This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:30] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell.

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

[0:46] Susan Blackwell: And we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

[0:51] Laura Camien: Know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[0:58] Susan Blackwell: But hold the phone. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a Spark File?

[1:03] Laura Camien: A Spark File is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:10] Susan Blackwell: Every episode, we're going to reach into our very own Spark Files and exchange some sparks. And from time to time, we're going to talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:19] Laura Camien: And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of those tasty sparks of inspiration and make something of your own.

[1:27] Susan Blackwell: So without further ado, let's open up the Spark File.

[1:33] Laura Camien: Hi Susan Blackwell.

[1:34] Susan Blackwell: Hi Laura Camien. It's good to see you.

[1:35] Laura Camien: Welcome to the podcast we make together. I'm so happy to see you.

[1:42] Susan Blackwell: What's going on over there?

[1:44] Laura Camien: Susan, we are full tilt moving forward with our next cohort of Blaze and we start tomorrow. T minus 24 hours and counting.

[1:54] Susan Blackwell: T minus 24 hours and every cell in my body is just like popping off with excitement and trying to like be calm and cool right now. But I've never been very good at that. So let's not pretend. I'm just going to be bouncing off the walls.

[2:09] Laura Camien: We get everybody together. This cohort is like shaping up to be the, just again, how extraordinary people come together for the Spark File cohorts. I feel very lucky. I'm very excited. All different kinds of artists at all different stages of their creative careers.

[2:30] Susan Blackwell: 100%. From, you know, people who are seeking to bring shape and meaning and structure and anti-anxiety to their life and all the way to people who are really seasoned, well-established creatives who are maybe trying something new for the first time, getting their creativity back in focus.

[2:55] Laura Camien: The thing that I love about Blaze, this course in creativity, is that it gives people a chance to both exercise their creativity and self-expression. You are asked at regular intervals to like really take the risk of sharing something creative, balanced with, we are providing you with delicious, nutritious curriculum to help work through some of the things that can be challenging to our creativity.

[3:27] Susan Blackwell: All of those blocks that people feel, honestly, anything from imposter syndrome, resistance, procrastination.

[3:35] Laura Camien: Perfectionism.

[3:36] Susan Blackwell: Perfectionism. Tools to deal with all of that. When you're in an environment where every single person there understands, has felt, and is feeling everything associated with taking a creative risk and what it means to be in the arena versus standing by and commenting on others who are doing the work. These are a cohort of people who are ready to be in the arena and it's so thrilling.

[4:03] Laura Camien: And some of them are people who are almost ready, but they're just challenging themselves to take a step. They're like, I don't know if I'm ready. But they're taking the leap. They're taking the risk.

[4:12] Susan Blackwell: It's the softest place to land.

[4:14] Laura Camien: It truly is. It is the kindest. We are not cool, but we are very kind, very encouraging. We are creative weirdos.

[4:23] Susan Blackwell: We learned last week, we're easy criers.

[4:26] Laura Camien: We're easy criers, but we get shit done. And that's the thing that I'm really proud of. All of those things may be true. And I know how to get a thing out and into the world. And we're excited to help people do that.

[4:41] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. All right. Let's get into a little sparkage today.

[4:43] Laura Camien: I believe that I'm sparking you.

[4:46] Susan Blackwell: Listen, I am psyched. I'm going to sit here and just take it in and be inspired. That's what I'm going to do.

[4:55] Susan Blackwell: This spark has been kind of a long time in the making, Laura. I went back in, I don't know if I told you this, I went in and I reread my entire digital spark file.

[5:09] Laura Camien: Whoa. It has to be massive.

[5:12] Susan Blackwell: It's massive. It is so big. And a lot of it just looks like a link to this, a link to that, a passage. But I mean, it wasn't a small thing. You put yours in a Google Doc, is that right?

[5:27] Laura Camien: Google Doc.

[5:28] Susan Blackwell: It's a Google Doc that is just, it keeps going and going and going. But I was like, let me go back and let me look and see if I've missed any gems. And this is actually a result of that scan.

[5:45] Laura Camien: That's fun.

[5:46] Susan Blackwell: Today's spark is all about words I love.

[5:51] Laura Camien: Ooh, I love this already.

[5:56] Susan Blackwell: Well, I mean, all through my spark file, I have just collected all of these words. Here's a word. Here's a word. If I go, oh my God, I put it in my spark file. So this is a survey of all these words I've collected over the years.

