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

[0:43] Laura Camien: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:44] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

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

[0:57] Susan Blackwell: But, but but but but you might be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

[0:57] Laura Camien: Well, a spark file is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:09] Susan Blackwell: Every episode, we're gonna reach into our spark files and exchange some sparks.

[1:14] Laura Camien: And from time to time, we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:18] Susan Blackwell: And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of those sparks of inspiration and make something of your own.

[1:25] Susan Blackwell: So without further ado, let's open up the spark file.

[1:30] Laura Camien: Hi, Laura Camien.

[1:31] Susan Blackwell: Hello, Susie B.

[1:33] Laura Camien: How are you doing?

[1:34] Susan Blackwell: I am doing great because it is the most beautiful crisp fall day.

[1:40] Laura Camien: Ugh.

[1:41] Susan Blackwell: We are in prime leaf season.

[1:44] Laura Camien: It is stunning.

[1:46] Susan Blackwell: How about you?

[1:47] Laura Camien: Extraordinary.

[1:48] Laura Camien: I happen to be in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

[1:54] Laura Camien: At this moment, and also surrounded by exquisite trees of all different colors.

[2:01] Laura Camien: And it is extraordinary.

[2:03] Laura Camien: It makes my heart happy.

[2:04] Laura Camien: It's like living in a painting.

[2:07] Susan Blackwell: It's crazy.

[2:08] Laura Camien: It's crazy.

[2:09] Susan Blackwell: And aren't we lucky?

[2:12] Laura Camien: We are lucky for so many reasons, including today's podcast episode, which is like a cornucopia of sparks and gems and gifts and stories.

[2:27] Susan Blackwell: It sure is.

[2:28] Laura Camien: We're gonna fill up our spark files with all these little gems.

[2:33] Laura Camien: And also, like just remember like this was all recorded in a similar setting up in Canada in the fall at Saunders Farm and once again surrounded by glorious trees and beautiful nature and fresh crisp air and apple cider and a fire crackling.

[2:55] Susan Blackwell: You know, it's just oh yeah, the best.

[2:59] Susan Blackwell: So as with our prior Sparks Fest episode, you're gonna hear that we're on location.

[3:05] Susan Blackwell: We're sitting beside a huge hearth, a crackling fire, and you'll hear that in the recording.

[3:11] Susan Blackwell: We're not in a studio, we're definitely on location.

[3:14] Susan Blackwell: Sometimes our laughter can overwhelm the little baby microphone who is doing its best.

[3:20] Laura Camien: But I think it adds to the chill.

[3:23] Susan Blackwell: It adds to the charm.

[3:24] Susan Blackwell: And we do thank that microphone.

[3:26] Laura Camien: We really did work it.

[3:27] Susan Blackwell: We worked it hard that day.

[3:29] Susan Blackwell: Took it to the limit for us, little baby.

[3:31] Susan Blackwell: And you know it's really fun given what day it is today.

[3:35] Susan Blackwell: I believe it's the day before Halloween.

[3:39] Laura Camien: And in this episode, many, many of our folks went and found spooky sparks.

[3:46] Susan Blackwell: They had gone to Fright Night at Saunders Farm the night before, and we're all a little bit adrenal, like jacked up from the Fright Night.

[3:58] Susan Blackwell: And they were brave enough to do some spooky sparks.

[4:02] Susan Blackwell: So we might present them the day before Halloween.

[4:05] Susan Blackwell: We've got some spooky sparks.

[4:06] Susan Blackwell: We've got some autumnal sparks.

[4:08] Laura Camien: Laura, I also I haven't told you yet, but in our house, we've been challenging ourselves and watching movies that are a little on the scarier side in the evening.

[4:21] Susan Blackwell: How interesting.

[4:23] Laura Camien: I'm so curious to know the rationale.

[4:25] Laura Camien: Did you feel like I must acquire better skills at watching scary stuff?

[4:30] Susan Blackwell: No, I think it was more like we are watching classic movies.

[4:36] Susan Blackwell: Uh-huh.

[4:36] Susan Blackwell: We're watching just great movies.

[4:38] Susan Blackwell: And sometimes great movies are a little on the scarier side of scary.

[4:43] Laura Camien: So last night we watched Poltergeist.

[4:46] Susan Blackwell: Oh, wow.

[4:47] Laura Camien: 80s.

[4:49] Susan Blackwell: 80s.

[4:49] Laura Camien: I thought you were talking even more classic.

[4:52] Susan Blackwell: Poltergeist.

[4:53] Laura Camien: Oof.

[4:54] Susan Blackwell: I think what's even scarier about that movie is reading about the stuff that happened to people who worked on that movie.

[5:00] Laura Camien: The worst.

[5:01] Susan Blackwell: It's the worst.

[5:02] Laura Camien: It's all very scary.

[5:03] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, it's it is scary.

[5:06] Laura Camien: Wow.

[5:06] Laura Camien: The night before that, oh, we watched The Others with Nicole Kidman, which I think is one of her greatest films.

