This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:37] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Sparks File, your one stop three-car garage for creative inspiration.

[0:44] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:45] Laura Camien: And I'm Laura Camien.

[0:46] Susan Blackwell: If you're joining us for the 50 millionth time, welcome back.

[0:50] Laura Camien: If you're joining us for the first time, welcome.

[0:52] Susan Blackwell: You may be asking yourself, what is a spark file?

[0:55] Laura Camien: Where do I get one?

[0:56] Susan Blackwell: What do I file in it?

[0:57] Laura Camien: These are such good questions.

[0:59] Susan Blackwell: We actually have answers.

[1:00] Laura Camien: We do.

[1:00] Susan Blackwell: A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:06] Laura Camien: Well, that's the only thing to do.

[1:08] Susan Blackwell: We are makers and we make all kinds of things.

[1:11] Laura Camien: If you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, or you want to be making stuff all the time, you know the wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry.

[1:19] Susan Blackwell: 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.

[1:31] Laura Camien: Or a perfectly planned lazy afternoon.

[1:34] Susan Blackwell: Ugh.

[1:36] Laura Camien: I love the sound of that spark.

[1:38] Susan Blackwell: Or a commitment to making it all look absolutely effortless.

[1:43] Laura Camien: Ooh, every episode, we're gonna reach into the spark file and exchange some sparks.

[1:48] Susan Blackwell: And from time to time, we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:51] Laura Camien: And if you're not careful, you might work harder than you ever have in your life.

[1:57] Susan Blackwell: So without further ado, let's open up the Sparks file.

[2:02] Laura Camien: Cammy and I have a weird feeling that your spark and my spark.

[2:07] Susan Blackwell: This I could be wrong.

[2:08] Laura Camien: They might kiss.

[2:09] Susan Blackwell: Be the perfect companion pieces.

[2:12] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[2:13] Susan Blackwell: A yin and a yang.

[2:14] Laura Camien: You think a black and white cookie.

[2:16] Susan Blackwell: Oh my gosh.

[2:16] Laura Camien: It could it could happen.

[2:18] Susan Blackwell: I could be wrong.

[2:18] Laura Camien: I could I've been wrong so many times.

[2:20] Susan Blackwell: These things are completely unplanned, folks.

[2:22] Laura Camien: Just so you know, we never know what we're sharing.

[2:25] Susan Blackwell: So sometimes we have a little bit of a fear of like, oh my god, do you have the same spark as me?

[2:31] Laura Camien: Or do we have contrary sparks?

[2:33] Susan Blackwell: Or is there Venn diagram spark overlap?

[2:36] Laura Camien: Overlap.

[2:37] Susan Blackwell: We might have, I could be wrong, but just based on what you just said and what I know I'm about to say.

[2:42] Laura Camien: My little tease.

[2:47] Susan Blackwell: I can't stop thinking about your spark about Colonel Fawcett and the Amazon.

[2:53] Laura Camien: Here's a spark. I don't know if this is a song, I don't know if it's a short story, I don't know if it's a film, I don't know if it's a play, I don't know what it is.

[2:59] Susan Blackwell: Maybe it's a poem.

[3:01] Laura Camien: What if there's a story from the point of view of people that were on these exploring expeditions?

[3:08] Susan Blackwell: Not Fawcett, but say two of those men that were on the exploring expedition, and they had those the rule, which is if you follow you get left behind.

[3:20] Laura Camien: But what if two of the people on that expedition, two men were in love with each other, and they had to make the hard choice about if the rule still stands in 1925.

[3:20] Susan Blackwell: In 1925.

[3:32] Laura Camien: And it was all a dangerous danger upon danger upon danger.

[3:37] Susan Blackwell: Yes, in the Amazon.

[3:38] Laura Camien: I think that is so incredible.

[3:40] Susan Blackwell: And I've been thinking too about David Gann saying, you know, this um he brought his son, his 21 year old son, that he that you have to believe he had hopes and dreams for his son, and his son had them too, that he would go on and be a famous explorer himself and other things.

[4:01] Laura Camien: And how did it feel to lead his son to his death?

[4:06] Susan Blackwell: Does the abandonment rule apply when it's your son?

[4:06] Laura Camien: When it's your son, was he prepared to leave his son behind?

[4:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, but he may not.

[4:13] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[4:14] Susan Blackwell: If you're doing that kind of work, I have to believe that you have to believe that you are not unbeatable, but maybe close to it that you have some confidence.

[4:28] Laura Camien: Remember, like he's deep, deep, deep into the jungle, and his last dispatch to his wife is in about a month.

[4:35] Susan Blackwell: We should get there, and don't you worry, we're not gonna fail.

[4:39] Laura Camien: Confident, totally confident.

[4:41] Susan Blackwell: What a world-class spark that was.

[4:44] Laura Camien: Hey, thanks.

[4:45] Susan Blackwell: Really good.

[4:46] Laura Camien: Do you want to hear a fresh spark?

[4:48] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I totally do.

[4:49] Laura Camien: Is there anything else you want to say before we rock this spark?

[4:52] Susan Blackwell: I want to hear your spark.

[4:53] Laura Camien: There we go.

[4:54] Susan Blackwell: My spark is entitled Pack Your Bags for Your Trip and Leave Them at the Door.

[5:00] Laura Camien: My Sparks sources are Cheer on Netflix.

[5:05] Susan Blackwell: A piece on Vulture.com by David Marquezay.

[5:09] Laura Camien: Mark, I'm not sure how to pronounce your name, David, but you're a hell of an interviewer and a great writer.

[5:15] Susan Blackwell: A piece in Vanity Fair by Ian Crouch and another Vanity Fair piece by David Camp, a Beyoncé documentary or two.

[5:23] Laura Camien: A documentary called Momentum Generation.

[5:25] Susan Blackwell: Um you know what? Let's just get into it.

[5:28] Laura Camien: You did some research.

[5:29] Susan Blackwell: I did.

[5:30] Laura Camien: Cammy, yeah.

[5:31] Susan Blackwell: Have you seen the documentary series Cheer on Netflix?

[5:36] Laura Camien: I have it queued up to go.

[5:39] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[5:39] Laura Camien: I just need some TV time and I'm desperate for it.

[5:43] Susan Blackwell: Um we I initially heard about it from our friend of the podcast, Laura Coward.

[5:43] Laura Camien: Laura Coward.

[5:50] Susan Blackwell: And I was like, I was a high school cheerleader.

[5:52] Laura Camien: I'll just make this one.

[5:54] Susan Blackwell: I'm curious.

[5:56] Laura Camien: And I have to tell you, I really loved this documentary series.

[6:02] Susan Blackwell: Oh.

[6:03] Laura Camien: In case you're unfamiliar, Cheer is a Netflix documentary series that uh follows an award-winning Navarro College Cheer Squad from Corsicana, Texas.

[6:12] Susan Blackwell: According to their website, the Navarro College Cheer Team, under the direction of head coach Monica Aldama, has won 14 national championships since 2000 and claimed its fifth NCA grand national championship since 2012.

[6:27] Laura Camien: So they are an extremely successful cheer team.

[6:34] Susan Blackwell: You don't really see this on the documentary series, but this team also cheers for Navarro College at all the home football, men's basketball, and women's volleyball games.

[6:46] Laura Camien: That's on their website, but you don't really see a lot of that in the documentary series.

[6:50] Susan Blackwell: What do you see in the documentary?

[6:51] Laura Camien: Just them training?

[6:52] Susan Blackwell: What the filmmakers really focus on is practice.

[6:57] Laura Camien: Their practice, practice, practice, practice.

[7:01] Susan Blackwell: In fact, it's hard for me to comprehend how they have time for all their classes, homework, all those home games, and that's maybe a game every other week or every week.

[7:12] Laura Camien: It's bonkers because these cheerleaders practice a lot.

[7:17] Susan Blackwell: And at the peak of their fatigue, their coach, Monica Aldama, has them practice more in order to condition them and build up their strength and stamina.

[7:27] Laura Camien: So when they've just done, say, like uh they've done a run through or a tumbling pass or whatever, she's like, okay, now get like keep going while you're in that like state.

[7:37] Susan Blackwell: Like keep keep going.

[7:39] Laura Camien: Push it.

[7:40] Susan Blackwell: Push it.

[7:41] Laura Camien: Um, Cam's, I feel like things have changed since you and I were high school cheerleaders.

[7:48] Susan Blackwell: I used to that might be the understatement of the year.

[7:51] Laura Camien: I used to keep up with they had the high school cheerleading championships on ESPN 2.

[7:58] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[7:59] Laura Camien: And I remember watching them, and then all of a sudden I remember not watching.

[8:03] Susan Blackwell: I there's I've gone long, long periods with not really being keyed into um high school or college cheerleading, frankly.

[8:11] Laura Camien: And I think it's because the National Cheerleading Association has basically they done it's not on uh ESPN anymore.

[8:20] Susan Blackwell: It's sort of they they film it, it's their product.

[8:24] Laura Camien: They want to make the money, they want to make the money up.

[8:26] Susan Blackwell: I have a feeling they wouldn't even spoiler, they wouldn't allow Netflix to film at the National Cheerleading Championship.