[6:13] Laura Camien: Oh my God, let me have it. I need a notepad.

[6:15] Susan Blackwell: First, I want to go back in time. When I was little, I loved words, even from the time I was little. And one word I remember really loving, I was in elementary school. I'm going to peg it around third grade, fourth grade. Laura, I loved the word fascism.

[6:35] Laura Camien: I did not know what it meant.

[6:37] Susan Blackwell: Oh my God. I had no idea what it meant, but I was like, oh, it sounds so silky. It sounds so adult. Fascism. Like I, I remember calling.

[6:46] Laura Camien: That's a crazy thing to say right in this moment.

[6:50] Susan Blackwell: I know. I know, Laura. Knowing what I know now, it's insane, but I remember being like in fourth grade, I remember so clearly my best friend, Amy George, hi Amy George, was, we were standing in our, in my upstairs bedroom. I think she had like, there'd been a sleepover and I remember going, Amy, you're such a fascist and just being like, did Amy know what it meant?

[7:15] Laura Camien: We didn't know what we were talking about, but I, I thought it was so adult and I thought it was so fun. I just loved that word. I also thought the word chutney was laugh out loud, funny.

[7:26] Laura Camien: I thought that word was so funny.

[7:28] Susan Blackwell: Chutney's good.

[7:29] Laura Camien: Yeah. It's just good. It's, it's got some powerful consonants and yeah. I remember that my seventh grade bestie, Kami Martin, loved the word langoustinos.

[7:41] Susan Blackwell: What's langoustinos?

[7:42] Laura Camien: It's like a shellfish, langoustinos.

[7:46] Susan Blackwell: Never heard of it.

[7:48] Laura Camien: Never heard of it. She cut a little ad out from the paper where they were featured, they had langoustinos for sale at like the grocery store at the fish market and she had it on her bulletin board and I was like, Oh, she's like, I just like that word, langoustinos.

[8:04] Susan Blackwell: So Laura, I want to ask you and listeners, I want to ask you, do you have words that you love? Do you have words you loved when you were little? Do you have words that you love now?

[8:12] Laura Camien: Yes and yes. And I'm sure, and I'm going to, they'll come to me as we talk. The one that keeps coming to me right now, and I don't know why, but I love the word effervescent.

[8:22] Susan Blackwell: Oh, it's so good.

[8:26] Laura Camien: It's so bubbly.

[8:27] Susan Blackwell: Can I just add to that?

[8:30] Laura Camien: Yes.

[8:31] Susan Blackwell: Carbonation.

[8:32] Laura Camien: Carbonation.

[8:33] Susan Blackwell: I love illumination.

[8:34] Laura Camien: Oh, illumination's beautiful.

[8:35] Susan Blackwell: Becca Brunel, who's a member of the Spark File community is the first person I remember using that. She was like, when you think about your purpose in life, what makes you feel carbonated? And I was like, huh, carbonated, shake me up. It's so active. It's like carbonation is active. Like even when you're in your state of just being there, you're carbonated. Then if you get shaken up, you're like explosive, which is pretty neat.

[9:02] Susan Blackwell: I'm going to look straight into the camera lens and I'm going to say, if you're watching this on social media, or if you're listening to this podcast, please, please share your favorite word, share it in the comments, or you can write to us at getcreativeatthesparkfile.com. I want to know what y'all's favorite words and phrases are.

[9:25] Laura Camien: Susan, can I add one right here? Because I think you taught this to me. It's like some Swedish term, herkel derkel, which is like staying in bed.

[9:35] Susan Blackwell: Scottish.

[9:36] Laura Camien: Oh, it's Scottish. It's like lingering in bed just a little bit longer than needed or necessary, or maybe should. What do you want to do on a Sunday morning?

[9:46] Susan Blackwell: I want to herkel derkel.

[9:47] Laura Camien: Yeah. We still use that in this house.

[9:50] Susan Blackwell: Is it a verb or a noun?

[9:52] Laura Camien: To herkel derkel.

[9:53] Susan Blackwell: Because I like to herkel derkel, but you just said have a herkel derkel.

[9:57] Laura Camien: Yeah. I think you use it as you see fit.

[10:01] Susan Blackwell: That's what I think.