[5:15] Susan Blackwell: Her performance in The Others is phenomenal.

[5:19] Laura Camien: But you know, there's nothing like a really, really excellent scary movie.

[5:24] Susan Blackwell: And I just want to qualify all of this by saying some of you are listening, you're like, girl, Poltergeist and The Others are not scary.

[5:31] Laura Camien: To me, they are scary.

[5:33] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[5:34] Laura Camien: Oh yeah.

[5:34] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[5:35] Susan Blackwell: I think scary's on a scale to my own.

[5:38] Laura Camien: The sliding scale of scary.

[5:39] Susan Blackwell: Sliding scale.

[5:40] Susan Blackwell: And both of us are way down here.

[5:43] Laura Camien: Way, way, way.

[5:45] Susan Blackwell: But anyway, put that in your spark file and smoke it.

[5:49] Susan Blackwell: Um, just it's a great time of year for some spookiness, which is a great segue into this episode.

[5:56] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[5:58] Laura Camien: Enjoy, enjoy some of these autumnal and spooky sparks.

[6:02] Susan Blackwell: And first up, we're going to hear from Sparks Scribe Jill Dryer, our beloved artist in residence.

[6:08] Laura Camien: Jill, take it away.

[6:13] Susan Blackwell: We got Jill Motherfucking Dryer, who some of you may know as our Sparks Scribe.

[6:19] Laura Camien: That is correct.

[6:20] Susan Blackwell: If you enjoy any of the illustrations that you see on our social media, on our website, that's all Jill Motherfucking Dryer.

[6:26] Laura Camien: I'm just enjoying that we can say Jill Motherfucking Dryer because it's our podcast.

[6:30] Susan Blackwell: We're grown as adults.

[6:32] Laura Camien: Yeah, we can do that.

[6:34] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Jill.

[6:38] Jill Dryer: Well, I'm Jill, as you heard, motherfucking Dryer, and I'm she/her, and I'm super happy to be here.

[6:45] Jill Dryer: Um, when I went walking on the farm today, I started looking at all the doorways, and I ended up on a pirate ship where there were portals.

[6:54] Jill Dryer: And um, I was really fascinated by all the different vantage points on the pirate ship because there's there's not only portals that you typically only see from the inside out and not the other way.

[7:05] Jill Dryer: There's the crow's nest, there's walking the plank, which maybe is like looking at risks and things like that.

[7:11] Jill Dryer: But um, I felt like I got stuck on portals because uh typically those windows are only a one-way thing, and I feel like it's really important in life to go outside the expected window or doorway or portal.

[7:27] Jill Dryer: And it led me to a dream that I was going to share with you because it was relevant to this whole portal conversation and my encouraging you guys to look beyond.

[7:38] Jill Dryer: I had a dream many years ago that three hummingbirds came to outside the window where I was sitting, and I knew that they wanted me to come outside the window, and I had always had windows in my dreams, but I had never gone outside.

[7:51] Jill Dryer: And this dream I decided I'm going.

[7:53] Jill Dryer: So I go outside the window, and just as I get beyond the glass, I see some fog up ahead, and there's a person in the distance, and um I hear this man say, Jill, is that you?

[8:06] Jill Dryer: And there's this man that I haven't seen for 10 plus years, and I'm like, oh my gosh.

[8:12] Jill Dryer: And so we're standing there in the dream, like, wow, this is so crazy.

[8:14] Jill Dryer: And he's wearing this white expedition suit, and he's going to climb this mountain, and his crew is waiting for him.

[8:21] Jill Dryer: And I'm like, Well, it was so great to see you, you look amazing.

[8:23] Jill Dryer: And so Dan walks off and meets up with the crew, and they're about halfway up the mountain, and I'm just watching and just marveling at how healthy he looks.

[8:31] Jill Dryer: And then he comes back down and he hands me a glove, and he said, Would you mind giving this to Angie, who's his wife?

[8:38] Jill Dryer: And I said, Well, of course, Dan.

[8:40] Jill Dryer: And then uh Dan went back up the mountain, climbed all the way to the top of the summit.

[8:45] Jill Dryer: There's the flag up there, and he waves at me as they plant the flag, and then he turns into this gorgeous rainbow bird and flies off.

[8:52] Jill Dryer: And in that moment, I knew I turned to the hummingbirds, and I was like, He's crossed over, right?

[8:58] Jill Dryer: And they nod, and then I woke up.

[9:00] Jill Dryer: And it was a life-changing dream for me because the fact that I also went outside the window when I never would have otherwise thought that you could.

[9:11] Jill Dryer: I wanted to share because I thought it was so interesting.

[9:14] Jill Dryer: The vantage point and the extraordinary payoff of going beyond the window was unreal.

[9:20] Jill Dryer: The gorgeousness, and I know it was full of beauty and sadness.

[9:23] Jill Dryer: This moment that I saw, he really did pass, and I didn't know that he was ill.

