um and I think this is a good segment of my spark. Should I go?

[13:35] Laura Camien: Yes.

[13:36] Susan Blackwell: Well, if you're listening to this podcast when it was originally released, then it is February 2021. Can you believe it? If you're listening in the United States, you know that means it's Black History Month. Black History Month is interesting because black people are black 12 months out of the year.

[13:55] Laura Camien: That is correct.

[13:57] Susan Blackwell: Black history is US history and in many cases, world history. So it could be argued that it's weird that there is a Black History Month.

[14:08] Laura Camien: Can you hear the sounds of my dogs barking so loud?

[14:12] Susan Blackwell: I can, but it didn't stop me from wanting to jump in and say something.

[14:15] Laura Camien: That's good.

[14:15] Susan Blackwell: They're woven into the fabric of this podcast.

[14:20] Laura Camien: What were you gonna say?

[14:21] Susan Blackwell: I was gonna say just, you know, in light of what we just talked about, um, and the integration of um things in and the way teachers teach things, like it is a little uh absurd to um parcel out black history or women's history, which I think is next month. Like, why uh why are these things not sewn throughout our curriculum? And you know, I think it's gotta be I hope your Sparks will tell me the the history of Black History Month, but but I I would do wonder if it was some well-intentioned person who is like, well, it's not it's not getting integrated throughout the year. So let's take a moment to make sure this gets communicated, this information. You know, I I don't know, but I want to believe it was a well-intentioned person who thought, well, this is one way to get it done.

[15:17] Laura Camien: Well, not to jump the spark, but we're gonna get there.

[15:20] Susan Blackwell: Oh good!

[15:20] Laura Camien: Oh good, I'm gonna learn.

[15:21] Susan Blackwell: Okay. And I will say that one thing I'm particularly savory about this particular February, this particular Black History Month, is that post-2020, post-election, post-insurrection.

[15:36] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:37] Susan Blackwell: Like post all of these things, I am actually hoping and seeing, I think, that we are refocusing back to this ongoing conversation on social change and justice that really rose to the surface in the summer of 2020.

[15:54] Laura Camien: Yep.

[15:54] Susan Blackwell: It feels like to a certain extent, I say this with such trepidation, but to a certain extent, it feels like things are kind of simmering down. So there's there's space in the news cycle for kind of a refocusing back onto this conversation around social change and justice. Like let's get to work. Now we can actually do something, take some action.

[16:18] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[16:19] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. And it feels like it feels like um uh that is, I don't know, like it may all be timing out really well. So we'll, yeah, that is my hope, and that's what I think I'm seeing.

[16:31] Laura Camien: This month, there's a super clicky click.

[16:35] Susan Blackwell: It's a bird outside my window.

[16:37] Laura Camien: Oh keep the bird, leave it.

[16:41] Susan Blackwell: The birds keep the dogs, keep the birds.

[16:43] Laura Camien: Okay.

[16:44] Susan Blackwell: It's a nature wildline podcast.

[16:48] Laura Camien: That is that bird is so fucking loud.

[16:50] Susan Blackwell: What is that?

[16:51] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[16:52] Susan Blackwell: It's a that bird is a podcasting.

[16:54] Laura Camien: That bird is like I've always wanted to podcast.

[16:58] Susan Blackwell: Okay. Making your big debut today, babe.

[17:04] Laura Camien: So um maybe that bird and my dog can start their own podcast called Dog and Bird.

[17:11] Susan Blackwell: That's all it is. It's just those sounds.

[17:14] Laura Camien: So um, so I do think so. This month I'm seeing so many stories being shared. There are so many sparks flying. It feels like it's just sparks on sparks on sparks on sparks. And I just want to share a few sparks that have caught my eye during this time. Sparks that I'm so it goes back to that piece about learning and it gives me a feeling. And so I'm able to um really take it in, which I love.

[17:43] Susan Blackwell: So the first spark that I spotted was it was an Instagram post that my friend Cole Escola reshared from Wussy Mag. Uh, we know and love Cole from Life, but also from season four of Search Party, where they are killing it.

[18:00] Laura Camien: Cammy Ann are you caught up on search party?

[18:02] Susan Blackwell: I'm not, but I'm inclined about it.

[18:05] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh, Cole is just going for an Emmy Award.

[18:10] Susan Blackwell: Amazing. Oh congratulations, Cole. Come be on our podcast. So Cole shared this post from Wussy Mag about a person named Jackie Shane. Have you ever heard of Jackie Shane?

[18:22] Laura Camien: No.

[18:23] Susan Blackwell: I have never heard of Jackie Shane, but I immediately after seeing this post got obsessed with Jackie Shane. So this is just uh the beginning of the post from Wussy Mag. Okay. Miss Jackie Shane is a pioneer trans Southern soul musician. Jackie Shane was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1940 and released her first single in 1962. She was prominent in the Toronto music scene and went on to perform alongside Edda James, Jimi Hendrix, and Little Richard. In 1971, she walked away from show business after successful hit singles like any other way. So the post goes on, but spoilers, and it concludes with a quote from Jackie Shane. These are Jackie Shane's words. I have never felt that I have to change or do anything that wasn't natural to me. I will never ever be some kind of wishy washy creature that pretends or lets others guide me. I guide my life. It is mine. No matter what anyone says, I'm going to be Jackie.

[19:21] Laura Camien: And there's this, they attached on this thread, this video of Jackie Shane performing. And I was trying to, because this is a aural medium and I can't show you a clip of Jackie Shane. I was trying to find words to describe what this performance was like. And I will say it's it's black and white. It is like a fixed camera, pretty much. It's Jackie Shane. There are backup singers, there is a backup band. And Cammian, the words quality come to mind. She looked amazing. She sounded great. She looks, I don't know how else to say it, but she looks famous, except I'm hearing her and seeing her for the first time. So I did more digging to learn about this pioneering trans black southern soul musician, and I found her to be totally sparkish. So as Wussy Mag posted, she was born in Nashville in 1940. She said she self-identified as a woman in a man's body by the time she was 13. So this very early clarity.

[20:37] Susan Blackwell: But it seems like from a very early age, she was very much herself and she took no shit, which is such a power combo.

[20:45] Laura Camien: Being your authentic self and taking no shit, I I'm just like, I wish I could just have a thing.

[20:53] Susan Blackwell: I admire, especially the taking no shit part.

[20:56] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[20:56] Susan Blackwell: I've got the being myself part down pretty much, but that taking no shit. Love it, Jackie Shane.

[21:02] Susan Blackwell: So Jackie Shane did not do a lot of interviews in her lifetime, but in 2017, she did this kind of rare interview. It was written by Reggie Agua for the New York Times.

[21:14] Susan Blackwell: And these are Reggie's words and writing. As a child, Ms. Shane turned heads by speaking and dressing in an openly feminine manner from an early age.

[21:24] Susan Blackwell: Now we're talking about Nashville. So we're talking about the South in like the 40s and the 50s.

[21:30] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God. Speaking and dressing in an openly feminine manner from an early age. She disarmed busybodies and brow beaters with preternatural self-confidence and an innate survival instinct that could turn ferocious.

[21:43] Susan Blackwell: For example, she recalled a schoolyard bully who made the mistake of striking her with a stone in the fourth grade. Jackie said, he wanted to torment me, and I would never allow that.

[21:54] Susan Blackwell: She used a jump rope to thrash him, and then in a fight or flight fury, turned the whip on a teacher who attempted to intervene. Jackie Shane was a fighter from the jump.

[22:06] Susan Blackwell: Oh those are my words, not Jackie's words or Reggie's words.

[22:10] Susan Blackwell: So around 1959, it seems like Jackie moved to Canada after witnessing a group of white men attacking a black man one night in Nashville. Jackie moved to Canada, and in Toronto, she got into this music, this burgeoning music scene, and she wore wigs and makeup on stage and off, typically paired with fur, silk, or sequins.

[22:34] Susan Blackwell: And Jackie said, I was just being me. I never tried to explain myself to anyone. They never explained themselves to me.

[22:42] Susan Blackwell: And I'm just like, that clarity, that giving no shits and that clarity, I just loved.

[22:48] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[22:48] Susan Blackwell: And why the, you know, why should she have to explain herself when oh, those white guys, they don't, there's no, you know, let me explain myself, let me, you know, tell you why I am why I am like it there's no obligation and I absolutely love like that should be equal opportunity.

[23:08] Laura Camien: We don't have to explain ourselves, yes, absolutely, absolutely, and she was just embodying that which is amazing.

[23:16] Susan Blackwell: So she developed this following in Canada, but around 1971, she moved to LA to take care of her mother, and it seems like she laid low in LA for decades and then moved back to Nashville later in her life.

[23:30] Susan Blackwell: And while living in Nashville, she lived reclusively. She ventured out about once a month.

[23:36] Susan Blackwell: She would wear sunglasses and a hat, so she wouldn't be recognized. And she said that she estimated her neighbors have spotted her only three or four times in the decade or so that she lived in Nashville.

[23:49] Susan Blackwell: And in that New York Times interview, she said, I don't mingle because down south gossiping and meddling is like breathing.

[23:56] Laura Camien: So it's uh it's uh I wish I don't know, I don't think we'll ever know, but I wish we knew more about why she kind of went underground.

[24:08] Susan Blackwell: She sort of stepped away from it all and kind of yeah, that happened like after LA was she performing in LA too.

[24:16] Laura Camien: No, no, no.

[24:18] Susan Blackwell: It almost sounds agoraphobic.

[24:20] Laura Camien: I I but I don't know, and that would just be a you know, conjecture on my part.

[24:24] Susan Blackwell: So but it sounds like in Canada, she was allowed to live um freely and fabulously, yes, you know, being her full expression of herself and performing and not dimming her light in any way.

[24:40] Laura Camien: That's right.

[24:40] Susan Blackwell: And then when she came back to the US, she had to dial it down.

[24:45] Laura Camien: Which or chose to dial it down for some reason.

[24:47] Susan Blackwell: Or chose to dial it down. And so it's it's interesting and it's mysterious.

[24:51] Laura Camien: And I don't know that that mystery will ever be solved.

[24:54] Susan Blackwell: So I want to know.

[24:56] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[24:58] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[24:59] Susan Blackwell: So one thing that Jackie Shane did not do during her Canadian stardom was record a studio album.