[10:02] Laura Camien: I will. I will. So this is it. Just enjoy. And if things bubble up for you, Laura, please pipe in. And I'm telling you again, if you're looking at this on social media, please write them in the comments. And if you're listening to this on your little earbuds, get creative at thesparkfile.com. We want to know what your favorite words are.

[10:23] Susan Blackwell: Okay. Love it. Some of these are ancient. Some of these are newer. On the newer tip, my friend Gary Schwartz used to describe theater that you had to see solely because your friend was in it or your friend worked on it as Teatro de la Obligación.

[10:42] Laura Camien: Oh, no way.

[10:45] Susan Blackwell: Teatro de la Obligación.

[10:47] Laura Camien: What are you doing tonight, Laura?

[10:49] Susan Blackwell: Teatro de la Obligación.

[10:51] Laura Camien: No.

[10:52] Susan Blackwell: Yep. Yep. Yep.

[10:55] Laura Camien: No.

[10:56] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[10:57] Laura Camien: I reject it on principle.

[10:58] Susan Blackwell: Okay. Go ahead.

[11:00] Laura Camien: Spark Filer Juliet Gray calls vacations. She has to take with her family, obligations.

[11:05] Susan Blackwell: Okay. Yes.

[11:07] Laura Camien: Love it.

[11:08] Susan Blackwell: Obligations. Love a portmanteau.

[11:10] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[11:11] Susan Blackwell: The combination of two words, we love a portmanteau.

[11:14] Laura Camien: So good.

[11:15] Susan Blackwell: Gore Vidal, the great writer Gore Vidal, once reported that when Dorothy Parker drank too much, she sometimes suffered from what she called the Frankies, the inclination to tell people as if for their own good, what she really thought of them, the Frankies.

[11:34] Laura Camien: Ouch.

[11:36] Susan Blackwell: May I be frank? Dorothy's got a bad case of the Frankies at brunch.

[11:40] Laura Camien: And she's got a sharp tongue.

[11:42] Susan Blackwell: Love the Frankies. This reminds me of a word that's not on my list, but I also love. This is a callback to a podcast that I did years ago about collaborative writing, the Sulkies. In collaboration, nobody's allowed to carry on with the case of the Sulkies. Like if you have something to say, if you're upset about something, you have to say it.

[12:05] Laura Camien: Say it.

[12:06] Susan Blackwell: No Sulkies.

[12:07] Laura Camien: No Sulkies.

[12:09] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Oh, I like that. For a brilliant example of the creation of new words, you can check out the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. In this book, which grew out of John Koenig's Tumblr blog, he has invented a whole dictionary of words that are poetry. The definitions are like poetry, for instance.

[12:30] ⚠ About 3 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.

[15:54] Susan Blackwell: I'm happy, mad, sad. You know, this doesn't capture it. It doesn't capture it. It's not nuanced enough. Exactly. So I love these definitions. Check out the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, but check out the rest of the words on this list. Maybe it'll be the perfect word when you're just reaching for that word. So jumping back in time, I also love ancient words and words in foreign languages. A word I learned from my meditation teacher, Emily Fletcher. Hi, Emily. Take a shot every time you hear that name on this podcast. The word is Navaswan. I may have talked about it on the podcast. Navaswan is from ancient Hindu scriptures. The Navaswan occurs as the earth rotates on its axis and the sun lights on the earth's surface, which of course brings a new day.

Preceding dawn, a wave of air continually pushed by the sun rolls over the surface of the earth, a warm breeze heralding the transition from night into day. This is a real thing. There's a little warm breeze that passes over the earth. It's always rolling over the earth like a wave. And in Hindu, it's called the Navaswan. That is amazing. Isn't that a beautiful word? That's amazing and really beautiful. And if I may, can I tell you what it reminded me of even though it's not at all related? When you ask about words and phrases. So in Kurt Vonnegut's, one of his plays, the main character calls someone a sparrow's fart. And I laughed so hard because the person he was calling a sparrow's fart was like so inconsequential.

Such a little sparrow's fart. Such a little like nothing, nothingness. And so I had to look it up. What does that even mean? And it is essentially like a sparrow's releasing of gas before the day begins. Two kinds of wind before the day begins. A Navaswan and a sparrow's fart.