[9:27] Jill Dryer: That later turned into a really beautiful connection with his wife.

[9:31] Jill Dryer: I just encourage everyone to think about those just portals that they may come across where they're looking out and wondering if you should go beyond.

[9:51] Jill Dryer: Sometimes it's it's rocky waters and it's crazy, but you gotta do it because there's beauty everywhere, and it's extraordinary.

[10:00] Susan Blackwell: Beautiful.

[10:08] Laura Camien: Hey, we've got Kevin.

[10:12] Susan Blackwell: We've got Kevin Weinbold, who this year is serving as the Sparks File team captain, and it's an honor just to be nominated.

[10:20] Kevin Weinbold: Um you have a spark from first of all, how do you identify creatively?

[10:24] Kevin Weinbold: Uh I identify as a pianist, musical director, and entertainer.

[10:29] Susan Blackwell: Great.

[10:29] Kevin Weinbold: How do you how did you write my um teaching of the spark file sting?

[10:34] Kevin Weinbold: Flawless.

[10:35] Susan Blackwell: Thank you.

[10:36] Kevin Weinbold: I was I was fishing.

[10:39] Susan Blackwell: You have a spark for us?

[10:40] Kevin Weinbold: I do.

[10:41] Susan Blackwell: Great.

[10:41] Kevin Weinbold: So for those of you listening and not with us at Sparks Fest, tomorrow evening, we have the opportunity to experience what is known as Fright Fest here at Saunders Farm.

[10:52] Kevin Weinbold: And some people would call it a privilege, some people call it terrifying.

[10:58] Kevin Weinbold: I have never done a haunted house, never wanted to do a haunted house.

[11:02] Kevin Weinbold: And so when I found out that we had this mission to explore the farm, I decided I'm going to walk through a haunted house during the daylight.

[11:13] Susan Blackwell: Oh to make it less scary.

[11:17] Kevin Weinbold: Yes.

[11:18] Kevin Weinbold: Angela Grant Saunders said she told me the most terrifying one last night, not knowing this plan.

[11:24] Kevin Weinbold: So I was like, I'm gonna walk through the most terrifying one so I know which way to turn and I won't be scared.

[11:29] Kevin Weinbold: And it was like a cheat, you know.

[11:30] Kevin Weinbold: I was like, I'll know, like I memorized in the hall of mirrors which way to go.

[11:34] Susan Blackwell: So you know, I had this plan.

[11:37] Kevin Weinbold: So that wasn't part of my spark.

[11:38] Kevin Weinbold: However, that was just an intro.

[11:41] Kevin Weinbold: But then while I was there, it became my spark because as I was walking through, and even in the daylight, I was getting scared of.

[11:51] Kevin Weinbold: And I had the thought, I was like, why do people like this?

[11:54] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[11:55] Kevin Weinbold: And that was my spark.

[11:56] Kevin Weinbold: And so I like sat next to the scary clown and started Googling why.

[12:00] Laura Camien: You were like scary clown, I've got a question for you.

[12:03] Kevin Weinbold: So I asked why people enjoy being afraid.

[12:06] Kevin Weinbold: Yes.

[12:07] Kevin Weinbold: And it led me to an article about obviously the dopamine release.

[12:12] Kevin Weinbold: And it's not typically the scare, but it's the release from the scare.

[12:18] Kevin Weinbold: That's right.

[12:19] Kevin Weinbold: That gives us that.

[12:20] Kevin Weinbold: And then it led me to a second article where they put participants in a haunted house in different numbers of groups of their friends and had all sorts of monitors to measure brain waves and physiology, all of that.

[12:42] Kevin Weinbold: And the way they worded it was this reflects fear contagion. If your friends are around, your body picks up on their signals and has a higher level of arousal, even in the absence of specific scares.

[12:55] Laura Camien: Yes.

[12:56] Kevin Weinbold: So you're actually feeling more fear when you're with your friends.

[13:00] Susan Blackwell: Interesting. You would think that the reverse would be true because you're like safety in numbers.

[13:04] Laura Camien: Yeah, but then it's like if I'm with you and you're scared, I'm scared for you as someone I care about.

[13:10] Kevin Weinbold: This is a group of empaths who's going to pick up every feeling by now. So I imagine the amplification. And that then combining the articles, I was like, oh, that's interesting. People enjoy fear because of the release of it. And we experience more fear in groups, especially with friends, which then led me to think of the spark file where we're always talking about facing our fear.

[13:34] Laura Camien: Yes.

[13:35] Kevin Weinbold: And I'm the kind of person who typically, when I need to face the fear, I do it in private, as I'm admitting I was gonna walk through this haunted house alone. I was like, people don't need to see me react. I will silently navigate this. But when you face your fears with a group of people that you care about, you also experience more release and more dopamine.

[13:59] Susan Blackwell: So facing your fears in a group is scientifically proven to give you a bigger release.

[14:05] Laura Camien: This is the best commercial for the spark.

[14:14] Kevin Weinbold: So great. I have so many follow-up questions. So much to talk about.