[8:37] Laura Camien: Wow.

[8:37] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[8:38] Laura Camien: So they have a tight hole.

[8:39] Susan Blackwell: What a loss for them because I think it's gonna change.

[8:41] Laura Camien: I think that this spotlight that uh that Netflix and this documentary series Cheer have brought back onto the sport.

[8:50] Susan Blackwell: I think I think we're gonna see a renaissance in college and high school cheerleading.

[8:57] Laura Camien: Well, you mean they're going to they may break it open and let the general public see.

[9:03] Susan Blackwell: I think we're gonna see more of it in different platforms.

[9:06] Laura Camien: Because I would guess that they have a robust following and they get all that money directly, which they're happier with than having the deal with ESPN.

[9:17] Susan Blackwell: But there's so many, it's not people don't just cheer for schools anymore.

[9:22] Laura Camien: There are private cheerleading clubs.

[9:24] Susan Blackwell: There's there's so many uh plus there's just general fans, like we're not gonna cheer anymore, but we might watch those competitions and just show is going to be a good thing.

[9:33] Laura Camien: It's gonna busted wide open.

[9:35] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[9:35] Laura Camien: The thing that I was about to say is things have really changed since you and I are cheerleaders, and they are doing things now that I could not believe it when I saw it on Cheer.

[9:48] Susan Blackwell: I had never seen it before.

[9:50] Laura Camien: And I uh I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

[9:53] Susan Blackwell: Like that's real like choreography.

[9:55] Laura Camien: Um like original work that surprises the shit out of it.

[10:00] Susan Blackwell: But also, there's a thing, I don't know when this thing happened, or it's like who was the first person to eat a tomato?

[10:07] Laura Camien: Who's the first person to take a risk that it it might be poisonous?

[10:11] Susan Blackwell: It might not be poisonous.

[10:12] Laura Camien: Who was the first person that took that risk?

[10:14] Susan Blackwell: I want to know who the first person was that uh innovated this stunt they're doing now, where they essentially, if you can picture it, picture a man standing.

[10:27] Laura Camien: Picture a woman sitting on that man's shoulders, for instance, or standing on his upstretched hands.

[10:35] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god.

[10:36] Laura Camien: Now picture a woman flying through the air, sort of in a mid-air cartwheel and landing on top of that woman's shoulders.

[10:46] Susan Blackwell: Like somehow aiming her body slash her crotch so that it lands on that woman's shoulders.

[10:52] Laura Camien: I'd never seen anything like it.

[10:54] Susan Blackwell: I could not, every time they did it, I was like, what the actual fact.

[10:58] Laura Camien: How does the like how do you stop the momentum when you're like you're circling in the air and get up there?

[11:05] Susan Blackwell: The first person that ate that tomato because it seems it anyway.

[11:09] Laura Camien: Oh it was crazy.

[11:11] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god.

[11:11] Laura Camien: But the way that it's portrayed in the documentary, what the that team is really working towards all year long is the NCA National Cheerleading Championship held annually in Daytona Beach, Florida.

[11:26] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[11:27] Laura Camien: These athletes work so hard.

[11:30] Susan Blackwell: As I just said, they're being thrown through the air.

[11:33] Laura Camien: They are lifting bodies into the air, they are working injured.

[11:37] Susan Blackwell: Make no mistake about it.

[11:38] Laura Camien: These are extraordinary athletes.

[11:42] Susan Blackwell: I think I read the stat that cheerleading is second only to football for concussions sustained during practice.

[11:49] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[11:50] Susan Blackwell: It is no fucking joke.

[11:53] Laura Camien: Suze, I'm gonna derail for just one second.

[11:55] Susan Blackwell: Do it.

[11:55] Laura Camien: How I'm curious, just in terms of the documentary and the creation of it, if we're all working towards that championship, and the championship did not allow it to be filmed.

[12:09] Susan Blackwell: How did they deal with that?

[12:11] Laura Camien: The way that they deal with it, that's a wonderful question.

[12:13] Susan Blackwell: The way they deal with it is they have an interview with a representative from the National Cheerleading Association where he's explaining why they're not going to permit the documentarians document Finn explaining why he's not going to permit a camera crew to be present for this competition.

[12:31] Laura Camien: But the interviewer says, Do you control how do you feel about having people film it on their phones?

[12:38] Susan Blackwell: And he was like, That's fine.

[12:39] Laura Camien: We, you know, there's only so much we can do.

[12:41] Susan Blackwell: So all of the footage is filmed on phones.

[12:44] Laura Camien: From the phones.

[12:46] Susan Blackwell: And he's got someone saying it's fine.

[12:48] Laura Camien: He's fine.

[12:51] Susan Blackwell: Very clever.

[12:52] Laura Camien: Good question.

[12:53] Susan Blackwell: Back to the spark.

[12:54] Laura Camien: So all of these athletes on the Navarro cheer team work hard.

[12:57] Susan Blackwell: But if you've watched the show, or when you do watch the show, there is one person that we all fall in love with.

[13:04] Laura Camien: Jeremiah Jerry Harris.

[13:07] Susan Blackwell: Jerry is a super hard worker.

[13:11] Laura Camien: He's what's called a stunter.

[13:13] Susan Blackwell: He's one of the people who is lifting other people up into the air.

[13:17] Laura Camien: He's throwing and catching people.

[13:20] Susan Blackwell: Jerry, I'm getting chills right now talking about Jerry.

[13:23] Laura Camien: Jerry is passionate about the sport.

[13:26] Susan Blackwell: He's been doing it for years and years and years.

[13:31] Laura Camien: He knows all the players, he knows all the stats, he knows all the routines.

[13:37] Susan Blackwell: But because he doesn't have some of the tumbling skills, it's not a given that he's going to make it onto the mat, as they call it.

[13:44] Laura Camien: So apparently, like if there's 40 people on the team, they will select 20 people to actually make it onto the mat on a given day during a period of time or at the championships.

[13:58] Susan Blackwell: Whoa.

[13:59] Laura Camien: Because people get injured so frequently, they have to have a deep bench.

[14:02] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[14:03] Laura Camien: And so it's not a given that Jerry's gonna make it onto the mat and actually compete at the championships at Daytona Beach.

[14:12] Susan Blackwell: But Jerry is really remarkable because he keeps on working. He continually, it's like he cannot do anything but cheer on his teammates. He remains endlessly positive. And there's this beautiful moment where he gets up the nerve to ask his coach what he can work harder on. And they're all sort of in love with and intimidated by this their coach. Yeah. But you he you he's like talking himself into talking to her and asking her what he can work harder on. And she gives him really good straight answers. She's like, learn such and such a track. Learn such and such a track because I'm not sure how I'm I'm worried about his stamina or something like that. And Jerry's like, I got it. I got it. And like immediately keeps on working.

You can see visible growth in his work during practice. You can see his confidence growing outside of practice. You can see his emotional maturity growing. Oh my god. You see the results of his hard work. Like it the way they capture it is it's really he's really inspiring. He's just a really inspiring person. He has not had an easy life. Um, he doesn't look like what you might think of if I say male cheerleader, you might have this picture of a person whose top part looks like a triangle. He doesn't look like that. Kendall. Again, like a Kendall doesn't look like that. And they he Jerry is like the master of what they call mat talk, which is where even if you're not on the mat, yeah, you are on the side of the mat, and you are even in practice, you are cheering on the people on the mat.

And Jerry is the king of mat talk, and just like just willing people to do their best and to do their best. He's really he talks about his mom in the series and about her being this really positive, like very sparkish person. And you see how it that same quality that he regards in his mother moves through Jerry. She must be really proud. That's really sweet.

[16:29] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah. So when I was an acting student, I remember my teachers saying things like, great artists make the artistry invisible. And don't show us that you're working hard up there. And I sort of half understood what they meant at the time. I also I had a misguided notion that some performers are just born great. And I had another misguided notion that the way to make things look effortless, if my teachers wanted to look more effortless, was to put less effort into it. And I experimented with caring less and preparing less. To make it look, you know, really effortless and free and easy. So today I want to share with you some people who make it look easy and free and playful. People who hit, as they say on the Navarro Cheer Squad. But when you peek behind the curtain, you see how invested these people are in preparation. And that is my spark for today preparation. Woo!

[18:03] Susan Blackwell: First up on the Sparks Train, hoot hoot. That was an owl train that has sparks that it's shipping across the country. I don't know. First up on the Sparks train, hoot hoot is Beyonce. One of my favorite things about the documentary films that Beyonce has released is that she really shows the hard work. Cams, have you enjoyed and partaken in any of Beyonce's documentary work?

[18:28] Laura Camien: But I do love her.

[18:34] Susan Blackwell: She really reveals the motherfucking work. The first time I experienced this was her documentary Life is But a Dream. There's a segment where Beyonce is preparing to perform Run the World. Who runs the world? Girls on the 2011 Billboard Music Awards. She worked with this team of graphic designers and about one million dancers to build this piece that is Cameo. It is a feat of performance art. And there's this footage of her exhausted in the hallway of her hotel. They position it like it's about it's hard to say, but like 48 to 24 hours before the hotel hallway with a laptop. There's room service carts rolling by. She's stepping aside as hotel guests pass through. And then she's running this very difficult technical sequence over and over.