[18:11] Susan Blackwell: All right. Here's a word I could do a whole spark on. The word is mudita. Mudita is a Sanskrit word that means the joy we feel from others' happiness and good fortune. Mudita. Mudita. It's sometimes, yeah, it's sometimes referred to as sympathetic or appreciative joy. It's when something good happens to someone we know and we feel great in turn. It's sort of the opposite of schadenfreude, the German word for pleasure derived from someone else's misfortune. Mudita. Isn't that beautiful? I love this word. A friend of mine called me. I hadn't talked to her in a long time. She called with the best news. And when I realized that was the only reason she was calling was to share this really good news that was happening for her. And I was like,

[19:08] Laura Camien: This is the most amazing. And I feel so good knowing that she knew she could call me because I would be so fucking excited for her. Filled with mudita. Filled with mudita. That's what I'm going to say next time. I feel like The Spark File is a space where we genuinely experience mudita on behalf of our clients, on behalf of each other, frequently. Susan, you're so right. And it's so, I mean, frankly, it's unusual and it's such a gift. I think we should introduce this terminology in the space. Mudita. I love it. I'm all for it. A foreign term that I really love, even though it has kind of a darker connotation, is folie à deux. Folie à deux is French for madness of two. And again, something pretty that meets something dark.

From Wikipedia, it's also called shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder. Folie à deux is a rare psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are transmitted from one individual to another. It usually doesn't end well, but I do love the sound of this phrase. Do you mean like, do you remember that Kate Winslet movie, Heavenly Creatures?

[20:28] Susan Blackwell: Yes. That's a folie à deux.

[20:30] Laura Camien: Folie à deux. That's a perfect example. Amazing. If you haven't seen Heavenly Creatures, two little girls. So good. Get into this psychotic state and they ended up taking it out on one of the mothers. That's a perfect example of a folie à deux. There was a great account with the handle Haggard Hawks on the platform formerly known as Twitter. And here are some of the great words I learned from Haggard Hawks and have tucked in my Spark file. And I want to tip my hat to the John Canings of the world and the Haggard Hawks of the world. For people who love words, these are such great providers. And I apologize for my mispronunciation of some of these foreign terms. I just want to apologize and acknowledge that now.

The Swedish word mangata, mangata is the line of silvery white light cast by the moon on the surface of a body of water. It literally means moon street. Oh, mangata. Related, the elongated reflection of the moon on a body of water is also called the moon glade.

[21:49] Susan Blackwell: The moon glade, which would be a great name for a perfume.

[21:54] Laura Camien: The Icelandic word glugavadur means weather that looks appealing from inside, but would be unpleasant to be outside in. It literally means window weather, glugavadur, window weather. Which is how I feel about snow in New York City. If you're able to stay in and listen to the silence of snow falling in New York City, it is amazing. If you have to be out in it, not so much. It creates a blanket of sound dampening. It really does change the quality of sound even in your home. Yeah, that's it. Did you know, Laura Kamien, that the word piglet only dates back to the mid-1800s? Before then, a young pig might be called a hogling, a porkette, a hog babe, or a gruntling. These would all be great alternative names for my dog, Potus.

Hog babe. Piglet, hogling, porkette, hog babe, or little baby gruntling. He is such a little gruntling. Keeping with the pig theme, feral pigs in Canada have been found to survive the cold temperatures by building tunnel-like shelters lined with insulating grasses and reeds beneath the snow. These shelters are known as pigloos. Pigloos. Little pigloos. How cute. Isn't that the sweetest? Oh, look. He's built a little pigloo. Sweet little feral hogs.

[23:32] Susan Blackwell: A rastrum is a multi-nibbed pen used to draw the five lines of a musical stave simultaneously. It literally means rake in Latin.

[23:40] Laura Camien: Oh, wow. It's this beautiful, it looks like you could dip it in an inkwell. It's got five little nibbies on it and it's called a rastrum. Just rake it across the page. Make your musical staves. Wow. There are 16th century nicknames for the bird known as the kestrel. These are 16th century nicknames for kestrels. Wind fuckers and fuck winds. That's real. That's a real thing. Amazing. I reached out to a friend of the podcast, Jeff Bowen, because he is a bird enthusiast, and I was like, can we talk about wind fuckers and fuck winds? I think the word fucker had a different meaning back then, but I thought that was an amazing name for a kestrel who dips and dives and plays on the wind. So rock on.