[14:17] Susan Blackwell: About the haunted house of it all.

[14:19] Laura Camien: Yes.

[14:20] Susan Blackwell: What a what a I'm just really taken by the idea of sort of the metaphor of facing fears during the daytime. Like that, there's something about that that is delicious and still somehow scary to me.

[14:34] Laura Camien: I just sent you something on Instagram last night.

[14:36] Susan Blackwell: So that's when I should have been sleeping, but I sent you something.

[14:39] Laura Camien: It's an interview with the screenwriter Jordan Peel.

[14:41] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[14:42] Laura Camien: And he's talking about how, and again, it goes back to the dopamine, but how for him, laughter and horror, those two genres, which most people are like, no, it's either comedy or it's a horror, it can't be both. And he's like, oh no, no, no. These are the same, because it is that that release.

[14:58] Susan Blackwell: And so anyway, we have a lot. We're gonna we'll be circling back on this topic.

[15:02] Laura Camien: Good.

[15:02] Kevin Weinbold: So good.

[15:09] Susan Blackwell: Sarah Lapano, welcome to the hot seat. Will you tell the people how you identify creatively?

[15:15] Sarah Lapano: I think I I I identify as a storyteller and a documentary photographer.

[15:20] Laura Camien: Love that.

[15:21] Susan Blackwell: Love that. You got a spark for us?

[15:23] Sarah Lapano: I do. And Kevin Weinbold and I were on the very same wavelength.

[15:27] Laura Camien: All right.

[15:28] Sarah Lapano: Nice. But I'm gonna take you with my first spark for question of why. Where did they start and when did they start? Haunted houses.

[15:38] Kevin Weinbold: Haunted houses.

[15:39] Sarah Lapano: Shut the fuck up.

[15:42] Susan Blackwell: That's awesome.

[15:44] Sarah Lapano: Oh my god. So let me take you to the 19th century in London.

[15:49] Laura Camien: Oh god.

[15:50] Sarah Lapano: Oh my god. This is such a lot. This is great story.

[15:54] Susan Blackwell: This is one way we could handle haunted houses.

[15:57] Sarah Lapano: The history of them.

[15:58] Laura Camien: Yes.

[15:59] Sarah Lapano: Do you know? I think you may, I may have said this in your presence before, but I can't watch scary movies. But I read the Wikipedia synopsis of a scary movie.

[16:08] Susan Blackwell: I'll look at the tile on, you know, like on the streaming service, and I'll be like, oh, that looks interesting.

[16:13] Sarah Lapano: And I'll Wikipedia, the plot synopsis, and be like, I'm good.

[16:17] Laura Camien: Oh, that I'm good.

[16:20] Sarah Lapano: Was that?

[16:20] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, or I'll have Tom Schulteis relay the talk me through the plot.

[16:24] Sarah Lapano: I'm always amazed by.

[16:26] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[16:26] Sarah Lapano: Because I don't like them at all. And I'm like, I also don't want to know. I don't want to know what a crazy idea someone has come up with to their own.

[16:33] Laura Camien: Sorry.

[16:37] Sarah Lapano: I so I did this recently. I read the Wicked, I was so curious what all the hubbub was about. So I read the Wikipedia entry for Midsomar.

[16:46] Susan Blackwell: Fuck that shit.

[16:50] Sarah Lapano: Fuck it. I still am thinking about the Wikipedia entry.

[16:54] Laura Camien: That's great.

[16:55] Sarah Lapano: Uh in the room, raise your hand if you've seen Midsommar.

[16:58] Kevin Weinbold: Fuck you.

[16:59] Sarah Lapano: It's about that shit.

[17:02] Susan Blackwell: No.

[17:03] Sarah Lapano: I can't even tell you what I'm still thinking about from the Wikipedia entry.

[17:06] Laura Camien: Okay, listen, one more sci-fi bar, and then we're gonna totally like what I'm crazed about is that it used to be like when you went to the movies, like the trailers were were mild.

[17:16] Kevin Weinbold: Oh and now like they're putting things like they have jump scares into my eyeballs that I'm like, I didn't come for that.

[17:25] Sarah Lapano: I came for Indiana Jones, and you just gave me some smiling psychopown.

[17:29] Laura Camien: When I see that red screen, the red trailer screen, I'm like, fuck you.

[17:34] Sarah Lapano: Fuck that.

[17:35] Laura Camien: And I just, yeah, I just know.

[17:37] Sarah Lapano: Oh, because I know it's coming.

[17:39] Laura Camien: Fuck that shit.

[17:39] Sarah Lapano: Yeah.

[17:40] Laura Camien: Sarah, you were saying all about it.

[17:46] Sarah Lapano: 19th century England in London specifically. A series of illusions and attractions introduced to the public new forms of gruesome entertainment.

[17:56] Laura Camien: 19th century is you got this.

[17:58] Sarah Lapano: You got this. I don't know if it's is it the 1800s?