[25:07] Susan Blackwell: But that changed in 2017 when a Chicago-based label called Numero Group, I don't know if it's Numero or Numero Group, but the there was this producer from this record label in Chicago that got her phone number from uh one of Jackie's friends and struck up sort of this phone friendship with her, and over the course of two years, just kind of developed this friendship, but also talked her into the possibility of putting this album together.

[25:44] Susan Blackwell: And Jackie finally agreed to it.

[25:48] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[25:50] Susan Blackwell: In 2017, this label, it's either Numero Group or Numero Group, released her anthology, which was later nominated for a Grammy Award.

[26:00] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh!

[26:02] Susan Blackwell: It is a two-album set of Jackie Shane's music. It's called Any Other Way.

[26:07] Susan Blackwell: And Camien, it is a great fucking album.

[26:11] Susan Blackwell: And it's it's crazy because again, this person sounds famous, but you've never heard the music before.

[26:18] Susan Blackwell: And the whole second disc was recorded in front of a live audience, and so you get to hear the jurisdiction pattern between yes, the audience's response, but also Jackie's interstitial pattern between the songs.

[26:32] Susan Blackwell: And she is a total star. Like the confidence and the just like the presence on stage comes through the album.

[26:41] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[26:41] Susan Blackwell: So on the website for the Numero Group, they write, Ms. Shane is a star without parallel, a pioneer of transgender rights, living her entire life as a woman at a time when to do so seemed unthinkable.

[26:55] Susan Blackwell: Any Other Way is the first artist-approved collection of Ms. Shane's work, collecting all six of her 45s and every other highlight from the legendary 1967 live sessions at the Sapphire Tavern.

[27:08] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god. Any Other Way marks Jackie Shane's first communication with the public in nearly half a century.

[27:14] Susan Blackwell: Extensive liner notes tell for the first time ever, Jackie Shane's story in her own words, copiously illustrated with never before seen pictures from her career and life, unlike any other.

[27:25] Laura Camien: Cammian, you can buy it on Gold Vinyl, which is just what I did, baby.

[27:30] Susan Blackwell: That's what I'm doing. Pressed into gold vinyl.

[27:33] Laura Camien: Oh I bought it straight off the numerous group's website.

[27:37] Susan Blackwell: So Jackie Shane passed away in her sleep at her home in Nashville in February of 2019.

[27:47] Susan Blackwell: Oh her obituary in the New York Times read, I do believe that it's like destiny. I really feel that I have made a place for myself with wonderful people.

[27:57] Susan Blackwell: What I have said, what I have done, they say it makes their lives better. And I think it's true in so many ways.

[28:04] Laura Camien: What she has done in terms of the way the music she made, the way she lived her life.

[28:12] Susan Blackwell: It does make people's lives better.

[28:13] Laura Camien: Yes, it does.

[28:14] Susan Blackwell: So there was this article because you know, Canada, Canada loved Jackie Shane.

[28:21] Susan Blackwell: And there was this article written on Dominionated.ca by a writer named Jim DeGoya.

[28:28] Susan Blackwell: I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Jim. But uh I loved these words that Jim wrote.

[28:32] Susan Blackwell: And so I shall read them. It will forever be impossible to summarize Jackie Shane's legacy and impact in any number of words. In a rare and now final communication with the outside world, Jackie Shane said, one cannot choose where one is born, but you can choose your home. The writer Jim DeGoya goes on. I'm not so naive to believe that all of the people that Jackie Shane ever met along the way were generally of good nature and fully embraced the young black transgender performer. It takes more than a series of fortunate and fortuitous acquaintances for someone like Jackie Shane to claim her space and agency in the world. It takes a special kind of person, someone whose soul vibrates at a frequency beyond hatred, self-doubt, and fear, to step out on the stage and radiate love and acceptance in an era where LGBTQ2 and POC were routinely segregated and marginalized.

No doubt the stage itself helped. While her audience read Jackie Shane as performing, we now know she was living her authentic self, a pioneer, an icon, and now in death, a legend. And I loved it because I think that I think that this writer, Jim DeGoya, is right. I think that audiences were probably like, oh, that's just a lot of glitz and glamour and showbiz. And you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like maybe a character. But what Jackie Shane, it seems, was doing was living her authentic self out in the open and on stages where she felt safe doing it. Yes. And you know, and in Toronto, apparently, based on that. Wow. Wow. I just keep thinking that phrase like on their shoulders, you know, yeah. The things that we enjoy now or even are beginning to accept and enjoy as a culture, um are because of the risks that people like Jackie have taken, you know, throughout time to push our awareness forward and push, you know, our culture and and almost like demand that our culture catch up.

[30:49] Laura Camien: Yeah, there are people sometimes that emerge at this sentence. I'm gonna just read it again because it I was like, yes, it I think it is that the sense that Jim DeGoya wrote, it takes a special kind of person, someone whose soul vibrates at a frequency beyond hatred, self-doubt, and fear, to step out on the stage and radiate love and acceptance in an era where LGBTQ2 and POC were routinely segregated and marginalized. There's something that is so um, is it courage or is it just sort of like this there is no other way for me to be but this way? And if you can, you know, if you also have the that thing within you that lets you stand up to a bully or stand up to someone who wants to come for you and you know swing a jump rope.

Like that's helpful too. But yeah, I don't know. We'll never, we'll never know in terms of Jackie, but I think that, you know, in the in the overall sense, people, you know, form different um coping mechanisms. And for some, you know, it may be a bully may drive them like deeper into a shell and hide themselves. And for others, they may be like, oh no, you are not driving me in into a shell. I am out and I am myself and you deal with it. And you know, yeah.

[32:16] Susan Blackwell: It occurs to me, there's something that I didn't mention in my spark, but I will mention now. Jackie Shane's mother always accepted her. And when Jackie Shane moved to LA, it was to take care of her mother, whose uh Jackie Shane's stepfather had passed away a few years earlier. And Jackie said, I didn't feel right, like pursuing this career in Canada when my mom was alone in Los Angeles. Now it in retrospect, Jackie went on to say that she wished that instead of relocating herself to Los Angeles, she would have brought her mom back to Canada. Behindsight 2020. But but I I think there's something, I don't think this is the explanation for every time we see somebody who has that awesome combination, that power combo of being fully authentically themselves and like giving no shits and like standing up for themselves.

But I do think there's something about having somebody who from the jump fully and wholly accepted you and believed in you that um makes a difference. So there's a there's a what do we make of it? Support, you know, be supportive and loving of people.

[33:34] Laura Camien: Um yeah. Yeah. Um I do want to share this one quote. This is this is a life philosophy that Jackie shared with the CBC, the Canadian broadcasting company, shortly before she passed away. Most people are planted in someone else's soil, which means they're a carbon copy. I say to them, uproot yourself, get into your own soil. You may be surprised who you really are. And I was like, yes, Jackie Shane, sometimes you have to travel to find your people, yourself, an environment that will uh uh that really supports you as you thrive. So I really loved that too.

[34:17] Susan Blackwell: I need that quote, I think. I I really do, if you don't mind will you send it to me.

[34:22] Laura Camien: I will share it with you. I love that. I I think of that even, you know, of any human being born in a born in a small town, nothing, and I like there's no uh negative to that, born in a small town, but uh just like get out, see the world, uproot yourself for even a small amount of time. You don't have to, you know, if you want to live in your small town forever and ever, that is amazing. But if you uproot yourself for just a little while and experience yourself out in the world in different ways, you might learn more about yourself. You may discover who you are out from under um, you know, the the place where you were planted. Uh when you're talking, I'm thinking about James Baldwin, you know, going to Paris. And the United States is fucking complicated and tough. Like let's let's all move to Canada.

[35:25] Susan Blackwell: Back to the spark. So there are so many sparks flying right now if you keep your eyes and your ears open. And friend of the pod, Hunter Bell. Hi, Hunter Bell. Hi, Hunter. Tipped me off to this excellent resource that is being created and shared by Anti-Racism Daily. Anti-Racism Daily is a website. It was founded by a woman named Nicole Cardoza, who is also the editor in chief. And they publish educational resources for dismantling white supremacy. And you can find them at antiracismdaily.com. For the month of February, this is what Hunter sent to me. For the month of February, you can sign up for a daily email newsletter called 28 Days of Black History and Cameon. It is a bucket of sparks. Oh now we are, as we record this, we are only a few days into February.

And the content and the discussion prompts are so good. They're so good. And if you're like the daily influx into my inbox wears me out, you can get it as a weekly sort of like here's the weekend recap kind of thing. It's so good. Anti-racism daily is doing this great job of curating these stories and bringing them to life, like giving them just imbuing them with I don't know. Either that it's the narrative is I can, I'm like, oh, a good story. Or if it's that they also there's feel they're visceral, they feel visceral. But more on that in a second.

[36:56] Laura Camien: Even their site design, even their site design is sparkish. There is a section on their about page that tells the story of their branding and specifically the fonts that they use. They use a font that's called Martin, and it was created by Trey Seals, who is the founder of Vocal Type Co. On his website, vocaltype.co, Trey Seals talks about how it struck him that so much design looked the same. It was it wasn't super sparkish or inspiring to him. And he said, When I discovered that only three to three and a half percent of all practicing designers in America are black, and roughly 85% white, depending on the source, I understood why everything looked the same. These are Trey's words. When a singular perspective dominates an industry, regardless of any advancements in technology, there can and has been only one way of thinking, teaching, and creating. This lack of diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender has led to a lack of diversity in thought, systems like education, ideas, and most importantly, creations.

[38:07] Susan Blackwell: But I love how it this spark continued to come together for Trey Seals. And Trey goes on to say, maybe a week after these realizations occurred, I received an issue of print magazine in the mail with an article titled Black Designers Still Missing in Action by Dr. Cheryl D. Holmes Miller. The premise of the article is partially the lack of diversity in the design industry, but the message is a call to action for the next generation of black designers to step up. So I did. Trey goes on. I decided to find a way to increase diversity and empathy in the design industry. I knew I couldn't just change the demographics or the education system. So I tried to figure out a way to introduce a non-stereotypical piece of minority culture into the design itself, starting with the basis of any good design, typography.

[39:00] Laura Camien: What Trey has created. I love when people talk about how sparks take shape in their mind. How the spark generation occurred, how the making, the fanning of the flames, and then the sharing of the light happens. I love it. That's why we designed a podcast around it. We both love it.