[24:41] Susan Blackwell: That's awesome. Germaine to the spark, in 19th century slang, a dick was a dictionary. So to swallow the dick was to use long and complicated words of which you don't fully know the meaning. So an example of that would be me in fourth grade calling my best friend.

[25:00] Susan Blackwell: Here are some longer words that I love, speaking of swallowing the dictionary.

[25:31] Laura Camien: So they're indigenous and you're speaking about their indigeneity.

[25:35] Susan Blackwell: That's right. Wow. Historiography, the study of historical writing.

[25:40] Laura Camien: Ah.

[25:41] Susan Blackwell: Historiography. Wow. Hagiography, the writing of the lives of saints or biography that idealizes its subject.

[25:50] Laura Camien: Hagiography.

[25:51] Susan Blackwell: Wow. Interesting. Misophonia.

[25:54] Laura Camien: Misophonia is a disorder where specific sounds trigger intense negative emotional and physiological responses such as anger or anxiety.

[26:07] Susan Blackwell: It is characterized by a strong aversion to common everyday sounds like chewing, breathing, or typing. Used in a sentence, my friend Kelly Nowitzki is enraged by the sound of people chewing ice.

[26:20] Laura Camien: It makes her want to punch them in the face.

[26:24] Susan Blackwell: Kelly has misophonia.

[26:26] Laura Camien: I have that with like house music, club music. You know what I mean?

[26:31] Susan Blackwell: Do you really?

[26:33] Laura Camien: I can't. It is like it taps right into the rage in my bloodstream and that's what's pounding through me.

[26:41] Susan Blackwell: Wow. Hate it. Moving my body to music, yes. That music, I'm going to hurt someone.

[26:48] Laura Camien: At the risk of enraging you, have I ever done my house music impression for you?

[26:52] Susan Blackwell: Oh, God. May I?

[26:54] Laura Camien: Oh, God. We better end this fast.

[26:56] Susan Blackwell: Okay. Yeah. This was taught to me by Barrett Fuller. Thanks, Barrett.

[27:01] Laura Camien: Thanks, Barrett.

[27:02] Susan Blackwell: No. Make it stop.

[27:03] Laura Camien: Make it stop.

[27:04] Susan Blackwell: That makes you crazy?

[27:05] Laura Camien: Okay. I'll never do it again.

[27:07] Susan Blackwell: Okay. No, I can't. I can't. Back to the words we love. Logomachy.

[27:11] Laura Camien: Logomachy is a noun. It is an argument about words used in a sentence.

[27:20] Susan Blackwell: In the early days of the Spark File, we had a bit of a logomachy over what we should call it.

[27:26] Laura Camien: We never argued.

[27:27] Susan Blackwell: No, but I was just trying to come up with a sentence. It is good.

[27:31] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[27:32] Susan Blackwell: Logomachy. Wow. Quadlibet.

[27:36] Laura Camien: Quadlibet.

[27:37] Susan Blackwell: A lighthearted medley of well-known tunes.

[27:40] Laura Camien: Quadlibet.

[27:41] Susan Blackwell: Oh, quadlibet. You can see why I put that in my Spark File.

[27:45] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[27:46] Susan Blackwell: This is one that we've talked about on the Spark File, hat tip to Chris Pappas, pareidolia.

[27:53] Laura Camien: Pareidolia is the imagined perception of a pattern or image where it doesn't exist.

[27:57] Susan Blackwell: So the man in the moon, or seeing a face in an electrical socket, or in the patterns of a wood grain. Or seeing Jesus on your toast. Pareidolia, baby.

[28:08] Laura Camien: Wow.

[28:09] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. I love the Dutch concept of gezellig.

[28:14] Laura Camien: It's one of those words with no straight English translation, but it means coziness, an intimate social feeling you get when you're in spaces you love with people that you love.

[28:25] Susan Blackwell: Oh, say that word again.

[28:27] Laura Camien: Gezellig.

[28:28] Susan Blackwell: Gezellig. Isn't that nice?

[28:30] Laura Camien: Similarly, I love this word. Chaleur means having the quality of warmth.

[28:37] Susan Blackwell: On a snowy evening in the mountains, you see a log cabin with a fire roaring, a feeling of home, of warmth, of heart. That is chaleur.

[28:46] Laura Camien: I want that as a candle scent.

[28:51] Susan Blackwell: Chaleur, now available at Macy's.