[18:01] Laura Camien: It is time as a construct.

[18:09] Sarah Lapano: And the first, well, I don't know if it's the first, but it's the first name that I came across in my very short readings. 1802, Marie Toussaint.

[18:18] Laura Camien: He is behind all this.

[18:18] Sarah Lapano: Madame Toussaint.

[18:21] Laura Camien: Correct.

[18:22] Sarah Lapano: Like the wax museum.

[18:23] Laura Camien: Correct.

[18:24] Sarah Lapano: She scandalized British audiences with an exhibition of sculptures of decapitated French figures.

[18:32] Laura Camien: Wow.

[18:34] Sarah Lapano: Wow. So that included King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. In fact, her job was to create the death masks of the French Revolution's guillotine victims.

[18:47] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[18:48] Sarah Lapano: Oh, for real. That was for like her day. So the head goes in the basket, and she's like, I'll take that. I'm gonna make a mask.

[18:54] Laura Camien: And that's well, because I think I should ask my 14 year old historian, but I think there's a reason they have death masks.

[19:01] Sarah Lapano: Sarah's referring to her son, not that she keeps a 14-year-old historian.

[19:07] Laura Camien: Oh, I'm Marie just saying, I'm sorry.

[19:12] Sarah Lapano: We're very chatty.

[19:13] Laura Camien: Sorry.

[19:14] Sarah Lapano: And so from that exhibition, she called that the Chamber of Horrors, which is still the name of the museum that we see today.

[19:21] Laura Camien: Around the world.

[19:23] Sarah Lapano: So that's how this started. But then that grew at the turn of the century, things became more macabre in their theme.

[19:29] Laura Camien: So in Paris, then we moved to Paris.

[19:32] Sarah Lapano: And there's this theater called the Grand Guignon.

[19:37] Laura Camien: Guignol, I think.

[19:38] Sarah Lapano: And that theater was always notorious for its on-stage depictions of graphic dismemberment.

[19:45] Laura Camien: And the director, Max, boasted often that he judged each performance he did by the number of people who passed out shocked in the audience.

[19:56] Kevin Weinbold: Fuck Max.

[19:59] Sarah Lapano: That's a hard pass.

[20:01] Sarah Lapano: And then in 1915, there was an English fairground that debuted one of the very first ghost houses. An early commercial horror attraction.

[20:10] Laura Camien: Now we're getting into it.

[20:11] Sarah Lapano: And public appetite began to pick up for horror. Like pe somebody figured out people will pay good money to scare the shit out of themselves.

[20:19] Laura Camien: That's right.

[20:20] Sarah Lapano: Wow. And then that led me into the question that Kevin had, as into why the fuck do we want to do that to her?

[20:29] Kevin Weinbold: And I mean, Kevin did a beautiful depiction.

[20:32] Sarah Lapano: And we get to that dopamine remote.

[20:33] Kevin Weinbold: The dopamine, it ignites receptors in our brains, our audio, our visual.

[20:39] Sarah Lapano: And then that led me to why do I only want to listen to scary podcasts? And that often they say draws on our human instinct of wanting to know how we can keep ourselves safe.

[20:51] Laura Camien: Yes.

[20:51] Sarah Lapano: The who, what, where the true crime of it all.

[20:54] Laura Camien: Yes.

[20:55] Sarah Lapano: And so that's why, you know, we're still the same as we were in the 18th, 19th centuries.

[21:00] Laura Camien: Single piano?

[21:02] Sarah Lapano: Wow. That just like is a great thing. Scaring ourselves to death makes us feel more alive, I think.

[21:08] Laura Camien: Isn't that weird?

[21:10] Sarah Lapano: Thank you for that.

[21:11] Laura Camien: Walk down history lane.

[21:13] Sarah Lapano: Welcome.

[21:14] Laura Camien: You know, I love that. If you ever need to be on a podcast, you can come be on our podcast.

[21:19] Sarah Lapano: Anytime we're ready to learn things.

[21:23] Susan Blackwell: That was awesome.

[21:26] Susan Blackwell: Friends, it's the aforementioned Chris Happas. Chris, tell the people how you identify creatively.

[21:32] Chris Pappas: It's Chris Pappas. I identify as a podcaster, storyteller, travel director, cat herder.

[21:38] Laura Camien: So it's like some skills.

[21:42] Chris Pappas: We workshopped that jerk earlier today.

[21:46] Laura Camien: Spark it up.

[21:47] Chris Pappas: We are so ready for your spark.

[21:49] Chris Pappas: I think my spark is like the goth cousin of Melissa's. So uh yeah, I also ended up in the kind of backstage area of some of these uh haunts.

[22:02] Laura Camien: Okay.

[22:02] Chris Pappas: Uh my spark is entitled A Perfectly Reasonable Explanation. When I think back to the room that I grew up in, I can picture the closet, and at night I can picture the ghost, the man in a black hat that stood next to my closet.

[22:20] Sarah Lapano: Are you shooting?