[39:21] Susan Blackwell: So stating the obvious. So what Trey has created is a type foundry for creatives of color that highlights a piece of history from a specific underrepresented ethnicity, race, or gender. Oh my God. From the women's suffrage movement in Argentina to the civil rights movement in America with every typeface. So I I honestly had to look up what a type foundry was. A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. I didn't know that. I didn't know that.

[39:54] Laura Camien: So through their, throughout their site, Anti-Racism Daily uses a font designed by Trey Seals called Martin. It is inspired by the protest signs from the 1968 sanitation strike. According to the anti-racism daily site, protesters carried posters with the statement, I am a man. Do you remember those posters, Camille?

[40:19] Susan Blackwell: I do.

[40:19] Laura Camien: In these really clear, well, we'll we'll post it on our social, but super clear block letters, black type on white paper that say, I am a man, which was a phrase from the 18th century abolitionist movement at a time when the Jim Crow South still referred to black men as boys. And signs with the same statement have been carried by protesters in 2020 during the city waste union. So you have to check out these fonts at vocalty.co. I just think it's an amazing spark that that translated into an amazing piece of creativity. It's it's incredible.

[41:02] Susan Blackwell: It's incredible. And um, yeah, I'm thinking about our conversation with Bonnie Seather, who who pulled together that book of like resistance, signs of resistance. And I'm sure she knows all about this, but um but it is just opening my awareness, and now this is like deepening and expanding my awareness so far beyond that. Um, that there is a story to the look and feel of a design, and there's so much more behind it.

[41:33] Laura Camien: Even the font.

[41:35] Susan Blackwell: The font font.

[41:36] Laura Camien: Even the font.

[41:38] Susan Blackwell: I love it.

[41:39] Laura Camien: Um, so back to antiracismdaily.com. I am learning so much from their 28 days of black history newsletter.

[41:47] Susan Blackwell: Like Cam's.

[41:49] Laura Camien: Yeah. Did you know that Dr. Carter G. Woodson created what we know today as Black History Month?

[41:56] Susan Blackwell: I did not know.

[41:58] Laura Camien: Well, you're about to know more about this now. Wait, so say their name again, Dr. Carter.

[42:03] Susan Blackwell: Dr. Carter G. Woodson.

[42:04] Laura Camien: Dr. Woodson lived from 1875 to 1950.

[42:11] Susan Blackwell: So 75 years.

[42:13] Laura Camien: He was an educator and a scholar, an author and historian. And according to Anti-Racism Daily, he devoted his life to the preservation and education of Black history.

[42:24] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[42:25] Laura Camien: Dr. Woodson is most known for establishing Negro History Week in 1926, which led to the appointment of Black History Month that we celebrate and that they say on Anti-Racism Daily and often commercialize today.

[42:40] Susan Blackwell: So Woodson chose the second week in February because it contained the birthdays of two major influences in Black life at the time.

[42:48] Laura Camien: Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday was February 12th, and Frederick Douglass, whose birthday was February 14th. And they note that Frederick Douglass was born into slavery. He was an enslaved person. And so he didn't know his actual birth date, but he chose February 14th. And then Dr. Woodson chose that week in February because it was, you know, it contained these birth dates. Did you say 1956, 1926? What did you what year? 26. 26. Wow. 26. This is a quote from Dr. Woodson from 1926 on Founding Negro History Week. These are Dr. Woodson's words. We should emphasize not Negro history, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.

And I was like, yes. Yes. Yes. More on that in a second. So creating what would become Black History Month is only one of Dr. Woodson's many contributions. He also founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, an organization committed to collecting records pertaining to Black America's past and disseminating the truth about African American history. The organization was later renamed the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History in 1973. And it's also referred to as A S A L H. A-S-A-L-H. So the ASALH published something that was called the Negro History Bulletin, which is now called the Black History Bulletin. This is and was a monthly newsletter. It's just amazing.

This is still published. I just think this is amazing. This is a monthly newsletter curated by Black leaders that provided a comprehensive overview of Black history. And the resource was specifically designed to provide middle and high school teachers with enough context to create lesson plans for their students. This feels this feels super important to me when we talk about that quote that Dr. that I just shared of Dr. Woodson. What we need is not a history of a selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice. Dr. Woodson was creating curriculum and materials. This is from Anti-Racism Daily. This is all necessary because many school curriculums today still fail to provide a comprehensive overview of Black history in the US.

A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that most schools are not adequately teaching the history of American slavery. The work of Dr. Woodson is a reminder that we have to continue intentionally centering Black history beyond Black History Month. Yes. This work is so important and it's critical right now when so many people are engaged in investigating and re-examining how all of this lives in our lives, including how it lives in education. It's hugely like we are truly at an inflection point because we have, you know, we're in a new administration now, but in the previous administration, um, you know, directives were given not to continue to educate and not continue to go down this path of um educating about white privilege and um the history of white um colonialism from day one and and the resistance of um teaching that that the consequences that that had.

And I hopefully we're like writing the course um headed towards making sure that our entire education system um can shed light on the realities of our country's origins. But it's still a battle that we are like in the midst of right now. It is so woven into the fabric of this country, and certainly that's reflected in you know the the textbooks and the education in our country. But I feel I feel like it is uh you're like you said, it's an inflection point, and there are a lot of people examining this and changing this. And I love that this publication, the Black History Bulletin, is still being published. It's it's publishing uh articles on all aspects of Black history, especially those written with a focus on middle school US history, high school US history, and teacher prep for US history methods.

So are you saying, just for clarity's sake, any person in education or otherwise, or any teacher anywhere can subscribe to the Black History Bulletin? And right now, I don't think this is in my spark, so I'll just say it now. Right now, I never know how to pronounce this website. I think it's called Jester. It's J S T O R, and it is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. And right now, uh, they've expanded the number of free articles you can access. So you can access like a hundred free articles right now. And right now, if you want to, this is what I did, you can go back to the beginning, the very first edition of what was called the Negro History Bulletin. Read it.

Yeah. It's great. It's great. And so that that leads me to this next little bit of my spark. So in Anti-Racism Daily's 28 Days of Black History Newsletter, they provide amazing resources. They link to that gesture site where you can read the Negro History Bulletin all the way back from 1927. And wouldn't you know it? On the front page of the first issue of the Negro History Bulletin was a spark. I've been carrying around in my spark file for a couple years. Oh my God. And so this will be my final spark that I spark at you today. Okay. So I first heard this story on the fabulous podcast Criminal, hosted by Phoebe Judge. I've talked about that before in Sparks That I've Shared. Phoebe had a guest on an episode that she did.

The guest was an author named Barbara McCaskill, who wrote about William and Ellen Craft in a book called Love, Liberation and Escaping Slavery, William and Ellen Craft in Cultural Memory. So William and Ellen were two people who were born into slavery in Georgia. And Ellen's father was also her master. Yep. Ellen's father was also her master. And Ellen, young Ellen, was seen as a reminder of what Ellen's father had done. Of course. So the master's wife, the mistress of the house, resented it when visitors would come to the house and mistake Ellen, who was a house servant, for one of the mistress's children. So when Ellen was 11 years old, the mistress of the house solved this problem, problem in air quotes, by giving Ellen, giving Ellen as a wedding present to Ellen's half sister, Eliza, when Eliza got married.

So she was basically passed as a gift from mistress to mistress, like an object. Yeah. And she would essentially become a housemaid for her half sister. She was shipped off to Macon, Georgia to serve her half sister, and she was separated from the person who was closest to her in the world, her mother, Mariah, because that horror was the reality for enslaved people that in a moment's notice, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the day, you could be separated from your most beloved people and family members. So in Macon at her half-sister's house, Ellen met William, the man who would become her husband. He was also an enslaved person. And William and Ellen fell in love and they wanted to get married, but because they were both enslaved people, they were not allowed.

So they jumped the broom. That you know, that the ceremony of jumping the broom. But they wanted um so much of this, these are Barbara McCaskill's words and Phoebe Judge's words from the criminal podcast, which is this is such a good episode. Once you're done with this episode of the sparkfile films and that episode over there, yeah. Yeah. So they they wanted the solemnity of a Christian ceremony. And so one of the reasons they wanted to escape because they wanted to get married properly. And they also wanted to escape the terror that, as I just said, any child that they had could be just taken from them. And they wanted any child that they had to be truly free. And they also didn't want to wake up one morning to learn that they were going to be separated at the whim of their owners or slave traders.

So trying to escape was a very high stakes, very risky proposition. And if you were caught, the punishment could be very severe, including I just trigger warning. This honestly gives me nightmares. But also, I'll just say it very, very quickly and without being graphic, that if you were an escaped slave who was recaptured, you could be tortured to death. Like it it's it's it is beyond horrific. So imagine the fear you would have to master and the courage you would have to summon to make the decision to escape. Yeah. I mean, I it's it's yeah. So William came up with a plan to escape. And this plan, I cannot believe. We'll talk about it with what do we make of it. I cannot believe a film has not been made about this.

They agreed, William and Ellen agreed they were going to escape in broad daylight. And this is how they were gonna do it. Because of Ellen's biracial identity, she looked, walked, and talked like an affluent white person because she had been around affluent white people her entire life. So they agreed that she would cut her hair, deepen her voice, they would dress her up and pretend that Ellen was a wealthy white male southern gentleman slave owner. Wow. And she had to learn how to walk differently. This gives me chills to walk differently, to take up space differently. She had to act. She had to act, but she had to act so well. She was acting for their lives, essentially. So that's right. So they they agreed, William and Ellen, William hatched this plan, and they agreed that Ellen would pretend to be sickly and dependent on William, who would pose as her servant.

So after they cut her hair, they wrapped her face in a cloth. Like, like you know that old, like when somebody, those illustrations of when somebody had the mumps or a toothache, where they wrapped their face in sort of a bandage. Uh-huh. So they wrapped her face in a cloth as if she had a toothache. They put one of her arms in a sling as if it was broken. She pretended that her other hand was arthritic. So that um well, I'll tell you in a second. Okay. She wore green tinted glasses in order to convey that her vision was impaired, and she also pretended to be hard of hearing. So they created all of this subterfuge because she didn't know how to read or write. And they were afraid if they, if she spoke, that she would betray that she was actually a woman because her voice would be high.