[28:54] Laura Camien: And I actually looked it up. It is a perfume name.

[28:56] Susan Blackwell: Oh, of course.

[28:57] Laura Camien: Of course it is.

[28:58] Susan Blackwell: I'm still on gezellig because I would take a perfume that smells like a cozy place that I love with people that I love.

[29:06] Laura Camien: I'm going to cozy right up with that smell immediately.

[29:09] Susan Blackwell: You know what, Laura? I believe we will schedule in the very near future a candle making session.

[29:15] Laura Camien: Oh, yes, please.

[29:16] Susan Blackwell: And I think you should make a candle called gezellig and it should include all the scents that make you feel that way.

[29:23] Laura Camien: Oh my God. I'm going to. That will be my scent.

[29:28] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[29:29] Laura Camien: Yes.

[29:30] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Komorebi is a Japanese word for the dappled sunlight that filters through tree leaves.

[29:38] Laura Camien: Komorebi, if you speak Japanese and you want to correct me, I welcome it.

[29:44] Susan Blackwell: The dappled sunlight that filters through tree leaves. Something so beautiful about that.

[29:50] Laura Camien: Isn't that pretty?

[29:52] Susan Blackwell: Meliorism is the belief that the world can and should be improved through human effort, love, creativity, and compassion.

[30:01] Laura Camien: Yes.

[30:02] Susan Blackwell: Meliorism.

[30:03] Laura Camien: Yes.

[30:04] Susan Blackwell: Petrichor is a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.

[30:11] Laura Camien: So when those first raindrops hit asphalt or hit a dusty field and you're hit with a smell and you're like, I love that.

[30:24] Susan Blackwell: That's petrichor.

[30:25] Laura Camien: Wow.

[30:26] Susan Blackwell: I also love groupings of words.

[30:29] Laura Camien: Oh.

[30:30] Susan Blackwell: Here's a whatchamacallit in different languages. In English, it's a thingamajig. In Spanish, it's a chingadera. In Danish, it's hamster gems. In Japanese, it's nani nani. In Turkish, it's zamazingo. In German, it's dingsbums. And in Dutch, it's huppledypup.

[30:51] Laura Camien: What is it?

[30:52] Susan Blackwell: Those are all different words for whatchamacallits.

[30:54] Laura Camien: What's a whatchamacallit?

[30:56] Susan Blackwell: Huppledypup.

[30:57] Laura Camien: What's a huppledypup?

[30:58] Susan Blackwell: Dingsbums.

[30:59] Laura Camien: Wow.

[31:00] Susan Blackwell: I love those. I love those. I love groupings of words, again, from Haggard Hawks.

[31:08] Laura Camien: A birchenshaw is a grove of birch trees.

[31:12] Susan Blackwell: An ossiard is a grove of willow trees.

[31:14] Laura Camien: A pommery is a grove of apple trees.

[31:18] Susan Blackwell: A myrtetum is a grove of myrtle bushes.

[31:21] Laura Camien: Myrtetum?

[31:22] Susan Blackwell: A cudray is a grove of hazel trees.

[31:25] Laura Camien: A sapbush is a grove of maple trees.

[31:29] Susan Blackwell: And a derrick is a grove of oak trees.

[31:32] Laura Camien: And just a few other groupings to round this out.

[31:36] Susan Blackwell: A flock of waxwings is called a museum.

[31:39] Laura Camien: And apparently, a group of otters on land is called a romp.

[31:44] Susan Blackwell: But a group of otters in the water is called a raft.

[31:48] Laura Camien: Wow.

[31:49] Susan Blackwell: A raft of otters.

[31:50] Laura Camien: A raft of otters or a romp of otters.

[31:53] Susan Blackwell: For years, I've said, when you're writing, if you have the choice between a penny word versus an SAT word, like a big $5 word, go with the penny word.

[32:03] Laura Camien: One of my favorite sets of penny words comes from the monologuist, Spalding Gray.

[32:10] Susan Blackwell: These are a little...

[32:12] Laura Camien: But I love them.

[32:13] Susan Blackwell: I love them. Dutes and grunts.

[32:18] Laura Camien: Spalding told the story that when he was little, he and his little brother would refer to their poops as either dutes or grunts.

[32:25] Susan Blackwell: Dutes were little tiny poops and grunts were big poops. So they would check in with each other.