[22:21] Chris Pappas: And the man in the black hat has also appeared to me in a tent in Montana and in a hotel room in Paris.

[22:30] Laura Camien: In Ottawa?

[22:32] Chris Pappas: Paris.

[22:34] Chris Pappas: The man in a black hat has been several things. A tree branch, a coat, yes, and a curtain rod.

[22:43] Laura Camien: Yes.

[22:44] Chris Pappas: Because our brain does not like empty spaces, so it fills in the gaps for us. So when we are seeing shadows, when we're seeing things when we're walking around a haunted house, what is going on inside of our brains?

[23:00] Sarah Lapano: Oh my god.

[23:01] Chris Pappas: Uh so a couple a couple of things. I didn't cite my sources, Austin. I was like, yeah. So y'all can just Google the things that I forgot to talk about.

[23:13] Chris Pappas: Uh so uh the big one being perpetual filling in. So this is like when it's there's two lines, but your brain fills in the triangle, or it's uh it's a dotted circle, but your brain sees the triangle.

[23:29] Laura Camien: Or missing letters in a in a word, and you're like, I still know what that word is.

[23:33] Chris Pappas: Yeah, yeah.

[23:34] Chris Pappas: Intentional blindness. So it's this is something that you might see in a in a magic show. Uh it's something when your brain is not expecting something to happen, so you just don't see it.

[23:44] Chris Pappas: I really I I saw this great show up Broadway a couple years ago where this magician told us at the beginning of the show, a gorilla is going to run across the stage, grab this banana, and then run back across, and you're not going to see it.

[23:56] Laura Camien: And so they did this entire sequence and based on a a big research experiment.

[24:00] Chris Pappas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they did the sequence, and he looked, you look over the banana's gone, he goes, You all miss the gorilla.

[24:01] Laura Camien: So they did the sequence again, sure enough, a gorilla walks across the guy in a gorilla suit walks across the stage, picks up the banana, walks off, and if you are not looking for it, you do not see it.

[24:14] Chris Pappas: So if something suddenly disappears, sometimes we we don't blame the person who literally walked across the room who took it, you just say that just disappeared.

[24:23] Laura Camien: Wait, Chris, can you say the two things again?

[24:25] Chris Pappas: The perpetual filling in, and the second one was intentional blindness.

[24:25] Chris Pappas: Intentional blindness.

[24:31] Laura Camien: Wow.

[24:31] Chris Pappas: Okay.

[24:32] Chris Pappas: Is that like when you know we our nose is in our line of vision all the time?

[24:32] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[24:32] Chris Pappas: All the time.

[24:40] Chris Pappas: And if you put your fingertip on your nose, you realize everyone's putting their fingertips on your nose.

[24:46] Laura Camien: You realize, like shut an eye, shut an eye, we erase it from our vision.

[24:50] Chris Pappas: And what is it called again?

[24:52] Chris Pappas: Intentional blindness.

[24:54] Laura Camien: Intentional blindness.

[24:55] Chris Pappas: Wow.

[24:55] Laura Camien: Okay, but you want to tell us more.

[24:57] Chris Pappas: And we're just stuck on those two.

[24:59] Chris Pappas: Intentional blindness.

[25:00] Chris Pappas: Yeah, the last one I have here is pareidolia, which is the brain filtering out information that it deems unimportant.

[25:09] Laura Camien: So the example they kind of give in these articles is when we're looking at clouds and we start to see shapes.

[25:15] Chris Pappas: So we're we're filtering out the kind of paradise.

[25:19] Laura Camien: What isn't used?

[25:20] Chris Pappas: Yeah.

[25:20] Chris Pappas: And we're focusing on what we want.

[25:22] Laura Camien: But isn't it also like I I'm obsessed with this?

[25:25] Laura Camien: Is this the one where you like you look at an electrical outlet and you see a face?

[25:30] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[25:30] Laura Camien: Yes.

[25:31] Susan Blackwell: Yes, clouds, uh, the Warshar test.

[25:34] Laura Camien: Got it.

[25:34] Susan Blackwell: And these uh and so I think it's just important to remember around spooky season that you know those shadows you see in the corner, those bumps that you hear.

[25:44] Laura Camien: You are indeed a man on a black eye.

[25:47] Susan Blackwell: Most Chris filled them in.

[25:51] Laura Camien: Most likely have a reasonable explanation.

[25:53] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah.

[25:57] Laura Camien: We can't say for sure.

[26:02] Susan Blackwell: All right. In the hot seat, we've got Lisa Marie Newton.

[26:05] Laura Camien: Lisa Marie Newton is, I would say, an OG sparkler.

[26:09] Susan Blackwell: As have several people who have come before.

[26:11] Laura Camien: That's right. But how do you identify creatively?

[26:15] Lisa Marie Newton: I am an actor, singer, voiceover artist, and screenwriter.

[26:22] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, yeah, baby. You are. You have a spark for us today?

[26:25] Lisa Marie Newton: I do. As soon as Laura brought up that we had this homework assignment, I knew immediately what I wanted to do.