It was, I don't know if you remember this, but it's or if you ever saw it, but it's a sequence where the graphic designers have created an animation and she is interacting with in front of this animation. And it has to be, it's has to be spot on completely. In a voiceover, she says all of the practices, all of the thought that went into that, but it's not working because we lost a day of rehearsal. We never got a chance to do it right. But it was show day. So the first time we were going to see it through was on live TV in front of millions of viewers. It was crazy. So in front of a global audience, this is the first time that all of the elements of this insanely complicated piece of performance art were going to come together. Talk about a big wave writer. Holy Beyonce is a big wave writer. She is.

[21:00] Susan Blackwell: Song and wanting to make this impact and tell her story in a way that really like rocked people's worlds. Um, I love I love her mission to to spread this message when I think about like my 16 year old niece who I love dearly, Bailey, if you're listening. Um, it's this work, like there's so many people growing up today who like see the shiny part of it, who are like, that's what I want to do. Why can't that happen to me? Why can't I do that? Well, because there are 200 hours of rehearsal leading up to that moment, then you have to work you have to do steel. You have to work on having the nerves of steel. You have to do the work before anyone's putting the camera on you.

[21:50] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[21:51] Susan Blackwell: I think that she is a fantastic example of someone who makes it look easy.

[21:57] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[21:58] Susan Blackwell: But in reality, when you pull back the curtain, you see she hustles. And you may say, she hustles, and you may say, Yeah, well, if I had a team of graphic designers, stage managers, directors, choreographers, 200 dancers, pyro, lighting designer, da-da-da-da. I could I I I could do that. But I posit that Beyonce has always been an extraordinarily hard worker. And now with this more elevated stage and a bigger megaphone and all of that support, she is only working harder.

[22:32] Laura Camien: That's right.

[22:33] Susan Blackwell: You see those videos of like her and Destiny's Child when they were younger working, working their butts off before the national spotlight was on them.

[22:42] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[22:42] Susan Blackwell: And then at every stage, and that's how you get to have graphic designers and 200 dancers and et cetera, et cetera. I uh so anyway, so that was in 2011. Jump forward to 2019. Cams, did you see homecoming?

[22:58] Laura Camien: No.

[23:00] Susan Blackwell: Again. It really it is. I she is an artist. It is high art. I feel like you can really see. I think both, I know this to be true of Jay-Z. I know this less about Beyoncé, but I feel like they have both been influenced greatly by the art world. They are artists. Her spark for homecoming was that her life path didn't take her to college. And she wished that she could have. And she basically created her own homecoming.

[23:33] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh.

[23:34] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. In her documentary Homecoming, she said, It's my first time back home on the stage after giving birth. I'm creating my own homecoming. And it's hard. There were days that I thought I'd never be the same physically, and that my strength and endurance would never be the same. I had to rebuild my body from cut muscles. And what she was talking about is she was coming back from a very difficult pregnancy. In the documentary, we learned that she was supposed to do coachella the year prior, but she got pregnant unexpectedly. It ended up being twins. And she said, My body went through more than I knew it could. I was 218 pounds the day I gave birth. I had an extremely difficult pregnancy. I had high blood pressure.

I developed toxemia, preclampsia, and in the womb, one of my baby's hearts paused a few times, so I had to get an emergency C-section. She says in homecoming on that first day back in rehearsal, that she wants to get to the point where she can do soul cycle and rehearse and do stairs in the same day.

[24:31] Laura Camien: Wow.

[24:31] Susan Blackwell: And to get her there, her diet and schedule were extremely strict. She said, in order for me to meet my goals, I'm limiting myself to no bread, no carbs, no sugar, no dairy, no meat, no fish, no alcohol. I'm hungry. Just trying to figure out how to balance being a mother of a six-year-old and twins that need me and give of myself creatively is a lot to juggle. It's not like before when I could rehearse 15 hours straight. She explains, I have children, I have a husband, I have to take care of my body. She also says in retrospect, she would never, never push that far again.

[25:06] Laura Camien: Really?

[25:07] Susan Blackwell: But I was like, I was like, it's not like before when I could rehearse 15 hours straight.

[25:13] Laura Camien: Right.

[25:14] Susan Blackwell: It's she was pushing herself really hard even then. She's a hard worker. She went on to say, I respect things that take work. I respect things that are built from the ground up. I'm super specific about every detail. I personally selected every dancer, every light, the material on the steps, the height of the pyramid, the stage that the shape of the pyramid, every patch was hand sewn. Every tiny detail had an intention. She is an artist. She has a vision. And I feel like she's working as hard, if not harder, than everybody on her team. She's running circles around. It's just amazing. Regarding rehearsing homecoming, she said, I think we all work to our limit. And there are notes every time because there's always something we can improve on.

If you don't come from a performative or theatrical background, what she's talking about is after each rehearsal run, you get notes. You get somebody, a director, somebody in a in a position of sort of viewing it externally, hopefully objectively, to give you notes to improve upon the next rehearsal or run. So she's, you know, she's a meticulous perfectionist, hardworking, like she just rocks my socks when it comes to preparation.

[26:30] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[26:30] Susan Blackwell: And then you see her and you think, wow, that wasn't like, it's not like, oh, that was easy, but feels like the she doesn't, it doesn't require a lot of effort on her part because it just happens next to the side. When I watch it, the my misconception is she was born to do that. Now that may be true, but she's so good that it's sort of you don't realize how much work has gone into that three-minute performance. You know? Um, another person, just now for something completely different, who I think is a master of preparation, is Martin Short. In a piece in Vanity Fair, it said, Martin Short gives good talk show. David Letterman's band leader, Paul Schaefer, explained after a late show taping, a guy like David Letterman is so happy when Marty's on because he knows he can relax.

He knows that Marty will take care of it, that he's going to give you a couple segments of Sacco, which is the most Paul Schaefer type sentence ever uttered. Um, in an interview on Vulture.com with David Marchese, Martin Short explained how he has become legendarily great on talk shows. He has her he is known in the industry as being legendary when it comes to his talk show appearances. You think these people were just bore popped out of the womb doing this well? Martin Short's words. What I do for a typical talk show appearance, and I'm not exaggerating, is I'll send in something like 18 pages ahead of time. They start with an idea for an opening, and then it could go into this story could work and that story and that story and that story and that story and that story.

Then we whittle it down. I'll probably be on the phone with a segment producer for at least an hour and a half, going through ideas for material. Then you have to balance all that during the appearance by making it look improvised in the moment, not speaking too much, trying to find common ground with the host.

[28:26] Susan Blackwell: The first American talk show I did was December of '82, and it was Letterman. I remember thinking, I've got to come across as loose as I can be at a dinner party. So an impersonation of myself being relaxed was the approach from the beginning.

[28:43] Laura Camien: Nice.

[28:45] Susan Blackwell: Does that blow your mind? Would you have ever guessed that somebody would put in now? I know that people prepare for their talk show appearances and they're often prepared by a segment producer, but 18 pages of raw material.

[28:57] Laura Camien: No way.

[28:58] Susan Blackwell: How about it? Most of it feels like they've had an agreement of like, okay, I have a funny story from the set of that movie. I'm gonna tell the story about the house. Yeah. And that'll be a wrap. That'll be it. And then I'll promote the movie and blah, blah, blah. Um, in the Vulture interview, which is a great interview, especially if you're like me and you love comedy, Martin Short goes on to say, the people I work well with, Steve Martin is an example. It's because we work in the same way. Steve and I will walk off stage, sweat on our faces, the crowd still cheering, and we'll be discussing if we change that one line. We're both fascinated by the process of whittling away the sculpture.

[29:39] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[29:49] Susan Blackwell: Um, I also want to say something about that. Like, there's something in that that is like not afraid of uh not having achieved perfection. So crowd is cheering, that's great, but still want to tinker with it and you know, talk about those moments before I forget. Like this is how we could elevate it. Like we keep, we keep striving, we keep marching up, we keep reaching. Not a judgment of you know what I mean. Like to understand that, like, that doesn't mean that that wasn't a wonderful performance.

[30:23] Laura Camien: Right.

[30:24] Susan Blackwell: And we can still have yeah, we can still go further. Martin Short recounted a time when he was a guest on Dennis Miller's talk show. Dennis Miller used to have a talk show on HBO, and it was at the same time that Martin Short was doing his show, Primetime Glick, where he plays the character Jiminy Glick, which is one of my favorites. I love, I love Martin Short as Jiminy Glick. So he said, We were standing in the wings as Dennis was about to do his monologue, and Dennis said something to me like, Can you believe it? In a half hour we're done. And I said, in a half hour, I'd still be putting on my first layer of Glick makeup. How do you explain why my approach to a talk show took 16 hours a day and his was done in a half hour? I think it's just because I don't know how to do what Dennis could do.

[31:13] Laura Camien: And this is sort of how I feel.