[32:29] Laura Camien: I mean, they were little, little boys after they had gone to the bathroom and they were like, dutes, dutes, or they'd be like, oh, that was a grunt.

[32:37] Susan Blackwell: So dutes and grunts. There's some penny words for you. What do we make of all this, Laura?

[32:41] Laura Camien: Oh my God. I mean, there's so much.

[32:44] Susan Blackwell: Tell me what you have in mind.

[32:47] Laura Camien: So many things. I just feel like these words are like pearls, whether they're long, whether they're native to your tongue, whether they're ancient, whether they're new. Each one of them is a little gem and you can sort of string them. You can make them into phrases that make sentences that make paragraphs. And they're just the foundation of so much beauty and possibility. So you can make that with it.

[33:16] Susan Blackwell: And like we said, like you could take a word and be inspired to make something based on that word. Like make a perfume or make a candle that smells like a cozy place that you love with people that you love.

[33:29] Laura Camien: 100% gazellic.

[33:30] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. And that's amazing.

[33:34] Laura Camien: Yeah. I heard this Gustave Flaubert quote and I've had it in my spark file for as long as I've had a spark file about the heartbreaking limits of words.

[33:41] Susan Blackwell: Flaubert wrote, human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to while longing to make music that will melt the stars.

[33:59] Laura Camien: So you can use these words and many others that you have at your disposal. String them like pearls on the necklace of the sentence that will make bears dance and melt the stars.

[34:12] Susan Blackwell: And that is my spark for you today.

[34:15] Laura Camien: Oh, I love all these words, Susan. Thank you so much.

[34:20] Susan Blackwell: You're so welcome.

[34:22] Laura Camien: Just having some fun.

[34:23] Susan Blackwell: I just love how like all the feelings that they've conjured up in me.

[34:29] Laura Camien: And yes, I'm entirely like the Brene Brown Atlas of the heart. I'm telling you like our ability to communicate our emotions is leads to deeper connection, you know, with each other.

[34:43] Susan Blackwell: So even having an exploration of a word and what it means to two people can be so illuminating.

[34:51] Laura Camien: I think one of the reasons I wanted to do this spark is because it's just such a intense time right now. And I was like, I want to cultivate some delight and I'm going to do that by reaching into my spark file and just finding all the ring lorns and the romps and the wind fuckers and the...

[35:11] Susan Blackwell: To bring it full circle, Suze, knowing what you know about fascism now.

[35:17] Laura Camien: All right.

[35:19] Susan Blackwell: Maybe not a word you love quite as much.

[35:21] Laura Camien: There's something that makes me laugh so hard about fourth grade me just being like laughing and being like, Amy, are you fascist?

[35:29] Susan Blackwell: We know better now.

[35:30] Laura Camien: We know better.

[35:31] Susan Blackwell: We do better.

[35:32] Laura Camien: I guess that's it.

[35:33] Susan Blackwell: On that note, this episode of the spark file was made on the lands of the Lenape and the Mohican people.

[35:39] Laura Camien: And as always, we hope it put another bunch of sparks and gazellings and shalours into your file.

[35:47] Susan Blackwell: Listen, if there's a spark you'd like us to explore or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to accomplish your creative goals, you can email us at get creative at the spark file dot com or reach us through our website, the spark file dot com will even happily take your feedback.

[36:02] Laura Camien: But you know, the price of admission first, you need to share a creative risk that you've taken recently.

[36:09] Susan Blackwell: You can follow us on social at the spark file and be sure to take a moment to subscribe rate maybe five star review.

[36:17] Laura Camien: This podcast maybe really helps other listeners to find us.

[36:20] Susan Blackwell: Also, if you like this podcast, we hope that you'll share it with people that you love.

[36:24] Laura Camien: And if you didn't like it, how dare you, you dirty wind fucker?

[36:28] Susan Blackwell: How dare you?

[36:29] Laura Camien: It's just a kestrel, a pretty calm down, you fascists.

[36:34] Susan Blackwell: Oh, no, you didn't.

[36:37] Laura Camien: Oh God, if something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door.

[36:43] Susan Blackwell: It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

[36:52] Laura Camien: You know, you got to take it and make it.

[36:57] Susan Blackwell: Don't be a fascist.

[36:58] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in my spark file, could be something that I want to make or how I want to be a pump it in my spark file.

[37:17] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark file, let's open up the spark file.