[26:33] Susan Blackwell: You're really selling Sparks Fest, by the way.

[26:35] Lisa Marie Newton: I know.

[26:35] Susan Blackwell: This homework assignment.

[26:39] Lisa Marie Newton: Come to Canada. Get homework.

[26:42] Susan Blackwell: Sorry, go ahead.

[26:44] Lisa Marie Newton: And the name of my spark is I Love a Labyrinth. And I have for years and year decades loved labyrinths. And here at Saunders Farm, they have a series of mazes.

[26:55] Laura Camien: Yes.

[26:56] Lisa Marie Newton: That are called mazes, and they are actually mazes. So I want to talk a little bit about the difference between a maze and a labyrinth.

[27:03] Laura Camien: What?

[27:06] Lisa Marie Newton: So in the episode of Jerry Springer, there was a difference.

[27:09] Laura Camien: No.

[27:10] Lisa Marie Newton: Oh, Grant Saunders and shot into the air.

[27:14] Laura Camien: What's it got for us?

[27:16] Lisa Marie Newton: So a maze is usually what we think of and usually what we call it. And it is a place where you go in and you have to make choices, and there are obstacles. Obstacles usually being dead ends. So you might go the wrong way to try to get to your destination.

[27:33] Laura Camien: In a maze.

[27:35] Lisa Marie Newton: Lauren's learning.

[27:37] Laura Camien: Yes.

[27:38] Lisa Marie Newton: So it's, you know, if you think about when you're a little kid and you would draw mazes and you would try to find your way through to the end, but you would sometimes get stuck and have to like on the placemat back.

[27:49] Laura Camien: Exactly.

[27:50] Lisa Marie Newton: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh labyrinth, on the other hand.

[27:55] Laura Camien: As David Howie.

[27:58] Lisa Marie Newton: The buffets.

[28:00] Laura Camien: No, actually, a labyrinth, you cannot get lost. A labyrinth is something that, and these were also on the placemats, but you just keep following the path. There's no wrong turn.

[28:16] Lisa Marie Newton: There's no wrong turn. And the reason I love a labyrinth is because the metaphor for me is that you just keep following the path in front of you. One foot in front of the other. Sometimes you think you're really close to your destination. And if you keep following the path, you might end up all the way back out at the end. But if you keep following the path, you will end up exactly in the middle in your destination. If you keep following one foot in front of the other, and don't look and try to figure it out. You just keep following the path in front of you. And I think for me as an artist, like that has been now when I look back, it's easier to see when you look back. But that's what we do is we follow what is in front of us, and eventually we get to a destination.

[29:13] Laura Camien: That is beautiful. I feel like my brain grew.

[29:21] Susan Blackwell: So you're Angela Grant Saunders.

[29:23] Angela Grant Saunders: I am.

[29:24] Susan Blackwell: Would you tell us how you identify creatively?

[29:28] Angela Grant Saunders: I will say that comfortably now I state that I am a creative farmer.

[29:33] Laura Camien: Oh.

[29:34] Angela Grant Saunders: And just that.

[29:35] Susan Blackwell: Creative farmer.

[29:36] Angela Grant Saunders: I grow things, and they're not always plants.

[29:40] Laura Camien: Sometimes when we describe the people who make up the spark file, we say we have farmers.

[29:49] Angela Grant Saunders: Yes, and but now creative farmers.

[29:49] Laura Camien: Creative farmers.

[29:52] Angela Grant Saunders: Yeah, that's great.

[29:54] Susan Blackwell: Thanks. Beautiful. Great description. Is that a spark for us?

[29:56] Angela Grant Saunders: A chardu. Give it to us.

[29:59] Angela Grant Saunders: It's fall on the farm.

[30:01] Laura Camien: Yes, it is.

[30:01] Angela Grant Saunders: And for us and for many farms around North America and the UK and Europe, that means fall festival time. So it's not just harvest time, it's also an opportunity to have people come onto your farm. Hopefully they'll buy your vegetables that you've worked hard growing, but also you can treat them. And so I'm going to talk about fall foods.

[30:27] Laura Camien: Fall foods on the farm.

[30:29] Angela Grant Saunders: Yes, please. So you might see these at state fairs, you know, a lot of beautiful fall treats that you get at different state fairs, or in Canada, we call them provincial fairs. We don't use that term online. From our point of view here at the farm, when we started welcoming people onto Saunders Farm, we knew we had to have fun traits for people to eat. And this was a giant learning curve for us because we didn't have an expert in concession treats on our team, but we said, well, dog on it. If other people can learn it, we can learn it too. Here are some of the products that we've had at our farm that we've learned how to make over the years. A shiny red candy apple with a crunchy coating. Which led to caramel apples, which you have to be really careful about because sometimes if you don't make the caramel exactly right to the correct temperature and consistency, it might fall off the apple. Or it might get so hard that you leave a tooth behind. And we don't like that. That's the fear.