[31:15] Susan Blackwell: I have a Steve Pasquale's great example. Somebody who memorizes super quickly and can just like taking that information really quickly, takes direction really quickly, and can just like beep. I don't memorize quickly, so that takes me longer, first off. And I just don't think I think it takes me longer to metabolize information. And so I will never work as fast as Steve Pasquale, which might be why he's built for speed, he's built for film and TV, and I'm built for something else. But he was saying the counter to that is there is a quality of investigation that he may forego that I may, because it takes me longer, I might get to, you know, sort of mess around with that he may not get to because he can work so quickly. So who knows? Different brains, different people.

[32:07] Susan Blackwell: Um, Vulture journalist David Marcese recounted to Martin Short a conversation he had with his friend. David's friend said, Martin Short is always on. And Martin Short replied, Your friend's comment is a comment from someone who doesn't understand show business. When you see me, you're seeing me in a situation where I'm there to entertain. If you catch me energized and doing jokes with Johnny Carson and assume that's also what I'm like at two in the morning, it's like saying, Boy, I bet that surgeon's got a scalpel in his hand 24-7. And there's something about that where I'm like, Beyoncé is not Sasha Fierce when she's at home with her makeup off and just trying to get like make sure that have the kids been fed. And yeah, they are in peak performance mode.

[32:50] Laura Camien: That's right.

[32:50] Susan Blackwell: They are putting all of this energy into peak performance mode, and it is something heightened that they're doing.

[32:55] Laura Camien: For sure.

[32:56] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, for sure. Um, jumping. Okay. In a 60 Minutes interview with Steve Croft, Will Smith said, I've never really viewed myself as particularly talented. I viewed myself as slightly above average in talent. And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic. You know, while the other guy's sleeping, I'm working. While the other guy's eating, I'm working. While the other guy's making love, I mean, I'm making love too, but I'm working really hard at it. I see it when I watch world championship surfers. I see it when I watch great improvisers who have put in their 10,000 hours. That's right. Not rehearsing specifically what words they're gonna say, but uh rehearsing the game, like understanding the game and rehearsing flow state, essentially.

[33:45] Laura Camien: I watch Martin Short videos when I want to be lifted up. I do. I have a I um follow hashtag Jiminy Glick on my Instagram because I love regular doses of Martin Short. When I see Beyoncé or those cheerleaders from Navarro College, Camien, nothing will make me cry faster. If you would like to make me cry, just put on a tape of like the Navarro Cheer Squad at championships. I burst into tears.

[34:15] Laura Camien: Really?

[34:16] Susan Blackwell: Yes, and it's partially because the work is so unbelievably remarkable, but it's also because I've peeked behind the curtain and I've seen how much time, how much work, how much of themselves and how much preparation these people have devoted to these extraordinary feats. As I've aged, as I said, I've gotten more attuned with that sweet spot for me between preparation and then release or ease or play or flow when it comes to work and then performance. I remember when I was in college, this uh slightly older actor named Lynn said, I never heard it before. She said, When you act, you want to prepare like you're going on a trip, and you pack very carefully and you make sure you have everything you need.

And then when it's time to leave on the trip, you leave your suitcase at the door. She was using language to try to capture what it's like to do all of that planning and all of that preparation and then let it go. And I think it is so true for all sorts of performative things, certainly like acting, public speaking, singing, stand-up comedy, dance, cheerleading. And I also think it's true in the mastery of all sorts of forms painting, writing, photography, composing, surfing, improv. You work to master the craft, and then you like let it rip.

[35:41] Susan Blackwell: And when we get tired, because we do get tired, our we're little Beyoncés. We can we can broadcast news, cry it out, but after we've gotten it out of our system, I know because I've seen it, I know we can work harder because we've been sparked by Martin Short and by Beyoncé Knowles and by Jerry. And Jerry and Jerry. And that is my spark.

[36:07] Laura Camien: Suze, that's a good spark.

[36:11] Susan Blackwell: Preparation.

[36:12] Laura Camien: Preparation.

[36:14] Susan Blackwell: And if we can embrace it and enjoy it as part of the process as well, which can sometimes be hard.

[36:21] Laura Camien: Let's be free.

[36:23] Susan Blackwell: It can be like fucking, I just want to watch some TV tonight. Or I just want to get to the yummy goodness of the event of the championships. But you don't get to the championships unless you do the 10,000 hours of preparation.

[36:38] Laura Camien: It's so true.

[36:40] Susan Blackwell: You just don't. And you don't get to that level, and you don't see the amount of success.

[36:45] Laura Camien: I have to watch cheer.

[36:47] Susan Blackwell: Okay.

[36:47] Laura Camien: Or not.

[36:48] Susan Blackwell: No, I will say this. Nathan, Nathan had a heart, it mates stressed him out because you never there's a lot of what I'll call for lack of a better term, jump scares because it can be a very mundane world in the day of the life of cheer. And then all of a sudden something happens. So it's extraordinary.

[37:07] Laura Camien: Okay.

[37:08] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. No, I think I'm gonna enjoy it.

[37:10] Laura Camien: I do too.

[37:11] Susan Blackwell: I'll probably once I turn it on. Like, I feel like I need a stretch of time because I think it's gonna be a binge.

[37:16] Laura Camien: You know, you know what I'm gonna enjoy now?

[37:18] Susan Blackwell: What?

[37:19] Laura Camien: A little break.

[37:19] Susan Blackwell: Ah, a little break.

[37:21] Laura Camien: That was awesome.

[37:25] Susan Blackwell: And we're back. You know, there's one something I wanted to say that I think is relevant to this conversation and my spark of preparation, which is um Beyoncé talked about in one of the documentaries, she talked about how she used to sh love it, beg for people to make her angry right before showtime because she would just she said she would just go out in front of the audience and be like machine gun. You know, Sasha Fierce, get out. And I think she does all of that preparation, and then she wants something to just like spark to light it up and to get into that flow state, like however it's you know, however, it's ignited.

[38:06] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[38:06] Laura Camien: That's I thought that was interesting to make to switch gears is super important that if you live in that preparation space, that's where my acting teachers were like, you look like you're working really hard, and we see all of the work. We see all that preparation, but leave your bags at the door. Leave your bags at the door. That's basically what she's doing when it's like shift me into a different mindset. Make me bad, make me mad.

[38:30] Susan Blackwell: But you know what is interesting when we do a lot of like uh coaching work or workshops with people, yeah. Um, there's a mindset of like I'm working on this thing, and they're talking about it and uh you know, at peace with it, and it's a certain tone. And then you might ask, like, what was the original spark? What led you to here? And in some cases, they start talking about something that fired them up and they were so freaking angry about it, and they suddenly like come to life and you're like, now that's that energy. Can you use that energy into your creative process? But somehow they're you know, not making the connection that that too can feed into the work in a productive way.

[39:19] Susan Blackwell: And it sounds like super productive Beyoncé is channeling it because it's raw material and it's fuel, it's fuel both.

[39:27] Laura Camien: Do you have a spark for me?

[39:28] Susan Blackwell: I do. I think you might be right about the yin and the yang of this episode. There's something about your description that made me think maybe so, but well, I want to start by asking you can you remember like when was the last time you were really truly bored?

[39:46] Laura Camien: Oh, what a good question.

[39:51] Susan Blackwell: Uh no, I couldn't either.

[39:54] Laura Camien: No, I could not either. I I racked my brain and I was like, I think the last time I uh I felt something akin to boredom was childhood. Like for me, it's like before the cell phone.

[40:07] Susan Blackwell: Good question.

[40:08] Laura Camien: Maybe sitting at the DMV without a book or anything to read like 15 years ago, maybe.

[40:15] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah, like those would be boring.

[40:17] Laura Camien: I guess you know what? There are moments where I try to put my cell phone away and challenge myself to be present. Uh-huh. And um, sometimes before something captures my curiosity, there's a moment. My mind is hunting momentarily because it is almost feels intolerable at this point because we always have our magic computer friend in our pocket.

[40:41] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[40:42] Laura Camien: But that's right. It's um it's momentary. And if I'm honest with myself, breaking up with your cell phone, I seek to escape it so as quickly as possible.

[40:52] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[40:53] Laura Camien: Yeah, that's what I want to talk about today.

[40:55] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that that space.

[40:56] Laura Camien: That space.

[40:58] Susan Blackwell: Well, so like I think when I reflect on this, like as a kid, of course, like since we were born before the turn of the century. I like to say that now. Man, I can't. Turn of this century. Um like boredom to me felt like there's nothing good on TV.

[41:19] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[41:20] Susan Blackwell: Because there were only like five channels. There's no one in the neighborhood to play with. Um, and my mind is like too active to read. I just couldn't like connect with a book sometimes. And that that to me, like epitomizes boredom. But now I feel like I don't know if I can be bored because it seems like there's always something that I need to respond to or to-do list or thoughts of how I'll tackle all the things I need to do, or there's always engagement, brain engagement and stimulus, the music and a podcast and noise and television and screens and you know, all of that. Like I feel now like I actually crave the idea of letting my mind rest a little bit.

[42:03] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[42:03] Susan Blackwell: But if that happened, I don't know that I would call it bored. Does that make sense?

[42:09] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[42:09] Susan Blackwell: So I was sparked by an article that I came across this week in Stylist by Mina Alexander, and it got me thinking. The article was called The Science of Boredom. When did we lose the ability to be bored? And I think it struck me because it hadn't occurred to me that we had, quote, lost the ability to be bored.