And if she was asked to read or write, that, you know, like when she signed into a hotel, when she was uh they were, you know, boarding a ship and she needed to sign for the passenger on the ship, she didn't know how to read or write. And so they were going to pretend as if she was incapable because she was um because one arm was in a sling and the other hand was arthritic. They created this whole backstory. Talk about good acting. They created this whole character backstory that the wealthy, sickly master was going to Philadelphia for medical attention with the support of this servant. And they knew that if they could make it to Philadelphia, that would mean that they were making it to a kind of freedom.

So yes. It makes me just telling you this story makes my uh heart start to race faster. Yes, my palms are sweating. Uh-huh. So they wanted to leave near Christmas with the hopes that everyone would be distracted and they could get sort of lost. It would buy them time. They could get lost in the hustle and the bustle. Uh-huh. And so they departed on December 21st. And they had this plan in place, but they were really scared. Okay. Like heart poundingly scared. So they make it to the train and immediately they're separated. Ellen has to sit in this sort of fancy car on the train. And William has to sit in the servants' quarters. And on that train, the first train they board, Ellen sees one of the neighbors.

No. Yes. And she's really, really fucking nervous. And she makes it through. She makes it through without being detected. But Cammy, the whole trip at hotels on ships throughout this whole adventure, they can't confer frequently because it doesn't make sense for a southern gentleman to be conferring so closely with their servant.

[57:15] Laura Camien: And they have to rely on their own judgment and abilities and wits to think on their feet independently of other and try to do their best to send each other unspoken signals.

[57:27] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[57:28] Laura Camien: And to predict what the other might do without being able to confirm it.

[57:33] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God.

[57:34] Laura Camien: That's right. And they were doing all this stuff like, uh, I didn't write about in the spark because this story is so rich, but they were like what they made a decision, they thought through so much where they put all the money that they had, they put them in William's pocket because they thought if there's a lot of pickpockets about in this hustling, bustling Christmas time, who's gonna pick the pocket of an enslaved person?

[57:58] Susan Blackwell: They were gonna, they would try to pick the pocket of the wealthy gentleman.

[58:03] Laura Camien: That's so great. Oh, just decisions like that. They thought of so much. But there were all these moments when they weren't there were several moments where they were nearly caught. There was a moment where they were trying to board this steamship, and the clerk was requiring that Ellen sign her name, and maybe Ellen looked a little suspicious to the clerk, and it was this really scary, heightened moment.

[58:30] Susan Blackwell: And William, because of his role in this whole thing as an enslaved person, William could not speak, William could not intervene. He was just standing by and watching this, and in this very heightened moment, there were two southern gentlemen behind her. I use that word, you know, in quotes, but these two southern white dudes were behind Ellen, and they came to the defense of this person that they thought was a fellow Southern gentleman.

[59:01] Laura Camien: That's right. And they were like, come on, stop hassling that, you know, and so classes.

[59:07] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, so there was a classist thing that also was happening because this steamship clerk, I'm sure, was of a lesser class than these southern gentlemen. So they were like, I'll sign for the gentleman kind of thing. So there were times when Ellen was in travel car compartments and other travelers wouldn't stop talking with her. Um, little white southern girls wouldn't stop flirting with her because they thought this was like this big southern gentleman.

[59:41] Laura Camien: No.

[59:42] Susan Blackwell: So no, so they arrived safely in Philadelphia on Christmas Day. They went to this abolitionist safe house where they were greeted as two men. And then Ellen excuses herself, goes into another room, changes her clothes, and returns as a woman and blows minds.

[1:00:02] Laura Camien: And this story becomes a sensation. William and Ellen Craft become the darlings of American and British abolitionist movements. And they moved to Boston because Boston was perceived as being safer. They moved to Boston and worked, uh, he worked as a cabinet maker. She worked as a seamstress, and they also made money giving speeches about their escape. And things were good there for about two years.

[1:00:27] Susan Blackwell: And then in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, requiring authorities in free states to participate in the capture and return of enslaved people who had run away. And anyone caught providing food, shelter, or help to a fugitive was charged with a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. Camille, I just want to pause for a second and say this is what I'm talking about when I say when history gives me a feeling, then I could talk all day and learn all day about William and Ellen Craft.

[1:00:59] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:01:00] Susan Blackwell: It makes it makes it real for you.

[1:01:02] Laura Camien: It makes it real.

[1:01:03] Susan Blackwell: It makes it real. So it's really real for me right now. So I just want to acknowledge that. So okay. So this fugitive slave act is put into effect in 1850. And William and Ellen Craft's former master, Dr. Robert Collins, issues a warrant for their capture. He enlists the help of U.S. Marshals.

[1:01:23] Laura Camien: Yes, yes, yes.

[1:01:26] Susan Blackwell: And also even solicits that the help of President Millard Fillmore. So this dude was powerful. He's rich and he is not stopping. Like, and now he has the law on his side. Because essentially the law has made it so they stole themselves from their owners that their property and they stole themselves from the property owners.

[1:01:53] Laura Camien: So Boston, this story, I'm telling you, Camille, the story. Boston was a major center of the abolitionist movement, and there were many people eager to protect William and Ellen because they had become the darlings of this culture. I'm sure they inspired many, many people.

[1:02:10] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:02:10] Laura Camien: Two bounty hunters came to collect them. And Bostonians started what was essentially a harassment campaign. These bounty hunters got to town and they were pelted with raw vegetables and rotten eggs. The police stopped their carriage, stopped the bounty hunters' carriage. They were fined for everything. They kept driving too fast. Like they just like threw the book at them. Everyone tried to make their lives as miserable as possible. They gave these bounty hunters bad directions. They gave them bad food and restaurants. They cursed at them. They called them names. They provided them with as much false information as possible. And they essentially set out to drive these men from Boston.

[1:02:55] Susan Blackwell: And they did just that. The bounty hunters gave up after five days. But because of this fugitive slave, it's amazing. It's amazing. But because of this fugitive slave act, there was nowhere in the U.S. that Ellen and William would be safe because they had this nut. This Dr. Collins was still just like gunning for that.

[1:03:18] Laura Camien: Not gonna give up.

[1:03:19] Susan Blackwell: Yes, yeah. And was not going to give up. So they had to leave the country. So before they left the United States in 1850, they at last had a proper wedding ceremony. And then they headed off to Canada. Again, thank you, Canada.

[1:03:35] Laura Camien: Oh, thank you.

[1:03:36] Susan Blackwell: And then, furthermore, they headed off to Liverpool. They lived in England for 19 years. They had five children.

[1:03:43] Laura Camien: Oh.

[1:03:44] Susan Blackwell: And then, and Cammian, this is where this has to be a movie. This has to be a movie. This has to be a movie.

[1:03:44] Laura Camien: A movie.

[1:03:53] Susan Blackwell: They began to reassemble their own families that had been separated by slavery and slave traders.

[1:04:02] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[1:04:04] Susan Blackwell: Yes. And they miraculously found Ellen's mother, Mariah, still alive, living outside of Macon, Georgia. They worked with abolitionist contacts in Georgia. They purchased Ellen's mother, Mariah.

[1:04:21] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[1:04:21] Susan Blackwell: And brought her to England, and Ellen and her mother were reunited on British soil. History comes alive when I can feel it.

[1:04:34] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:04:36] Susan Blackwell: So eventually they all moved back to the South, where they bought a plantation outside of Savannah. And what did they make of it?

[1:04:43] Laura Camien: What did they make of this former plantation?

[1:04:48] Susan Blackwell: In 1873, Ellen and William Kraft founded the Woodville Cooperative Farm School. And there, Ellen, along with three of her children, developed curriculum and they taught reading and writing to men, women, and children who had been released from slavery.

[1:05:07] Laura Camien: What else did they make of it?

[1:05:09] Susan Blackwell: The Crafts also wrote a book about all of this called Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom. And you can read it online for free at Gutenberg.org. These are lives well lived.

[1:05:25] Laura Camien: It's amazing.

[1:05:27] Susan Blackwell: So Barbara McCaskill, who I mentioned earlier, wrote a book about William and Ellen Craft called Love Liberation and Escaping Slavery, William and Ellen Craft and Cultural Memory. And she's amazing too.

[1:05:37] Laura Camien: Barbara McCaskill is amazing too.

[1:05:39] Susan Blackwell: So what do we make of all of this? Again, please, someone option these books. Please, someone make a film about William and Ellen Craft. This story has everything. It is so high stakes. It's a thriller. It's so visceral. There's so much love. It's adventurous. It's intriguing. So, or make a play, or make a musical, or make something. Make something.

[1:06:04] Laura Camien: And again, what do I make of it? Is I've said this before and I'll say it again. Whether we're talking about Jackie Shane, whether we're talking about William and Ellen Craft, I am so sparked by how brave people can be in the face of, uh, the very real and very implied threats, uh, that society can generate around them.

[1:06:33] Susan Blackwell: So it always reminds me when I experience the visceral feeling of stories about brave people, it reminds me to be braver when the opportunity arises, to be courageous when the opportunity arises.

[1:06:48] Laura Camien: How are you doing over there, Cams?

[1:06:50] Susan Blackwell: I'm okay.

[1:06:52] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:06:53] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:06:54] Laura Camien: It's a lot in so many ways.

[1:06:57] Susan Blackwell: It's a lot.

[1:06:57] Laura Camien: It's a lot. It's a really, really beautiful story.

[1:07:01] Susan Blackwell: Someone needs to do that. That's my contribution. I'm good. I gotta get some Kleenex. But yeah. But that story needs to be told more widely, and um their lives need to be celebrated and amplified, you know, so that people understand, just to understand more of what, you know, what our country put people through and and how they, you know, rose above it and fought with every survival skill possible to make change.

[1:07:40] Laura Camien: And we're still trying to make change.

[1:07:42] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:07:43] Laura Camien: And here am I, I'm sitting over here while you're crying it out over there. I'm sitting over here, and I please, you know my feelings on this. Cry it out. And I have a big dumb smile on my face because I'm like the possibility in this teachers. Please go on to however you pronounce it, just store.com and access the first issue of the Negro History Bulletin front page first issue tells the story of William and Ellen Craft in a way that you can take into your classrooms, into your middle school classrooms, make curriculum out of it, make it come to life so that people can we can center these stories and people can really take in the terror, the horror, the inventiveness, the sparkishness, the love of it all, the all of it of it all.