[31:36] Laura Camien: Yes.

[31:37] Angela Grant Saunders: Then we got into fresh cut fries. And because we're in Canada, that led to poutine. What's poutine, you say? That's right. Because you've never read a food magazine or been to a great restaurant or come to a Canadian park. I'm not shaming. I'm here to hedge my cake. Poutine is fresh cut fries with fresh, squeaky cheese curds and hot, hot gravy. Pour it over so that the cheese melts. Yeah. It's beautiful fall treat. It's good. It's actually available year-round. Then we can talk about kettle corn. A little bit spicy, not spicy, salty, a little bit sweet. We'll team that up in post. Yeah. Whole lot of good. And then when we brought in fudge, I thought my brain would explode. This is the peak. It's the peak. We have 20 varieties of fudge, and it's all tea. Yeah. It's beautiful.

[32:34] Laura Camien: Wow.

[32:35] Angela Grant Saunders: Top seller is hard to make.

[32:37] Laura Camien: Is it hard to make?

[32:38] Angela Grant Saunders: Yeah. No. Top seller is?

[32:41] Angela Grant Saunders: I think that it's it used to be chewy praline, but I'm pretty sure it's like chocolate peanut butter. You know, it's like a reason peanut butter cup. But I'm gonna tell you now about our new venture. Because there's more. And you mentioned it in your intro. Can we talk about apple cider donuts?

[32:59] Angela Grant Saunders: So right now we are perfecting our apple cider donuts. Last week we plugged in our Belshaw Mark 6 donut robot that can make a hundred I see a style. I should you not it can make a hundred and twenty dozen donuts in an hour.

[33:20] Laura Camien: What?

[33:21] Angela Grant Saunders: Oh my god, they're freezes. Yeah, it's exciting. Here's the other thing you need to know. You need to wait for your shortening to melt and reach a temperature of 375 degrees. If it's too cold, your donut will be really greasy. We don't like that. We want a beautiful cakey donut. The liquid in our donut is 100% Ontario apple cider. Fresh, delicious. So that apple flavor comes right through the vanilla cake donut. And then you get the crispy exterior. And then when it's just cool enough to touch, but still really hot, you roll that in cinnamon sugar, one part cinnamon to seven parts sugar, extra fine sugar. And that, my friends, is how you make an apple cider donut.

[34:13] Laura Camien: When will we be having some apple cider donuts?

[34:17] Angela Grant Saunders: I think we're gonna have some tomorrow night, Laura. Don't you wish you were here?

[34:20] Laura Camien: Don't you wish you were here?

[34:22] Susan Blackwell: Angela, I want to put you on the spot just for one moment. Because I understand through what you just told us, like sort of the history of how you evolved to have food on the farm. But I'm pretty sure, I know I'm putting you on the spot, but I'm pretty sure you have a philosophy besides just like we need to have food here. I'm sure you have a philosophy about food and its connection to humans, and I won't say any more because I don't want to leave the witness. What are what are your thoughts on that?

[34:50] Angela Grant Saunders: Well, the the bottom line to me is food is love. And I've learned that from my mother and I mark my husband from his mother, my mother-in-law. Um, and I believe that food is love, and so food that comes from the earth and from farms and from farmers that we know is the best, and it's okay to have a treat every once in a while, and that's what this time of year is for.

[35:16] Laura Camien: Beautiful.

[35:17] Susan Blackwell: And that's it. Suze, those were some spooky sparks and some really like celebration of autumn sparks.

[35:29] Laura Camien: Charming.

[35:30] Susan Blackwell: Automatic sparks. Thank you so much to all of our wonderful community members who contributed such awesomeness to that episode. Really appreciate it because it fills our spark files, but also it fills my heart with like these great memories of this community and being together and how we can inspire each other with, you know, the way our own brains work and the ideas that come to us. So it's all very warm. I feel very warm and happy.

[36:00] Laura Camien: I know you are a warm cup of apple cider.

[36:03] Susan Blackwell: Oh, thanks, Suze. And like I said, it's a girl darn cornucopia.

[36:09] Susan Blackwell: So that's it. This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Satsuyaha, the Mohican, the Anashanabe, and the Algonquin people. And as always, we hope this put another bunch of sparks in your file. 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 getcreative@thesparkfile.com or reach us through our website, thesparkfile.com. We will even happily take your feedback. But you know the price of admission. First, you gotta share a creative risk that you've taken recently.

[36:48] Laura Camien: You can follow us on social at The Sparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five-star review this podcast. It really helps other listeners to find us. Also, if you liked this podcast, we hope that you'll share it with people that you love. And if you didn't like it, you can go haunt yourself.

[37:07] Susan Blackwell: 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. It is your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame. You know, you gotta take it and make it. Maybe it's knocking at your door like a spooky, spooky spark.

[37:33] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in the spark files.

[37:42] Susan Blackwell: Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[37:47] Laura Camien: I'll pump it in the spark files.

[37:52] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my spark files.

[37:57] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark files.