[42:30] Laura Camien: And it certainly didn't occur to me that that might not be a good thing. So here I am, sparked by this article. And I'm not sure yet, like in a good way, in a bad way, in a weird way. Don't know if I'm in agreement or disagreement with investigators. Let's investigate. So obviously, we're living in a time when whether we're aware of it or not, we are conditioned to avoid feeling bored. Whether it's to reach for our phones, that's the most obvious one, or turn on the TV, but there's stimulus everywhere. Even the world around us now is built to protect us from nothingness. In 2013, the BBC reported that it was found that buttons at those like pedestrian crossings really serve no purpose than just to give us the feeling that we're doing something, like we have some control over something. We're just pushing the button. I think in some cases that may be true, and in some cases they do activate. They may, they may have updated those, yeah.

[43:55] Susan Blackwell: Oh my gosh. But what exactly is boredom? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word first appeared in Charles Dickens' Victorian saga Bleak House. Really? Yep. And that was published in 1853. Tolstoy described it in Anna Karenina as quote, a desire for desires, which I really love. A desire for desires. So is it the absence of stimulation? A desire for desire. A desire for desire. And the lead character is named Desires Thibodeau. So is boredom the absence of stimulation? Is it the brain with nothing to do? Um, another definition of boredom is the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest. Dr. John Eastwood, a psychology professor who runs a boredom lab at York University in Canada, defines it as quote, the uncomfortable feeling of wanting but being unable to engage in satisfying activity.

Today, psychologists consider it to be one of the most understudied emotions there is. And I don't know that more funding is gonna flow to it because there is an abundance of readily available stimulation.

[45:18] Laura Camien: That's right. Right? That's right. It's it's something that people experience less now with screens. That's right. Um, I just have to interject for a moment to share with you. I'm sparked by this. Have I ever showed you? I think I might have posted this photograph on my Instagram, but I did not post the accompanying sound recording. I was on the A-train. I was headed downtown or uptown. The A-train is a longer train ride if you're going, say, from Inwood to Midtown Manhattan. And there was a I was headed uptown. There was a little girl. She had clearly, she and her parents had come from some sort of an event for kids. Her face was painted in it was like beautifully done. It was like high-end face painting, if that's a thing, high quality face painting.

And she had clearly just come from this event. And she was just like a wriggly mess. And over and over again, she just kept saying, I'm bored. I'm hungry. I'm bored. I'm hungry. On a long enough on a loop that I could get out my phone, activate the recorder, record a long passage of her doing this song, essentially, and then take a series of photographs of her. And I was holding my phone pretty discreetly, but I captured one where she totally is side-eyeing my camera. And I was like, this, I love this photo. I was like, you are, I feel like you, I made up a story. This is a story I made up that she had been catered to all day. All day. This day had been designed around catering to her. Yes. And the refrain still I'm bored.

I'm hungry on an endless loop. But because I'm someone who when I could be annoyed by that, instead, I was like, I'm gonna see if I can grab a little piece of art out of this. I love it. Don't know what I'll make with it. Apparently, it was all headed towards this moment. All towards the spark file podcast. Yes, she's our mascot for this episode. I'm bored. I'm tired. I'm hungry. Yes. We're gonna use her picture as the picture. This episode. Absolutely. She's our mascot. Well, yeah. Well, we'll see when we finish if she still is. But right now, she is expressing that. Um, that is sorry to interrupt.

[48:00] Susan Blackwell: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I just like don't even know what to say. There's a 20,000 things I want to say about that. I will hold my tongue about most of them, but um I think that the real thing that these psychologists are getting to is like it is an actual mental state, and it has to do with the desire, like desperately wanting to do something, but nothing in particular. And the unoccupied mind, like the issue of whether or not what we're doing can capture our cognitive uh interest. Yeah, does that make sense? Yeah, and and that dissonance, I guess, like the desire, but the inability to have it is frustrating. This Dr. Eastwood says we're wired to want to engage with the world, exercise our abilities, and realize our potential to stop stagnating as a species.

So we've evolved to find the state of being unoccupied quite averse. I feel this. I mean, occasionally I'll have like a occasionally I'll have a little tiny breath of what could potentially be free time. Yeah. And uh sometimes it's it triggers some anxiety or fear about like, oh, well, I need to go back to my to-do list. I need to go look at my table of things that need to be mentored or whatever. Must be productive. Must be productive. It's a constant need to be able to do that. Must be productive. But you're saying that there's like a biological imperative that we have in order to preserve the species.

[49:45] Laura Camien: Well, he is. Dr. Eastwood is saying that that's why he he's speculating that is why it has become such an adverse kind of like relationship with it. Interesting. So yeah, I don't know. This article really intrigued me. Um, partly because like I don't fear boredom. Um, but I also didn't see it as a positive. So this this, you know, what we'll get into really enlightened me in a way. Yeah. Um, they also talk about people uh like oftentimes boredom is is when we're alone, like can come upon us when we're alone. Wow. And that there are people who you know truly don't like being alone. They did a study in 2014 at the University of Virginia, and they found that people typically did not enjoy spending six to fifteen minutes in a room by themselves. Many people, in fact, most of the people preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of just being alone with their thoughts.

[50:52] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, that sounds about right. Which I'm like, that amazes me because like I guess also as I've gotten older, like I don't dislike being alone, but I do know people who very much dislike it. And if possible, will fill their schedule. That's sort of akin, like a cousin to like some people who don't like there to be silent and must fill it. And I I am intrigued by this concept. So Bruce Daisley, author of The Joy of Work, is a big advocate of the theory that an unoccupied mind is a fertile one. In our frantic lives and our hectic offices, many of us just don't have any space for all these moments where our minds wander and we end up a million miles away. But there's so much evidence that our brains are at their most creative and prolific when they're in that state. So then I was like, oh, so you're waiting, you're saying that there's some like we actually should want this state if possible.

[51:56] Laura Camien: This reminds me, as you're describing it, this reminds me of uh my meditation practice. Yes. And setting aside two periods of time each day to essentially it's it's structured mind wandering. That's right. I'm gonna get a little bit into that because they do say they do clarify that it's like uh similar and of uh relation to um meditation, but even less structure, even less structure, yeah. So uh Daisley said that giving ourselves a chance to be bored was the key to sparking brilliant ideas. Apparently, Bill Gates, arguably, one of the world's greatest minds, knew the power of nothingness when he was the head of Microsoft. He would take himself on what he called think weeks twice a year, where he would go away, unplug, have nothing on his schedule, and nothing to do except let himself think.

Wow. Now that was an idea I really liked. That's radical. I was like, whoa. It also reminds me of how to break up your cell phone and the discomfort of unplugging for even two days, two hours. You know what I mean? That's right. And it doesn't sound like his was like, um, I can't look at my phone, but maybe look at your phone in the morning and look at it at the end of the day. But long stretches of time where he allowed himself to think. I'm into this and do nothing.

[53:24] Laura Camien: So at its core, boredom is quote, a search for neural stimulation that isn't satisfied. Dr. Sandy Mann says, if we can't find that, our mind will create it. As demonstrated by the new study and plenty of others before it, boredom can enable creativity and problem solving by allowing the mind to wander and daydream. There's no other way of getting that stimulation, so you have to go into your head, Mann says. You may be surprised with what you come up come up with when you do. So Dr. Mann is the author of The Science of Boredom. She conducted one of the defining studies behind the link between a state of boredom and creativity. She asked two groups to two groups of people to think up as many different uses for like a pair of plastic cups as they could.

But one group was giving a mind-numbing task of like copying from the phone book first, like super boredom. And the study found that the boredom induced by the passive activity resulted in a daydreaming state that helped them come up with way more ideas afterwards. Doing nothing doing nothing stimulates the creative juices, which means you can problem solve and learn how to engage yourself, says Mann. It's also stress releasing because you come up with solutions to things that have been worrying you.

[54:44] Susan Blackwell: This reminds me of the benefits of like the spark might be a small relation to puzzle piece. Yeah. And you know, doing things like that or like knitting, where sometimes you go long stretches in like repetitive motion, but your mind is going elsewhere on little trips. I think you're right. I think something here. So as a child, and especially for those of us who didn't have screens growing up, like long stretches of free time really encouraged imaginative play. And for us, like creative creating entire worlds in our heads, or making up new games with specific and complicated rules like the kids in our neighborhood. We were, you know, we were totally into that and didn't have anything else to entertain ourselves with.

[55:39] Laura Camien: The author of How to Be Bored, Eva Hoffman, a former editor of the New York Times, really believes boredom is key to getting in touch with our true selves. In order for us to understand what we want or what we enjoy, we need to spend some time with ourselves. And I agree with that. Like, I feel like if we're always being stimulated from the outside, it's hard to know sometimes what I really think. Yeah. Um, yes, what I really want. You know, and frankly, like I just sometimes have to be alone to like let it settle and think it out. Um, but it is a lot about like pushing through this uncomfortable moment that we've talked about. Being alone seems to be a big barrier for people. Dr. Mann conducted another study in which people were asked to leave their phones behind, step into an empty, soundproof room. She said, obviously, a lot of people ran screaming. But those who managed to stay said they found it pleasant after a while.