[1:08:41] Susan Blackwell: I also just want to my final what do we make of it? I guess will be I encourage everyone to keep your eyes and ears and hearts open because there are so many amazing sparks flying right now from Miss Jackie Shane to antiracism daily.com's 28 Days of Black History Month newsletter to Dr. Carter G. Woodson's work centering the stories of black people in US history and supporting anti-racist curriculum to the fonts of Trey Seals to the story of William and Ellen Craft, their great escape, but all the way to the school that they created. There are so many sparks flying right now.

[1:09:15] Laura Camien: So however you feel about Black History Month, I encourage you to take advantage of the fact that a lot of people are surfacing a lot of great sparks.

[1:09:25] Susan Blackwell: And you can start by going to antiracism daily.com, let Nicole Cardoza and her amazing team of curators fill you up with sparks.

[1:09:35] Laura Camien: And that was my long but adventurous spark for the day.

[1:09:40] Susan Blackwell: It was beautiful and inspiring, and I learned so much. I'm so I'm thankful for you, and I'm thankful for the resources that you just shared with all of us.

[1:09:52] Laura Camien: It is my pleasure.

[1:09:53] Susan Blackwell: And you want to take a little break?

[1:09:55] Laura Camien: I do.

[1:09:56] Susan Blackwell: Just a moment.

[1:09:57] Laura Camien: Okay.

[1:09:58] Susan Blackwell: Thanks, snotted out.

[1:10:03] Laura Camien: Oh, what a good spark.

[1:10:05] Susan Blackwell: Oh, really, really, really good spark. You know, I always get a I get a little nervous because, you know, we talked about it before. Like, I don't want to do it, I want to do it justice.

[1:10:17] Laura Camien: Stated in the positive.

[1:10:18] Susan Blackwell: I want to do it justice. I also know, uh, I'm not a black person. And so is it the right thing for me to like share these stories? But I want to amplify them. And so that's where I that's where I'm at right now is I just want to get them up and out.

[1:10:39] Laura Camien: And hopefully that will be a positive thing in the world.

[1:10:44] Susan Blackwell: I think it's worth acknowledging that. And everyone is doing the best that they can. And, um, like you said, you you know what you're setting out to do, which is amplify voices, which is a very strong message right now that it is, um, important that if you have the ability to do that, that you should be doing it.

[1:11:04] Laura Camien: Yeah, and and yeah, and and also, you know, I know there's intent versus impact, so I can be like my intention is a very positive intention, and yet my impact might, you know, the impact might differ.

[1:11:19] Susan Blackwell: But I will also say I do have the presence of mind to be like, I can be super excited about Jackie Shane. I can be super excited about making sure as many people as possible know about Jackie Shane, the life, the music, uh, etc. But I'm not gonna write, direct, or star in the Jackie Shane story. There's that distinction as well. But all of this, I just always want to acknowledge, like, as I learn more, those distinctions about my role in all of this, I'll learn more. And I'm sure there'll there's things that I'll look back on, things that I've done in this very podcast. And I certainly have things I've done in my life that I'm like, oh believe, if I could, you know, if I could go back in time.

But um, that's why I always think it's good to like say this is where we are in time right now. And learning and growing and changing, as I said in the opening, learning and growing and changing and learning and growing and changing will always continue. But this is where we're at today. So love it. Love it. I took a lot from it and I um I appreciate it. I really thought it was a beautiful spark. Thanks, Cam.

[1:12:30] Laura Camien: Um, okay. So to follow that spark, um, I think I'm up. My spark this week, you know, something that has been sparking me, and not in a very good way, frankly, is seeing these. Um, I've been seeing recently, I I would say probably for several months now, these kind of news stories, particularly on media that leans to the right. Um, and these ne these news stories that are really like talking about the demise of New York and kind of sensationalizing this city going down. And uh obviously it sparks me in a very negative way. I feel I feel protective and defensive on behalf of of New York, but yeah, um, I mean, they all it always makes me curious, like, why why do they care so much? You know, why do they love to report on New York doing poorly?

I find that to be curious, but I'm sure there's a lot of reasons for it. Um, but it's interesting to me because the origins of this great country, all the good and all the bad, many of them like run literally right through New York City.

[1:13:49] Yeah. Um, and one of these days, I think I do want to do a spark on the history of New York, but it's so enormous. More likely I'll do a hundred smaller sparks that all originated in New York or inspired by New York. It's just a freaking Sparks Central for me. Um, but it can't be contained in one episode. So I will just start with this one episode, acknowledging it's but a tiny little speck of a spark in regard to New York City. Um a few months ago, I was having a virtual coffee date with our friend Holly Cinnamon. Hi, Holly. Hi, Holly, Holly. And Holly recommended that I read Here is New York by E. B. White, which I kind of can't believe I've never read before. Have you read it?

[1:14:48] Susan Blackwell: I have never read it.

[1:14:50] Laura Camien: It is shocking to me. It's shocking. This thing was written 70 some years ago, and it focuses on how much the city changes and is also changeless at the same time, how resilient the city is. And I gotta say, same. Here we are 70 years later, and same. He writes so freaking eloquently, so specifically, and it really brings the magic of New York to life. I have to say, if you're a city, get yourself a writer that loves you the way E. B. White loves New York City. Do it. Do it now. Don't wait. Run. Find that writer.

[1:15:31] Susan Blackwell: So here I'm so excited. I'm so stoked. You're doing this as a spark. I loved this little book. And I say little because it really is a slim little volume because it began its life as a magazine article, and then it was so popular that they expanded it a little bit and it got published as a book. And it was first published in 1949.

[1:16:01] Laura Camien: 1949.

[1:16:02] Susan Blackwell: And in the foreword of that book in 1949, E. B. White talks about the changes that have come to pass in New York City since his article first ran. And now the version that I have was published in 1999 with a foreword by Roger Engel, and he talks about the changes that have come about in New York City since the book was published. And now here I am in 2021 talking about the changes that have come about in New York City since his foreword was written. Wow.

[1:16:35] Laura Camien: And yet it all stays so much the same. I can't wait to share some of this with you because you'll be like, um, that could have been written last week. It's amazing.

[1:16:47] Susan Blackwell: So amazing. Allow me to read you the 1948 foreword written by E. B. White.

[1:16:53] Laura Camien: I will.

[1:16:56] Susan Blackwell: Thank you, Suze. This piece about New York was written in the summer of 1948 during a hot spell. The reader will find certain observations to be no longer true of the city, owing to the passage of time and the swing of the pendulum. I wrote not only during a heat wave but during a boom. The heat has broken, the boom has broken, and New York is not quite so feverish now as when the piece was written. The Lafayette Hotel, mentioned in passing, has passed, despite the mention. But the essential fever of New York has not changed in any particular, and I have not tried to make revisions in the hope of bringing the thing down to date. To bring New York down to date, a man would have to be published with the speed of light, and not even Harper's is that quick.

[1:17:53] Laura Camien: I'm gonna love it.

[1:17:55] Susan Blackwell: Nice. So the common theme in each of the four words written about this book is that New York City changes and changes and changes so fast that you can't keep up. And yet, New York City also somehow stays the glorious, inspired, wonder-filled Mecca it has always been. Listen, I know it's not for everyone. I totally get that. But for those of us that it speaks to, it is personal.

[1:18:26] ⚠ About 4 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.

[1:22:42] Laura Camien: Got it, got it, got it. But I was like, I'm gonna gather all their fax numbers so I can just do this in one fell swoop, right? I'm so organized. So I'll get their fax numbers. There's your luck right there. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll I have my resume prepared. I'll print out cover letters, and then I will go to where I can have access to a fax machine because you couldn't fax from home. Um so go to Kinkos and fax individually these letters to each theater. None of that happened. Not one bit of that happened. I uh back to the alphabetical list of theaters. At the top of the list was the Astor Place Theater. Yes. And I called.

[1:23:18] Laura Camien: And the Astor Place Theater was a bit rough and tumble and proud of it, frankly. So they pick up the phone and say, Astor Place Theater, Bimbo Group. And I couldn't quite tell what they said. I was like, um, I think they might have said Blue Man Group. And I remember my college professor in Kansas mentioning a thing called Blue Man Group, but I had no idea what it was. And I don't even know if that's what they said. So I just squeak out, um, can I get your fax, please? They're like, What? And I said, Can I get your fax number, please? And they go, Why? And I swear my heart stopped. Like it was just so blunt and so fast. And I was like, I said, I would like to fax my resume. And they said, Oh, you're looking for a job, hold on.

And before I could say no, which I literally did, Susan, no came out of my. I wasn't prepared to talk to anyone. I didn't. And it didn't matter. They had already hit transfer and they were transferring me to the HR director/slash casting director, Carrie Warsaw at the time. And I literally did say no. And I said it to thin air. It was just me and the hold music because I was already being transported through this telephone wire.

[1:25:07] Laura Camien: And I now think, thank God, they did not hear me or listen to me, frankly. Carrie answered that phone. We got to talking. She said, you know, we need interns. Um, we're about to expand in a really big way. I'm not sure exactly what positions are going to come about, but um, why don't you come in tomorrow? And I went in the next day.

[1:25:34] Laura Camien: I never made another phone call, not one. I was so excited with how that one phone call went. I was like, oh my gosh, you know how sometimes you're like, well, I've achieved enough in one day. Um I I was like, that was the most amazing phone call. Carrie eventually became a dear friend, and I spent 20 some years on this crazy global adventure with Blue Man Group. It's so underfoot in show business. It's so underfoot in show business. It really is. It's just. And speaking of that uh book, um, Manny, who was Blue Man's publicist at the time. So the way they would do it, um, I'm totally off roading now, but the way they would like do job interviews would be like you'd sort of sit in a circle, and maybe eight people might circle around you and ask you questions.

And you know, you were in the middle of the circle. I was in the middle of the circle. And I mean, like at the edge of a circle, and then everyone more like an AA meeting, I guess. I'm at a certain place, and then everyone is wrong. I'm not like 360 by people on a revolving stool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but um, and Manny was their PR guy, and he tells me later, he's like, I voted no. I voted no on you because and I was like, why? And you have to know our relationship. Like he became one of the most important people in my life and mentors in my life and taught me so much. And he's like, you know, I said no. And I'm like, What? And he's like, I said no, you were too perky, way too happy. Didn't know.

Like you had obviously not like New York had not worn off on you yet. I'm like, I was only you just got it. That's right. It was day two. It was day two. So I somehow survived that interview. They used to ask people what are the last 10 albums you've bought, and thank God no one asked me that because there were some musical elitists and um and very, very knowledgeable people about music. And I think they would not have approved of you know my Shania Twain or um Indigo Girls. I don't know. I just think my musical choice at the time probably wouldn't have cut the mustard big. Cool enough. But nonetheless, I somehow luck got me through, and I met you know, amazing people and uh had an incredible, incredible time.

That same week, my first week, I think um Thursday of that week, I went on my first audition in New York City, and I got cast in my first panging gig in a knockoff of Tony and Tina's wedding. I'm telling you, so much luck. By the end of that week, Susan, I was literally like, whoa, New York is a breeze.

[1:28:35] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Um, and I continue to have like incredible luck with the people that I met and mentors I've had and friends and true love. And um yeah, I feel super super lucky, but I don't also want to make it sound like a bed of roses. I also had hard times without a doubt. And I learned not to take the things that came easy for granted. And I I learned to have reverence for the things that could be hard for sure. Do you feel like you got lucky in New York, Suze?

[1:29:09] Laura Camien: Like, oh my gosh. Tell me something lucky.

[1:29:12] Susan Blackwell: I totally do, but I also want to say there's that Seneca quote. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

[1:29:20] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:29:20] Susan Blackwell: Which is such a like uh what do they call those inspirational poster things?

[1:29:24] Laura Camien: Yeah, I mean it's but it's true, but you don't, yeah.

[1:29:27] Susan Blackwell: Also, when you were talking about I got so lucky, I was like, you systematically set about, you started, you didn't get far, but you started to contact every theater in that index. And I was like, well, there's that's why I said there's your luck. Because you you weren't sort of like waiting for some talent scout in shining armor to be like, I like the cut of her jib. I'm gonna make her a star. Like you were making your own luck.

[1:29:54] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[1:29:55] Susan Blackwell: Um yeah, I got lucky. Uh here's one example of I mean, I I didn't where to begin. I got lucky because uh I feel like within three weeks after moving to New York, I booked an off-Broadway show.

[1:30:13] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[1:30:15] Susan Blackwell: And was cast by uh a woman named Georgiane Walken, the spouse of Christopher Walken.

[1:30:21] Laura Camien: Nice.

[1:30:22] Susan Blackwell: And so it was, you know, and directed by a director named Max Mayer, who was one of the founders of New York Stage and Film. And it was a like a real quality production. And I went, I got I went to the first round, and they were like, they were like, Who is this? And then I went to the callback because I sort of, you know, I just you sort of drop out of the Midwest. You drop out of number, they have no idea. They haven't watched you go to Juilliard, they haven't watched you rise up through the ranks at NYU.

[1:31:00] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:31:00] Susan Blackwell: So they were like, who is this? And then I went to my callback. I remember it super clearly, because when I got done, I went out into the hallway and I sat down and I was getting my stuff together to hit the trail and get back into the New York streets, wherever, returning to my temp job or wherever, wherever I was headed. And I um Georgian Walken came out and took her hands, put them, placed them on either side of my head, and she kissed my forehead. And I'd have to go back and look at my journals to see exactly what she said to me. But she said something very affirming. Oh something very sort of like, we're so glad that you're you've made it to New York, essentially. We're so glad you're here.

[1:31:44] Laura Camien: Again.

[1:31:44] Susan Blackwell: And talk about love, like feeling. I was like, if I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it so hard.

[1:31:53] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:31:53] Susan Blackwell: And then cut to like decades of like grinding and striving and all sorts of things. But there's so many ways that that luck shows up. And that's just one that came to me in my very first days in the city. But it also illustrates it's luck, it's preparation, you know, it's clarity of vision, and you knew what you want, and you were headed after it.

[1:32:17] Laura Camien: So you're totally right.

[1:32:19] Susan Blackwell: And that, you know, it's not, it's not like blind luck. It's it's like um intentional and and prepared luck.

[1:32:29] Laura Camien: Yeah, which is awesome.

[1:32:32] Susan Blackwell: Awesome.

[1:32:32] Laura Camien: I love that.

[1:32:33] Susan Blackwell: That's an amazing story. I want you to find out. I want you to look in your journal and see what she said.

[1:32:39] Laura Camien: That fueled me, fueled me for uh really long time. I believe kindness and I could tell she meant it.

[1:32:48] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, it was very authentic and sincere and kind and generous. And I think about that as I move through the world too.

[1:32:57] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:32:57] Susan Blackwell: Where I'm like, it can I help? Can I give somebody a little bit of fuel just by being honest and kind and taking the time to help keep them going through this through all the, you know, through this life of it.

[1:33:11] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:33:12] Susan Blackwell: 100%.

[1:33:13] Laura Camien: But I want to unpack another sentence from this first page. According to EB White, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the privacy.

[1:33:24] Susan Blackwell: That caught my that sentence took my breath away when I read it. I felt so seen and so understood by this man who wrote this sentence 30 years before I was born. New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.

[1:33:39] Laura Camien: Ooh.

[1:33:39] Susan Blackwell: The gift of loneliness to me, like I think there were very, very hard times alone in New York.

[1:33:52] Laura Camien: Yeah, that were so painful, but turned out to be the biggest gift, giving me the gift of knowing my own strength, that I could survive painful things, painful loss, betrayals. I could be alone and stand on my own two feet. I could support myself financially, physically, emotionally. And I had, you know, I had to experience some loneliness and some time with myself to get to those conclusions.

[1:34:26] Laura Camien: And I'm thinking about what you said.

[1:34:29] Susan Blackwell: This is why I need that quote from Jackie Shane. The um quote about like uprooting yourself to find out really who you are.

[1:34:40] Laura Camien: Oh, yes, it it totally, it totally dovetails into your spirit.

[1:34:44] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, doesn't it? I want that.

[1:34:46] Laura Camien: I I want that quote because I feel like you want to read it.

[1:34:50] Susan Blackwell: You want me to read it back to you?

[1:34:51] Laura Camien: Yeah, read it again.

[1:34:52] Susan Blackwell: Okay. In light of this spark that you're sharing, I think it was very apropos. Jackie Shane said shortly before she passed away, most people are planted in someone else's soil, which means they're a carbon copy. I say to them, uproot yourself, get into your own New York soil. You may be surprised who you really are.

[1:35:11] Laura Camien: That is New York is that that's true about New York.

[1:35:14] Susan Blackwell: Yes, and I feel that gift of loneliness helped me to get there. And then he talks about the gift of privacy.

[1:35:23] Laura Camien: As an introvert, I have to say, with slight extrovert tendencies.

[1:35:28] Susan Blackwell: Um, I have to say one of the things I love about New York is being able to be alone in a crowd. You can get as familiar with your neighbors as you want to, or you can keep to yourself, you know, when you don't feel like chatting.

[1:35:42] Laura Camien: And a few pages later, White expands on this idea.

[1:35:46] Susan Blackwell: He says, New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation. It succeeds in insulating the individual against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute.

[1:36:03] Laura Camien: And this is making me think, yes.

[1:36:06] Susan Blackwell: Fuck yes, New York invites you to get out and participate as much or as little as you like. Like if you're in the mood for St. Patrick's Day Parade, get out there, jump in. You want to see the ball drop on New York on New Year's Eve, sure, go for it. Um, if you want to see the presidential motorcade go by, you know what corner to stand on if you want to. Broadway openings, gallery exhibits, horse rides in Central Park, attend the U.S. Open. I mean, really, take it or leave it. You can watch it on your TV, or you can go out into the action, literally.

[1:36:44] Laura Camien: I'd never really thought of that particular attribute of New York.

[1:36:49] Susan Blackwell: And again, he wrote it 70 years ago. Um, but this ability to choose your own adventure. You can like get up and close and personal, or you can remain an aloof observer. But either way, you can be part of it all.

[1:37:06] Laura Camien: Cam's, I just have to say, this is sparking my brain, and I am time traveling as you are.

[1:37:12] Susan Blackwell: Schooling us.

[1:37:14] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:37:15] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:37:15] Laura Camien: I'm this book took me, like it took me back.

[1:37:19] Susan Blackwell: It took me to the present.

[1:37:20] Laura Camien: I'm I'm amazed at this.

[1:37:23] Susan Blackwell: As I was considering this at that particular attribute, this sort of like protecting a person from um, what does he say? It can insulate the individual against enormous, violent, wonderful events that are taking place every minute.

[1:37:39] Laura Camien: I, as I was considering that, I read on the next page.

[1:37:45] Susan Blackwell: New York is particularly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along, whether a thousand foot liner out of the east or a 20,000 person convention out of the west, without inflicting the events on its inhabitants.

[1:38:02] Laura Camien: Sorry.

[1:38:03] Susan Blackwell: Right? All that can be going on like four blocks away, no big deal. That's all happening at the Javit Center.

[1:38:10] Laura Camien: That's right, that's fine.

[1:38:11] Susan Blackwell: And you are muscular unaware.

[1:38:15] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:38:16] Susan Blackwell: And he says, so that every event is, in a sense, optional. And the inhabitant is in the happy position of being able to choose his spectacle and so conserve his soul.

[1:38:29] Laura Camien: And I love the phrase conserve his soul.

[1:38:31] Susan Blackwell: Because if you did try to do everything you possibly could in New York, you would not last a day. I mean, there's just you do have to get over FOMO like in New York. Because you are you are.

[1:38:43] Laura Camien: You are just by being in a fixed point in the like you can't be everywhere doing everything all the time.

[1:38:51] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:38:51] Laura Camien: And there is no end to choices possibility.

[1:38:55] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, choices must be made.

[1:38:56] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:39:12] Susan Blackwell: Same idea.

[1:39:14] Laura Camien: So this is amazing.

[1:39:16] Susan Blackwell: This book is amazing.

[1:39:17] Laura Camien: It really helps me.

[1:39:18] Susan Blackwell: I put a ton of things like in my journal writing about like it just it it brought up so many memories.

[1:39:24] Laura Camien: Um but this is crazy.

[1:39:26] Susan Blackwell: In a way.

[1:39:28] Laura Camien: So it made me think of 9-11.