[56:39] Laura Camien: They went through a pain barrier of boredom and then said it felt like a respite, like having a hot bath.

[56:45] Laura Camien: And then I read this great article in The Atlantic called The Virtues of Isolation by Brent Crane.

[56:52] Laura Camien: And it pointed out of course we have a negative association with being alone.

[56:57] Laura Camien: Like humans have long stigmatized solitude.

[57:01] Laura Camien: It has been considered an inconvenience, something to avoid, a punishment, um, a realm of like loners.

[57:10] Laura Camien: In prison, we put people in solitude.

[57:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[57:13] Laura Camien: As kids, we might get time out where we have to spend time alone because we've done something bad.

[57:18] Laura Camien: In fact, like children's first fears, according to Freud, typically relate to darkness and solitude.

[57:25] Laura Camien: So of course we learn to fear being alone or at least learn to that it's undesirable that we don't want to spend time alone.

[57:35] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[57:36] Laura Camien: Um so it makes sense that we avoid it in the, you know, in being alone.

[57:42] Laura Camien: But another element to our avoidance of boredom is that it can hit us when we're at work.

[57:51] Laura Camien: And actually, that's even more inappropriate, right?

[57:55] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[57:55] Laura Camien: Like it just doesn't seem acceptable that I could be getting paid to be here and be seen feeling bored.

[58:01] Susan Blackwell: I think I just remembered the last time I was truly bored.

[58:05] Laura Camien: It was like it could be a horse work.

[58:07] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[58:07] Laura Camien: Right?

[58:08] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[58:09] Laura Camien: That's right.

[58:11] Laura Camien: Um obviously it doesn't seem like it's okay to look idle when we're being paid for our time, but actually taking a moment to let your mind wander might actually help you solve the problem that you're trying to come up with.

[58:25] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, you know, or an issue you've been working on.

[58:30] Laura Camien: Dr. Mann says a lot of constant frenetic activity in the workplace is to show that we're busy.

[58:37] Susan Blackwell: Because busy, being busy is coming.

[58:41] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[58:42] Susan Blackwell: It's so true.

[58:43] Laura Camien: Being busy is what makes you valuable.

[58:47] Susan Blackwell: But if we're able to be a bit more thoughtful at work, then we can become more productive in the long run.

[58:53] Laura Camien: Wow.

[58:54] Susan Blackwell: And a cultural shift is needed for that.

[58:56] Laura Camien: I mean, first of all, I should recognize I think I've been this way.

[58:59] Susan Blackwell: I think for a good decade in my life, I was busy, busy, busy, busy.

[59:03] Laura Camien: You know, I was that.

[59:03] Susan Blackwell: So I want to, for all the people who may have known me during that time, I apologize.

[59:09] Susan Blackwell: It's effing annoying.

[59:11] Susan Blackwell: And it's not actually productive or constructive.

[59:15] Susan Blackwell: It's just busy.

[59:29] Laura Camien: But if you could actually stop doing anything for just a little while, you might come up with some of the answers you're looking for.

[59:29] Laura Camien: You might come up with the plan you've been thinking about.

[59:41] Laura Camien: It's not all in keeping yourself busy all the time.

[59:46] Laura Camien: Now there is an argument that has been made about in the doing of things, that Chuck Close quote about like the doing of things.

[59:55] Laura Camien: It's it's that one that's like inspiration is for amateurs, the rest of us just show up and get to work.

[1:00:00] Susan Blackwell: That's right with the knowledge that by like the doing in the making, it doors and windows will fly open that would not have unless we were engaged in the doing in the making.

[1:00:08] Susan Blackwell: That's not an exact quote.

[1:00:09] Susan Blackwell: But I do relate to that, and I have observed in myself how that is true.

[1:00:15] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:00:16] Laura Camien: And I also back to the meditation thing, have been, I will tell you.

[1:00:22] Laura Camien: So for instance, uh a steep learning curve that I navigated recently was learning how to edit sound for the podcast.

[1:00:28] Laura Camien: And there will be times when I was stumped.

[1:00:31] Laura Camien: I was stymied by something about this complex professional sound editing software that I could not figure out how to make it work.

[1:00:39] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:00:40] Laura Camien: And it was going to prevent the episode from happening.

[1:00:42] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[1:00:43] Laura Camien: And I would go and meditate and let my little mind wander in a structured sort of setting.

[1:00:50] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:00:51] Laura Camien: Very, very loose wandering.

[1:00:53] Laura Camien: And the solution would pop up.

[1:00:55] Susan Blackwell: There's a reason for that, Susan.

[1:00:57] Susan Blackwell: And that is because when we are in um like problem solving mode, we're using like the frontal lobe of our brain.

[1:01:04] Laura Camien: Okay.

[1:01:05] Susan Blackwell: We're super focused.

[1:01:07] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:01:07] Susan Blackwell: Hyper focused.

[1:01:09] Susan Blackwell: And we feel like we're really working on something.

[1:01:13] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:01:14] Susan Blackwell: But the problem is your brain in that function is scanning familiar territory.

[1:01:22] Susan Blackwell: You're going through all problem solving that you've done in the past.

[1:01:26] Susan Blackwell: Which may not be the answer to this problem.

[1:01:28] Susan Blackwell: So it's clicking through the archives, the database all in the frontal lobe.

[1:01:34] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:01:35] Laura Camien: This quote unquote boredom, letting your mind wander uses a different part of the brain, and it actually is scanning subconscious thoughts and ideas that could be the answer to your problem.

[1:01:48] Susan Blackwell: That's how we get Eureka moments.

[1:01:50] Susan Blackwell: That's how we get the wait a minute.

[1:01:52] Susan Blackwell: I was at my computer for 10 hours and I couldn't solve this, but I got up to make a sandwich or take a shower, and suddenly like there's my idea that comes or an idea.

[1:02:03] Laura Camien: That's fantastic.

[1:02:04] Laura Camien: So there's a real reason for that.

[1:02:07] Laura Camien: I feel like we need Anthony Veniziali here to explain that to us.

[1:02:12] Susan Blackwell: I believe in you, baby.

[1:02:14] Laura Camien: And I do think that there is something to be said.

[1:02:16] Laura Camien: I don't want to jump your spark.

[1:02:17] Laura Camien: Tell me to fuck off.

[1:02:19] Susan Blackwell: But about having the presence of mind to be able to shift gears essentially and be like, okay, now I'm in making mode and I'm making, and now I'm I'm going into another gear, which is mind-wandering mode.

[1:02:37] Laura Camien: I think that's exactly it.

[1:02:39] Laura Camien: And I think that they're all saying to give yourself permission.

[1:02:42] Laura Camien: Like the hectic overactivity isn't healthy.

[1:02:46] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:02:47] Laura Camien: It doesn't make you more productive.

[1:02:48] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[1:02:49] Laura Camien: And giving yourself permission to just slow down and let your mind go in its own direction for a few minutes.

[1:02:55] Laura Camien: Um at any time.

[1:02:58] Susan Blackwell: You just need to let yourself do it.

[1:02:59] Laura Camien: To make this about us for a moment.

[1:03:01] Susan Blackwell: Of course.

[1:03:01] Laura Camien: We have talked about, and you just mentioned, and I was just saying to Nathan, this like within the last 48 hours.

[1:03:08] Laura Camien: I used to stay so busy.

[1:03:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:03:12] Laura Camien: Calendar booked morning.

[1:03:14] Laura Camien: Every new freaking moment night, every single day.

[1:03:17] Laura Camien: Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.

[1:03:19] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:03:20] Laura Camien: And it is only in the last few years that I have restructured my life so that there is less busyness.

[1:03:30] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[1:03:30] Laura Camien: And it is, is it just the aging process, or is it this restructuring?

[1:03:36] Laura Camien: Is it a combo platter of this and other factors?

[1:03:39] Laura Camien: That kind of for the first time in my life, I have been able to listen to what Bart Freundlich called those low voices.

[1:03:50] Susan Blackwell: But I've been able to hear what does Susan really want to speak about myself in third person?

[1:03:56] Susan Blackwell: What is what do I really want to say?

[1:04:00] Susan Blackwell: What do I want to make?

[1:04:01] Laura Camien: And I don't know.

[1:04:03] Laura Camien: I was bemoaning to you earlier today.

[1:04:05] Laura Camien: I wish I would have struck upon sort of this work earlier that we're doing, but I think it could only happen maybe at this level of maturation.

[1:04:15] Laura Camien: And also having a little more time to have heard the low voices.

[1:04:29] Susan Blackwell: And so, like it or not, I think culturally, we're all coming to this realization now.

[1:04:36] Susan Blackwell: Like these types of studies about boredom or about meditation or about mindfulness.

[1:04:42] Susan Blackwell: It's really been in the last say 10 years where these things have come to the surface culturally.

[1:04:49] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:04:49] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:04:49] Susan Blackwell: Some lucky people have been aware of them for a long time.

[1:04:54] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:04:55] Laura Camien: Um, and some also lucky people will get this information when they're 20, and maybe it will affect you know all of those decades of their life.