[1:39:30] Susan Blackwell: And in one way, the city even absorbed that. If you think of it now, the tip of the island is restored. It's complete with a beautiful museum, a memorial to the lives lost. And you know, you almost, if you weren't aware of it, you almost wouldn't know what happened on that hollowed ground.

[1:39:54] Laura Camien: But the city could not protect each person from it on that day or in those following months. It couldn't absorb that. That event did not seem optional.

[1:40:07] Susan Blackwell: That's right. I don't know exactly when you were saying that, I was like, that's true for almost everything.

[1:40:14] Laura Camien: Yeah. Except for September 11th. It's crazy. It took me back because I was thinking like from the moment I awoke on that beautiful sunny morning. I awoke to like a loud boom. And I thought it might have been thunder. Like, oh, maybe it's a stormy day. I love stormy days. But no, I peeked out the window and saw that it was gloriously sunny. I did not know what woke me up. Um, I was living on the corner of Stanton Street and Clinton Street on the Lower East Side, which was considered like in the zone that they, you know, blocked off all the roads below 14th Street. And I got a call from a friend saying, turn on the news. The news said a plane had hit the first building, the building at the time.

They didn't say first and second. That in those moments, they just said the news said that the plane had hit the building. And while watching the second plane hit, and I got a call from another friend who lived a few blocks away. She said, Come over. So I headed outside. And now this is where the city did not give me an option of whether or not I wanted to be in it. Cars were driving like maniacs, like running red lights, swerving all over the road. They were trying to get their kids from school. Like, like it was the moment that people were like, this wasn't, this was not an accident. Um, everyone was looking up, afraid that more planes might rain down on us at any time, because if you remember, there were planes unaccounted for and in the sky, and people knew it.

So they just didn't know like, are they just gonna keep coming? Um, people were running into each other, they were yelling. This was before cell phones. So while you're out on the street, you're not getting news updates. Like it was anxiety producing. Because like you step away from the TV and you might miss something. So I got to my friend's house, and um after I arrived there, the tower fell. And not long after we saw hundreds and hundreds of people walking by the building, zombie-like, just covered in ash, walking towards the Williamsburg Bridge. And that may be the one time I can pinpoint where the city did not protect us or give us a choice of how active we wanted to be. We were all in it entirely.

And for months later, the smell of the attack lasted for months and months. There was no escaping the smell of burnt rubber, and every plane looked to be flying too low, and the bulletin boards everywhere with postings of missing people. Um, you know, it in a strange way, it brought New Yorkers together. Like everyone felt a sense of loss. Everyone felt, you know, it was it was something that no one opted out of.

[1:43:25] ⚠ About 4 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.

[1:47:15] Laura Camien: Each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Edison Company.

[1:47:26] Susan Blackwell: I love thinking about each of us settlers generating heat and light in the city.

[1:47:33] Laura Camien: I just kind of love that image of every person who arrives in New York, you know, with a dream generating heat and light.

[1:47:44] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:47:45] Laura Camien: That's feeding, literally feeding into the city.

[1:47:48] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:47:49] Laura Camien: So again, 70 years after you wrote this passage, it holds up to be true.

[1:47:53] Susan Blackwell: It's the passionate settlers that bring the spirit of city as goal.

[1:47:57] Laura Camien: And honestly, if I'm fair, I think many of the commuters do too now, because frankly, the city became so expensive.

[1:48:06] Susan Blackwell: There's many, many people who commute in who have this spirit of passion for the city and for the borough that they live in.

[1:48:13] Laura Camien: So, like that, they kind of bring a joyfulness, like an expansive joyfulness toward not just the island of Manhattan, but the boroughs around it as well.

[1:48:24] Susan Blackwell: And this just makes me think about like my heart is going out to everyone who might be displaced right now due to the pandemic, you know, the actors and writers, directors, costumers, fashion designers, artists, gallery curators, dancers, filmmakers.

[1:48:43] Laura Camien: So so, so many more.

[1:48:47] Susan Blackwell: I believe we'll all be back in New York City one day.

[1:48:50] Laura Camien: This city has survived so much more.

[1:48:53] Susan Blackwell: It is resilient, and we are resilient.

[1:48:57] Laura Camien: Just listen to how E.B. White described the quality of life 70 years ago.

[1:49:01] Susan Blackwell: This should tell you we survive.

[1:49:03] Laura Camien: He says every facility is inadequate.

[1:49:07] Susan Blackwell: The hospitals and schools and playgrounds are overcrowded.

[1:49:10] Laura Camien: The express highways are feverish, right?

[1:49:14] Susan Blackwell: The unimproved highways and bridges are bottlenecks.

[1:49:17] Laura Camien: There's not enough air and not enough light, and there's usually either too much heat or too little.

[1:49:23] Susan Blackwell: But the city makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin, the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty, and unparalleled.

[1:49:43] Laura Camien: Suze, I that sentence just rang so true for me.

[1:49:49] Susan Blackwell: At the height of like busyness in my blue man career, like there were several years where we were opening theater shows in incredible places.

[1:50:01] Laura Camien: Like I was flying and traveling for weeks at a time to like Japan, Sao Paulo, Las Vegas, London, like we were always on the move.

[1:50:12] Susan Blackwell: And as much as I loved exploring those cities, and I did, I loved that.

[1:50:19] Laura Camien: I'm not exaggerating.

[1:50:21] Susan Blackwell: Every single time my plane would be in our final descent into LaGuardia or JFK Airport.

[1:50:30] Laura Camien: I would tear up.

[1:50:32] Susan Blackwell: My heart would just fill up.

[1:50:34] Laura Camien: I felt so thankful that New York is my home.

[1:50:38] Susan Blackwell: I felt so happy to live there.

[1:50:40] Laura Camien: And that feeling never went away.

[1:50:43] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:50:44] Laura Camien: Did you see that they recently announced that Sex in the City is going to return to HBO?

[1:50:49] Susan Blackwell: I did see it.

[1:50:50] Laura Camien: San Samantha.

[1:50:52] Susan Blackwell: San Samantha.

[1:50:53] Laura Camien: San Samantha.

[1:50:54] Susan Blackwell: But I have a feeling conspiracy theory, I admit.

[1:50:58] Laura Camien: So don't like go down a crazy rabbit hole with this.

[1:51:01] Laura Camien: But I have a feeling it's very deliberate and intentional part of the recovery of New York City and bringing back bringing it back after the pandemic is over.

[1:51:14] Susan Blackwell: Because Sex in the City was a huge part after 9-11.

[1:51:18] Laura Camien: It was a huge part of New York's rise again, frankly.

[1:51:24] Susan Blackwell: Like we were all told that the best way we could help was to help the economy.

[1:51:28] Laura Camien: Go out to eat, shop, spend money.

[1:51:30] Susan Blackwell: That would be the best thing for the city.

[1:51:32] Laura Camien: Go to Magnolia Bakery and get a cupcake.

[1:51:34] Susan Blackwell: That is right.

[1:51:35] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:51:36] Susan Blackwell: And that show really worked to instill that sense of grandeur and aspirational spending and experiencing of the city.

[1:51:46] Laura Camien: The city was one of the main characters, and they didn't try to hide that.

[1:51:51] Susan Blackwell: You know, Carrie Bradshaw calls the city her boyfriend at one point and wonders if she'll ever love a man as much as she loves the city.

[1:51:59] Laura Camien: And I felt that to my core.

[1:52:03] Susan Blackwell: I really did at that time.

[1:52:05] Laura Camien: And I'm so curious to see what they do with it, you know, in this time, because it does have, I think, the power, as do many TV shows and many films.

[1:52:15] Susan Blackwell: Like that's really how the mystique of a city can be formed, frankly, is through our popular culture and the things that we digest about it and the ideas that we form about it.

[1:52:27] Laura Camien: But I think that Sex in the City, you know, came at a pivotal time for New York City.

[1:52:32] Susan Blackwell: And I think it might, again, which is interesting.

[1:52:34] Laura Camien: Wow.

[1:52:35] Susan Blackwell: How interesting.

[1:52:36] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:52:37] Susan Blackwell: Um did you always know that you wanted to move there, Zeus?

[1:52:41] Laura Camien: Like, did you have a sense of?

[1:52:42] Susan Blackwell: I wanna a piece of luck that I had was that my I think I talked about this when we talked about Helene Hamp.

[1:52:48] Laura Camien: I think I can't remember.

[1:52:49] Susan Blackwell: But uh uh somebody said I was working with Thomas J. Ryan at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and he said, if you want to move to New York, I'll kick my now roommate out, and you can have the second bedroom in my apartment.

[1:53:03] Laura Camien: Nice.

[1:53:04] Susan Blackwell: Looking at 52nd and second, and I said, then I'm moving to New York.

[1:53:10] Laura Camien: Oh, like that, but it was just it was a real piece of luck.

[1:53:14] Susan Blackwell: Yeah that um and I just knew in my bones it was like a big yes and to step into it.

[1:53:21] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:53:22] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, that's amazing.

[1:53:24] Laura Camien: Um and good on you for saying yes and just knowing and going with it.

[1:53:30] Susan Blackwell: Yes, yes, yes.

[1:53:31] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:53:31] Susan Blackwell: I was born on Long Island and my dad's family is from New York, but I moved to Kansas when I was seven.

[1:53:40] Laura Camien: So I always had this dream of getting back to New York and living in the city.

[1:53:44] Susan Blackwell: And I mean, kind of like getting back to my roots and my ancestors, you know, that sort of concept, but my family would laugh at me.

[1:53:52] Laura Camien: They're like, they're they're in long they're on Long Island.

[1:53:55] Susan Blackwell: They're in like upstate New York.

[1:53:57] Laura Camien: Like I we don't know what this vision is that you're that's guiding you, but okay, go for it.

[1:54:03] Susan Blackwell: Um which is sweet.

[1:54:05] Laura Camien: But I just I just had that growing up, and I got to thinking the other day of all the places I lived in and around New York City, and I don't know your list, so I want to tell you mine.

[1:54:16] Laura Camien: So um I moved in Astoria, Queens, lived there. Um, then I moved to Spanish Harlem, 95th Street. Okay. Jersey City. It has a view of New York, but it's just on the other state. Uh Lower East Side, that's Clinton and Stanton. 46 in Lexington. That's I spent some time. Yeah. Christmas. Yep. Park Slope, Brooklyn. That's some time there. Yeah. And Soho, where you have also spent some time. Yes. What about you, Suze?