[1:05:04] Susan Blackwell: Um, but we're, you know, getting this information now.

[1:05:08] Susan Blackwell: And I so I do think it is a combo of being that having lived the years that we've lived, um having the information float to the surface culturally and be more um prevalent and acceptable now too.

[1:05:25] Laura Camien: I mean, uh, no one talked about self-care when we were hustling and working, you know, 14 minutes.

[1:05:31] Susan Blackwell: No one said those two words together.

[1:05:34] Laura Camien: Self-care, what?

[1:05:36] Susan Blackwell: Um, but now hopefully, because as a culture, we're we're all understanding how that can benefit us.

[1:05:44] Laura Camien: Um there'll be generations of people who who benefit from it, you know, at an earlier age.

[1:05:50] Susan Blackwell: And I'm glad for them.

[1:05:51] Laura Camien: I really am.

[1:05:52] Laura Camien: So the interesting thing, you were talking about meditation, they may clear all of them to say this they aren't talking specifically about meditation or yoga.

[1:06:03] Laura Camien: Those things are great and they have similar benefits, but they don't really qualify as boredom because they are doing something very specific and knowing that you are consciously doing it, maybe crossing it off the list, like I did my meditation for the morning, I did it for the evening, makes it feel less like indulgent because they're pointing out that we're still living in a society where just letting your mind wander, staring out the window for 20 minutes doesn't feel like that's okay.

[1:06:34] Susan Blackwell: Like we don't let ourselves do it because like we could have used that time more productively.

[1:06:38] Laura Camien: So admitting that you sat and stared into space for an hour seems less acceptable than saying I practiced you know, uh mindfulness or I um took a yoga class.

[1:06:51] Susan Blackwell: Also good, also good.

[1:06:52] Laura Camien: They're not saying those aren't good, they're just saying, like, can it be possible that it is okay for you not to do anything that you perceive as productive right now for just 20 minutes?

[1:07:04] Laura Camien: I can't remember if we've talked about this on the podcast or if I just have it in my spark file, literally, but stop me if you've heard this one.

[1:07:11] Laura Camien: Okay.

[1:07:11] Laura Camien: Have we talked about soft fascination?

[1:07:15] Susan Blackwell: I'm blowing my spark for another day, but um there's this new body of research that's it's it's coming, it's just emerging right now about soft fascination, and it has another name.

[1:07:29] Laura Camien: It's ART, it's something restorative therapy, something like that.

[1:07:33] Laura Camien: I can't remember.

[1:07:34] Laura Camien: And um, it is looking at nature, just like looking at nature or looking at a fire or looking at clouds past.

[1:07:45] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[1:07:45] Laura Camien: And they did a study.

[1:07:46] Laura Camien: I hope I don't have this in front of me, so I hope I'm not misquoting this terribly, but with like ER nurses, and they gave these trauma nurses a break.

[1:07:59] Laura Camien: And one set of nurses would like go out and like look, just look at the sky for 15 minutes and look and just sort of take in nature in some sort of way.

[1:08:08] Laura Camien: What they called soft fascination, which is just letting your mind wander while your eyes take in some sort of like watching water go by, yeah, a fire crackle on a fireplace.

[1:08:19] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:08:20] Laura Camien: And then the other set of nurses just got like a standard 15 minute break, and how much more healing and restorative the.

[1:08:28] Susan Blackwell: So this isn't exactly your spark, but I feel like it touches your mark, which is you add a little nature to the mix.

[1:08:36] Laura Camien: Yes, um, which can feel indulgent to people, I guess, or special, like it's a special treat.

[1:08:41] Susan Blackwell: Well, I think because it is I don't know, I think like it does um stimulate the brain in a in a soft way.

[1:08:49] Laura Camien: Like I think that's a really great um I don't know, it's a great name for it.

[1:08:53] Laura Camien: Soft fascination.

[1:08:54] Susan Blackwell: Um, but they are talking about like a purposefully tranquil activity like yoga doesn't meet the definition of boredom because it's an activity.

[1:09:08] Laura Camien: Yeah, it doesn't mean failing to find stimulation.

[1:09:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:09:12] Laura Camien: So trying and failing is the thing that's uh boredom.

[1:09:16] Laura Camien: So they say to tap into true boredom, they suggest picking an activity that requires little or no concentration, like walking a familiar route, but without music or a podcast.

[1:09:27] Susan Blackwell: Right?

[1:09:27] Laura Camien: This is challenging.

[1:09:28] Laura Camien: It's hard.

[1:09:29] Laura Camien: I'll be honest.

[1:09:29] Laura Camien: Because that, right?

[1:09:30] Susan Blackwell: Your response to that was exactly mine.

[1:09:32] Laura Camien: I was like, oh now I get it.

[1:09:35] Laura Camien: I avoid that.

[1:09:36] Laura Camien: Like I like to walk, but damn it if I don't have my headphones.

[1:09:40] Susan Blackwell: I'm like, oh no, what I'm hearing about is there is potential.

[1:09:45] Laura Camien: We've been like avoiding it, but there is potential benefit from it.

[1:09:53] Susan Blackwell: Gold and then their heels because you may get treats.

[1:09:58] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:09:59] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:09:59] Laura Camien: Maybe for the colour.

[1:10:00] Susan Blackwell: You can just get, you know, past that initial barrier of discomfort.

[1:10:04] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:10:05] Laura Camien: Which why does that seem like such a recurring theme?

[1:10:07] Susan Blackwell: I feel like that comes up so much more in my life now.

[1:10:10] Laura Camien: I've just like, I feel like we've had this conversation today already.

[1:10:12] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:10:13] Laura Camien: If you're like, just get through that like five minutes of just sitting down to write and trying to get yourself into flow.

[1:10:19] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[1:10:19] Laura Camien: Yep.

[1:10:19] Laura Camien: It's so interesting.

[1:10:21] Laura Camien: Um, so obviously it uh it is essential to unplug.

[1:10:25] Susan Blackwell: Um we talk about that a lot too.

[1:10:28] Laura Camien: Um, but Dr. Mann says our cultural attachment to our phones is paradoxically both destroying our ability to be bored and preventing us from ever being truly entertained.

[1:10:41] Susan Blackwell: So we're existing in a state of neither.

[1:10:44] Susan Blackwell: So these experts are all really saying that the desire to know ourselves and to quiet our minds can be achieved by allowing ourselves to embrace tedium. And this is where I got a little tickled. Reading this article also introduced me to the most delightful group of people, the Dull Men's Club. This group's dedicated to celebrating the ordinary. They're a group of guys who celebrate such mindless hobbies as composting, organizing bookshelves. I mean, I promptly went and found them. Like I follow them on Instagram now. Their website says Neil collects bricks, Kevin is a roundabout enthusiast. John runs the apostrophe protection society. Oh my god. Keith's actual job is watching paint dry. They are passionate about the everyday, unglamorous things in life.

They are dull and proud and urge the good ordinary men of the nation to go join them now. Whether you have a thing for pylons or rhubarb, reclaim and celebrate the ordinary. I just found that to be completely and totally delightful to celebrate the ordinary. Sparks are everywhere.

[1:12:01] Susan Blackwell: Do you have to be a man?

[1:12:04] Laura Camien: Well, I this is a British group.

[1:12:06] Susan Blackwell: I think we can write to them and ask.

[1:12:08] Laura Camien: Like perhaps, you know.

[1:12:09] Susan Blackwell: I don't want to join them, but uh, but I was I'm asking on your behalf.

[1:12:13] Laura Camien: I know.

[1:12:14] Susan Blackwell: I'm just curious.

[1:12:15] Laura Camien: Like, I don't know.

[1:12:15] Susan Blackwell: I don't know if they would let women in, but I just found it to be.

[1:12:22] Laura Camien: Sparks are everywhere. And I think that even some very just like beige sparks.

[1:12:30] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. No, but for real, because we spend our lives, I think, fantasizing about some future moment of glory as opposed to celebrating the things that you do every day that do feel good. When you organize a bookshelf or create a creative space for yourself, like, is that something that, you know, are you gonna win a big award for it and have your Oscar speech for that? No, but it feels really good. It's something that benefited you, you know, as you did it and will benefit you afterwards. I just think I also think a lot of things that they do require intelligence, which I personally feel like we value less and less in this age. So they seem like a bunch of really interesting human beings. And then that led me to the annual boring conference, which takes place in London.

[1:13:26] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[1:13:27] Susan Blackwell: This is a one-day celebration of the mundane, the ordinary, the obvious, and the overlooked. The subjects that they talk about are often considered trivial and pointless, but when examined more closely, reveal themselves to be deeply fascinating. Tickets to this conference sell out. Topics of the presentations have included the inner workings of inkjet printers, the similarities between countries' national anthems, sneezing, the television program Antiques Road Trip, sounds made by vending machines, and Nathan might like this. The features of the Yamaha PSR 175 port a tune keyboard. You know, it sounds like the spark file.

[1:14:11] Laura Camien: Okay.

[1:14:12] Susan Blackwell: You're gonna be describing the schedule for the conference, and I was like, these all sound like they could be somebody's spark file. They're all sparks. Apparently the boring conference was created in response to the cancellation of the 2010 interesting conference, because that's what you do when the interesting conference is canceled. But I found it to be so delightful the idea of all of these ideas being explored and celebrated.

[1:14:47] Laura Camien: Well, when you I don't know, are you to what do we make of it?

[1:14:51] Susan Blackwell: Almost, but not quite. Okay, I'll save my what do we make of it. So I think these guys are onto something. Like a study in the journal of thinking and reasoning claims that we are better idea generators when we stop trying so hard and just let our mind wander. When this is what I was talking about before, when we use a methodical approach to problem solving, we activate the frontal lobe of our brain. And again, that's familiar territory. So what we're trying to do is relax, let our mind wander. Get this mullet part working. Party in the back, baby. It basically expands your scope of thoughts.

[1:15:26] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:15:26] Susan Blackwell: Like you're using all of your brain.

[1:15:28] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:15:29] Susan Blackwell: So the takeaway to me is that some of the things that we might judge ourselves for, like doing nothing or wasting time or not achieving anything today, might actually be the best way to get into the creative mindset. I think about getting out of the way of our brains and letting our brains sort it out, just like it puzzle piece, you know.

[1:15:51] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:15:52] Susan Blackwell: Aaron Sorkin famously installed a shower unit in his office because for him, he believes his best ideas come in the shower.

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

[1:16:01] Susan Blackwell: He showers six to eight times a day. It's, I think it's also in the artist's way, like that's a thing. And some people might say, like, what a waste of time. Like, why are you showering again? No, he's clearing his mind, the water and resetting pity pat.

[1:16:16] Laura Camien: Yes, that's right.

[1:16:17] Susan Blackwell: So just I think, in terms of what do we make of it, maybe allow yourself to believe that being unproductive for a little while or being alone and quiet can actually be quite useful. Give yourself permission to do nothing. Trust that your brain is working on that creative solution that you've been looking for. I don't know. Maybe I haven't been allowing myself to be bored, and perhaps I should be a little bit more.

[1:16:44] Laura Camien: Yeah, like a little time with an idle mind might make some space for some creativity.

[1:16:51] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that is a good spark. What do we make of it, Cam?

[1:16:55] Laura Camien: What do we make of it?

[1:16:57] Susan Blackwell: We make um, I feel like with all that showering, Aaron Sorkin's skin is a little dried out.

[1:17:01] Laura Camien: So we make a branded Aaron Sorkin's skin moisturizer.

[1:17:05] Susan Blackwell: You are on fire today. For real, I don't can't remember what I've said in real life and what I've said on this podcast, but one of the things that I really take away from this conversation is something I have been trying to institute and have not been doing a great job of, but this helps me underscore it, which is I sit down and start working like right off the bat, and I work all the way through, all the way through, all the way through until it's time to like meditate, have dinner. And I may even go back and work some more. Maybe not, but maybe I will. And I'm trying to rock a combo platter of what you're talking about, which is just letting my mind off the leash a little bit and letting it wander, slash soft fascination.

[1:17:53] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:17:53] Susan Blackwell: So the prescription I've written for myself, which I have not been doing great at, is to simply remember to stand up at least one time during the day.

[1:18:04] Laura Camien: Yes.

[1:18:04] Susan Blackwell: Maybe it's when I'm on from my little office on the way to refill my water up or something in the kitchen, and look cast my eyes out to the sky. Just look at the sky, look at the view, look at clouds passing by, look at fog rolling in, look at nature. That's it. And I forget to do it. And my days are very full. I have a big to-do list, don't we all? And so I forget to do it. But this makes me want to, that's one thing we make of it is a commitment to carving out even miniature amounts of time to let the mind wander and trusting that I think this is tied for me to like a little bit of an addiction to workaholism.

[1:18:54] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:18:54] Susan Blackwell: And feeling like there's a negative connotation to letting my mind just relax and wander.

[1:19:01] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:19:02] Susan Blackwell: So there's that. Another thing, this is a question. This is a not what do we make of it? It goes back to Bill Gates, and I don't know if you'll have the answer or not, but I'm curious. He's a guy who gets some shit done. When he would go and take these week-long think week think weeks, would he bring books? Would he what were those days like? This is my question. Were those days I'm just going to go to my place in that I have built my tree house in the Redwoods, yeah, and like walk the trails, or do I get to read books that aren't directly related to my work that I've just been interested in? Or is it truly like I'm going to try to put myself into a space of boredom? Like what were I wonder how he structured that time?

[1:19:07] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[1:19:53] Susan Blackwell: I think, you know, I don't know the specifics of it, but I do think the spirit of it is that it's not scheduled in any way. And it isn't like I've brought four books I hope to get through. No.

[1:20:07] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:20:07] Susan Blackwell: It is to let the mind wander free freedom. And that might mean taking a walk. And that might mean reading a book, and it might mean taking a nap, and it might mean meditating, and it might mean just having, you know, one week where you let your mind do that. Because think about it, we don't ever, you know, when do we clear our minds out, let them relax for a minute? It's very rare.

[1:20:32] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:20:32] Susan Blackwell: For any length of time. You know, I do think it's good for us to do it once or twice a day if we can. But when I think about his version of it, I'm like, man, when's the last time? Because when I have vacations, we fill it with family time.

[1:20:47] Laura Camien: 100%.

[1:20:47] Susan Blackwell: No regrets. But days off, we fill it with activities that we don't get to do during the other days. Um but also yes to all those to-do lists and you know, maintaining relationships. But I will like tell the truth on myself and say that my mind wants to flee from this space that you are describing in your beautiful spark. And so even though I'm a meditator too, like I still do it, but you like a structured task.

[1:21:19] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:21:19] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. My meditation teacher Emily Fletcher, hi Emily, says, and this was a life-changing thing for me to hear these words in this order. Rest is an activity.

[1:21:31] Laura Camien: Oh rest is an activity.

[1:21:33] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. It counts as an activity, all you busy workaholics. So it's right. Make sure that you build the activity of rest.

[1:21:41] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:21:41] Susan Blackwell: And I'm going to go ahead and extrapolate further and say boredom is an activity.

[1:21:47] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:21:47] Susan Blackwell: It's good. And I think it's so, I think what I couldn't get over when I was reading the article was maybe my own like cringing every time they called it boredom. Like, do you have to call it boredom?

[1:21:57] Laura Camien: Like because I'm just not sexy branding.

[1:22:00] Susan Blackwell: And I'm just adverse to it. Like, right? I don't actually want to get bored. I don't want to be bored. I just when I hear a child on a train saying they're bored, I'm like, you annoy me.

[1:22:10] Laura Camien: I was really annoyed.

[1:22:12] Susan Blackwell: I was. I was deeply judgmental of that child. And I also was like, I want this is a spark for me.

[1:22:18] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:22:19] Susan Blackwell: And it was all leading to this moment. And I think that she after hearing the mascot.

[1:22:24] Laura Camien: Hearing the case you've made, still the mascot.

[1:22:28] Susan Blackwell: Word.

[1:22:28] Laura Camien: We'll take it.

[1:22:31] Susan Blackwell: Cammy.

[1:22:31] Laura Camien: Black.

[1:22:31] Susan Blackwell: That's great. That's gonna help me in my life. Oh and I also want to say what an amazing accidental. I don't plan this shit. The juxtaposition between like preparation, hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, and the need.

[1:22:49] Laura Camien: Yeah, in order to be of service to our creativity, the need for boredom.

[1:22:54] Susan Blackwell: That's right. That you have to take a few moments and let your mind, your mind just wants to help you. Let it help you. Look how the universe brought our sparks together.

[1:23:05] Laura Camien: Wow.

[1:23:05] Susan Blackwell: I love it. I guess that's it. We hope that this put another bunch of sparks in your file. If there is 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, won't you email us at the sparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We will even happily take your feedback. But you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you have taken recently.

[1:23:31] Laura Camien: And be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcast.

[1:23:34] Susan Blackwell: Subscribe, rate, five-star review it. If you like this podcast, share it with people that you love. If you didn't like it, I think you're crazy.

[1:23:43] Laura Camien: I fucking love this pot.

[1:23:44] Susan Blackwell: Was it profanity to the problem?

[1:23:45] Laura Camien: Oh fuck.

[1:23:46] Susan Blackwell: Oh sorry.

[1:23:47] Laura Camien: Oh fuck.

[1:23:49] Susan Blackwell: 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. It's your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame.

[1:24:01] Laura Camien: You gotta bind it.

[1:24:03] Susan Blackwell: You gotta hand lettered signed it.

[1:24:05] Laura Camien: You gotta do like Angelica Schuyler and rewind it.

[1:24:10] Susan Blackwell: That's awesome.

[1:24:11] Laura Camien: You gotta take it and make it.

[1:24:15] Susan Blackwell: Bye bye.

[1:24:20] Laura Camien: What that was.

[1:24:22] Susan Blackwell: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in the spark files. Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[1:24:35] Laura Camien: I pump it in the spark fire.

[1:24:38] Susan Blackwell: Spar fire.

[1:24:39] Laura Camien: I jump into my spark files.

[1:24:44] Susan Blackwell: Let's open up the spark fire.