[1:54:55] Susan Blackwell: Moved into 52nd and 2nd. Okay. Then moved down to Cornelia Street, where I lived for decades. And that I was just I I I want to in Helene Hamp style. I'm sparked to write about this because I realized the other day I'll probably never live any place as long as I lived in that apartment. I knew every square inch of that apartment in a way that I will never know any other place that I lived. I loved that apartment.

[1:55:23] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. So much happened. That's where I was for September 11th. That's where I was married, divorced, like so much happened there. Yeah. And then I fell in love with Nathan. I moved to Inwood. We lived there for a couple of years. Really, really happy, really happy home. Really happy. I love that place. Oof, those beautiful. But it was the gateway drug to being like, well, if we're this high up on Manhattan, why do we go all the way up?

[1:55:51] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:55:51] Susan Blackwell: I live upstate Manhattan. I love to live in upstate Manhattan.

[1:55:57] Laura Camien: That's awesome.

[1:55:58] Susan Blackwell: I love all that. Uh, we're gonna talk more about that. Sidebars. Um, E. B. White acknowledges those who don't get it. He says, the off-quote thumbnail sketch of New York is, of course, it's a wonderful place, but I'd hate to live there. And I'm reminded of a family member who walked into my favorite apartment, which was 46 in Lexington. It was one room on top of the building with an outdoor space that looked up at the Chrysler building.

[1:56:30] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:56:31] Susan Blackwell: I love that apartment. And this family member walked in, dropped her bag, and said, Oh God, how do you live here? And all I could do was laugh, honestly, because I was absolutely in heaven there. I was happy as a clown. I think when you get it, you get it. You just get it.

[1:56:56] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[1:56:57] Susan Blackwell: One of the things that E.B. White does in his book, there's a whole section on it, and he puts himself like in the center of a map, so to speak, and he describes his proximity to places of note. For example, like he says, no matter where you sit in New York, you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds. I'm sitting at the moment in a stifling hotel room, 23 blocks from where Rudolph Valentino lay in state, eight blocks from where Nathan Hale was executed, five blocks from the publisher's office where Ernest Hemingway hit Max Eastman on the nose, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[1:57:38] Laura Camien: And this like goes on for pages.

[1:57:41] Susan Blackwell: And I was so delighted by this section. I literally wrote in here, do this, like do this exercise. So yes, your proximity to amazingness exercise. Yes. And I thought I might go through my own a little bit of memory lane and make my own mental map of things that pop into my head. This is so incomplete. So one day I will do this like for real. But this was like top of the head. If I were sitting in my New York City apartment right now, I would be half a block from where the actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles McCrady started the Astro Place riots in 1849.

[1:58:19] Laura Camien: Yep.

[1:58:20] Susan Blackwell: 27 blocks from where JFK Jr. used to live and rollerblade. Two blocks from Cooper Union, where Senator Barack Obama gave his A More Perfect Union speech in 2008. 57 blocks from where the Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan show in 1960 something. 122 blocks from the legendary Apollo Theater. 16 blocks from where I met Gloria Steinem. 43 blocks to the public library where the lion's patience and fortitude sit outside. Eight blocks from the Soho Loft where Heath Ledger was found unresponsive from a fatal overdose.

[1:59:01] Susan Blackwell: 10 blocks from space 32, where I first met Susan Blackwell. 13 blocks from the Cornelia Street Cafe, where I performed in a few of Susan's curated shows. 64 blocks from Tavern on the Green, where Blue Man Group performed so randomly with Twisted Sister for someone's birthday party. And then we danced for hours under the sparkly lights outside. 42 blocks from the Lyceum Theater, where we opened Title of Show on Broadway, nine miles from Yankee Stadium where Wes and I would watch Derek Jeter and A-Rod play. 41 blocks from where I saw my last Broadway show, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf before the pandemic shutdown?

[1:59:41] Susan Blackwell: 28 blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, less than a block from the public theater, where I saw, among many other things, Here Lies Love three times. 37 blocks and a short boat ride to Ellis Island, where my ancestors arrived in New York, two miles from where my dad grew up on Flatbush Avenue, 10 miles from the Armory Track in Fort Washington, where my dad ran his track meets when he was a young tyke. E.B. White says to a New Yorker, the city is both changeless and changing.

[2:00:25] Laura Camien: Some temporarily, some permanently, and I wonder what New York will be when it reopens and rebuilds.

[2:00:32] Susan Blackwell: I have no doubt new glorious destinations, artistic, culinary, cultural, and more, will crop up and establish themselves so that the next generation of New Yorkers cannot imagine life in the city without them. You know, Mayor de Blasio tweeted out a couple days ago, Suze, this article that was something about like forget Austin, come to New York City. It's never been easier for young and ambitious people to get their start.

[2:01:01] Laura Camien: And I was thinking, like, if there's any upside to what has happened this year, it might be that prices re-establish themselves at more affordable rates, and young, ambitious, artistic people can move back into the city.

[2:01:22] Susan Blackwell: And maybe we can maintain the ability to sustain oneself in New York City. Maybe. So what do we make of it? This little book, Here is New York. Well, one, if you've been dreaming of living in New York City and having that experience, make a plan. There will be a roaring 20s in New York City when this is all over with. If you love the city that you live in, write about it, photograph it, document it.

[2:01:49] Susan Blackwell: E.B. White finds the most specific ways to describe the beauty and mystery of New York City. Your city is just waiting to be described for others to experience. Make yourself a mind map, put yourself in the center of it and determine the proximity of your favorite places or your favorite memories or historical events that would bring history to life for you, Suze. Write it out, draw it out. Write out the memories that you uncovered doing that exercise.

[2:02:16] Susan Blackwell: I literally have a list of memories just from reading this little book. I am, I am I am swamped with sparks. I am over here. I'm quiet because I am reeling. Reeling. Oh, I'm so happy. I'm so happy. Um, this little book is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my love of New York City. And I know many other people's love of New York City, but it sure helped me to take a walk down memory lane and appreciate how much New York changes and how much it stays the same.

[2:02:51] Laura Camien: So for my fellow New Yorkers, let's have faith. Let's have faith. And if you do not live in New York and maybe never want to live in New York, that is A OK. No matter where you live. I hope you feel the passionate love, the fierce defensiveness, the endless sparks of creativity from your own city.

[2:03:11] Susan Blackwell: Cammy in I am I'm drowning in sparks of the city.

[2:03:15] Laura Camien: Oh good. I'm telling you, this little book, and it's not a huge commitment. It's a slim little volume, and it's packed with so much punch. Just one spark I wanted to share is so that apartment that I lived in on Cornelia Street that I loved, I loved that apartment so much. And every year on the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, there was a project that people would go out and they would write in chalk on the sidewalk the names of the people who lived in the residences that had died in the fire.

[2:03:50] Laura Camien: And there were women and girls who lived in my tiny little apartment building that then would walk the few blocks over to the location of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory who perished in that fire. And it's things like that. It's like you are living, it's not even a block away.

[2:04:11] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, you are living in the apartment where somebody, somebody made something amazing. Something, somebody did something amazing.

[2:04:20] Laura Camien: Yes.

[2:04:20] Susan Blackwell: It's just it's it is sparks on sparks. It's freaking sparks on sparks. You know, I didn't include any of these in here, but like the for me when I'm sitting in a restaurant and I see a plaque that like Hemingway sat here and wrote this, or so and so sat here and wrote that. And um, like Laura Coward, shout out to Laura, who like recently discovered that Humphrey Bogart lived on her street or right down the street from her.

[2:04:43] Laura Camien: Um I just you're literally living in history.

[2:04:47] Susan Blackwell: And if you pay attention and start to put the pieces together, which I really like loved doing the spark about the Astro Place riots because it was a place that I had gone to so many. I'd spent literally half my life there. And to not know what happened on this soil on this ground, we're standing on. Um, so there's so much to be learned. I feel like this is just the tip of it.

[2:05:14] Laura Camien: Um, it's a little introduction to much manner.

[2:05:18] Susan Blackwell: So crazy sparked by this spark. I cannot, I can't thank you enough. But now I feel like again, we've created the longest episode of in podcasting history. So should I think we have to we have to send the good you and the good people on their way. But I just want to say I can't thank you enough. And also, are we moving back to New York City? Is that what I'm hearing?

[2:05:39] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[2:05:40] Susan Blackwell: You know what? We'll see. TBT people.

[2:05:45] Laura Camien: Wow, the rents are low.

[2:05:48] Susan Blackwell: Woo! So that's it. This episode of The Spark File was made on Muncie, Lenape, and Seminole Land. And as always, we hope it put another bunch of sparks in your file. I know it did for me. Holy nuts. If there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you've taken a spark and fanned it into a creative flame and you'd like to share that with us, email us at thesparkfile@gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com.

[2:06:13] Susan Blackwell: We will even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission. First, you gotta share a creative risk that you have taken recently. You can follow us on social at thesparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five-star review this podcast. It really, really, really does help other listeners to find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we hope that you'll share it with people that you love.

[2:06:34] Laura Camien: And if you didn't like, oh, Cammy, yesterday, I was just last night as I was going to bed, I was scrolling through um through Twitter just before I drifted off to sleep. I know bad practice, but bad sleep hygiene. But um, Javier Munoz tweeted that he had a little bit of writer's block and uh people were saying, sort of like, have you tried listening to music? Have you tried this? Have you tried that?

[2:06:56] Susan Blackwell: And somebody, they didn't tag us or the podcast, but they said, Have you listened to The Spark File? And I just happened to happen to run into it, and I wrote, um, thanks for the shout out, nice person. But also I was like, Javi, this is our podcast. Come be on The Spark File.

[2:07:14] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh, amazing.

[2:07:16] Susan Blackwell: Amazing. So thank you to that person. But if you like this podcast, we do hope you'll share it with people that you love. And if you didn't like it, know that we are growing and changing and learning and growing and changing and learning and changing and growing. And we hope the same for you. If something tickles your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door.

[2:07:40] Susan Blackwell: It's your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame. You gotta take it and make it. Bye.

[2:07:48] ♪ Musical number ♪

[2:07:56] Laura Camien: I dump it in the spark files.

[2:08:00] Susan Blackwell: Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[2:08:05] Laura Camien: I pump it in the spark files.

[2:08:10] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark files.

[2:08:15] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark fire.