Our Russian Ambassador in St. Petersburg, William Hackett-Jones, writes, “A subscriber noticed this on the wall of my studio and pointed me to the opening credits of a Soviet Spanish language learning programme…”

When we moved from Oklahoma to Texas 35 years ago, Pennie and I would get up at the crack of dawn every Friday and Saturday morning so that we could cherry-pick all the best stuff at garage sales, take it home and write creative, engaging descriptions about it, then reprice it and put it on […]

Remember the David Payne Candy Cane Christmas Train? This 3-minute video is about the wonderful home his 25-year-old daughter recently built from the ground up for $25,000. Prepare to be amazed. Princess Pennie and I had been married for 10 years when we left Oklahoma 35 years ago, but Oklahoma never left us. Our clients, […]

Stephen Semple sent us this photo along with something he read: “Now Facebook is saying, in public, that Apple’s ad changes have been a really big deal, after all. The short version, as COO Sheryl Sandberg told investors last week: Facebook’s ad targeting became less accurate because it now knows less about its users. Which […]

Darwin is the man my mother married when both she and he were 88 years old.  That was ten years ago.  My mother passed some years later, but Darwin is still around.  In June he looks to celebrate his 98th birthday.  By most measures, he has been around for a long time. Tonight it is very cold and snowy.  Darwin […]

Bob Dylan bought a copy of his book. So did James Woods and Simon Cowell. Mel Brooks was so impressed with author James Bailey that he wrote a cover blurb for Bailey’s newest book, The Diary of a Manic, OCD Bookseller. Yes, you read that correctly. James Bailey suffers from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and was living out […]

Dear Indy and Roy, I believe I mentioned to you that last August (five months ago), I had a subdural hematoma (brain bleed) that required emergency surgery. Surgery was a success but as a result (left side of brain), I lost the ability to speak completely for a few days. After many months of speech […]

Indy, I have been fascinated by your and the Wizard’s ongoing discussion of shadows and portals, not just in recent weeks, but over the past several years. It was with this in mind that this article fascinated me. I was strangely drawn to these photographs.  Holes that can never be replaced, holes that forever mar […]

Often while teaching composition values in my art classes, I will end with asking students what they see as the Center of Interest in my painting. More often than I would ever guess, people – especially young kids – proclaim it to be the shadow.– Dan Cooper Dear Dan,Thanks for sharing that! You created an amazing […]

Dear Indy; Regarding your shadows topic, you might be interested to know something about the painting with the 3 floating kids.

I love honest open smiles,kisses from a child,Tomatoes on the vine.And onions.I love winners when they cry, losers when they try,Music when it’s good,and Life… And I love you, too.

If you wanna get to heaven, gotta D-I-E.You gotta put on your coat and T-I-E.Wanna get the rabbit out of the L-O-GYou gotta make a commotion like a D-O-G.Like a D-O-G.Like a D-O-G.

  Come Monday,it’ll be all right.Come Monday, I’ll be holdin’ you tightI spent four lonely days in a brown LA hazeAnd I just want you back by my side.

  I find it very, very easy to be true.I find myself alone when each day is through.Yes, I’ll admitI’m a fool for you.Because you’re mine,I walk the line.

…the summer sun might burn me ’til I’m blind… But not to where I cannot see you walkin’ on the backroads, by the rivers flowing gentle on my mind.

The goal of branding is to build a relationship with future customers. When a relationship has finally been established, you become who these people think of immediately – and feel the best about – when they, or any of their friends, need what you sell.   Direct marketers usually disdain mass media because it doesn’t […]

Vice-Chancellor Dave Young wrote, “I’m kinda pissed off right now (as I boil more water so I can brush my teeth) that I moved here without ‘y’all’ telling me that your state flag is actually a Yelp rating. 1oneStarState.” (In Austin, we’re having to boil our water because Governor Abbot peed in it.) Amarillo waterboy Tom […]

In science, Chaos is not randomness, but its opposite. Chaos is a higher level of order, too big to be contained within your mind. You can understand the concept of eternity, but you cannot hold the totality of it in your mind. Chaos is like that. A fractal image is a map of a chaotic system […]

This is the Tower at Wizard Academy, where your classes will be held when you visit.Zoom in and look around.

Journeys of Imagination on a Frozen Day Taken atop the Tower at Wizard Academy by Vice-Chancellor Dave Young

When Words are Images and Images are Words There are four kinds of thought. Verbal Thought is hearing a voice in your mind.Analytical Thought is deductive reasoning that seeks to forecast a result.Abstract Thought embraces fantasy and all things intangible.Symbolic Thought connects the pattern recognition of the right brain with the deductive reasoning of the left-brain to relate the unknown […]

When the wizard and Princess Pennie were just 2 years old, Dean Martin recorded this 2-minute song.

Shannon, Yes, the blank pages are intentional. They were placed there for effect.   White space focuses the reader’s attention on one, clear idea, thereby increasing the impact of that short nugget of information.   This same principle is followed in the presentation of precious gemstones and fine art. The showcases of the jeweler and the walls of the museum are […]

Douglas Holmes is an investment banker who sees massive potential in telemedicine. His confidence is built on the advanced technology that underpins such services as DermatologistOnCall, which features a network of board-certified dermatologists who can provide telemedicine services in all 50 states, and can even offer in-home melanoma tests. Listen in as Douglas Holmes explains how you […]

Alternative search Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We don’t even know most of them exist. But there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other cool information.   Keep a list of these sites you probably never heard of:   […]

Check out the fabulous Russian painter Mihail Gluhov

Neil Young‘s not on Spotify nowThe world is falling apartWhat are they saying about this on Twitter?Isn’t that what really matters?I’ve heard “Heart of Gold” enough for one lifetimeSo that’s really not the issueIt’s just… I dunno, Neil or Joe?It’s so hard to know who to cancelMaybe Spotify itself has to goBut it’s only $10 […]

Storm’s Passion Storm is a character in my mind. No, not so much a character as a caricature, an icon, an archetype. I occasionally meet Storm in the real world. Storm is sometimes male, sometimes female. You’ve met Storm, too. Storm is easily infatuated. Storm is in love with Love. Storm talks a lot about […]

I never saw the sun shinin’ so bright,Never saw things goin’ so right,Noticing the days hurrying by,When you’re in love, my how they fly by…

Ever wonder why we say tick-tock,not tock-tick, or ding-dong, not dong-ding: King Kong, not Kong King? Turns out it is one of the unwritten rules of English that native speakers know without knowing. The rule, explained in a BBC article, is: “If there are three words then the order must always be I, A, O. […]

Good Day Indy! Believing you are well and successful on this beautiful day. I was reading along with my man Melvin this week that part in your book Pendulum where a Catholic, a Mormon, a Jew, and an Evangelical sat down at a table together to make predictions about the future. Yesterday we came across several articles touting an […]

Following a lifetime of teaching English, Melissa Joseph combined her love of poetry with her life-long habit of writing personal thank you notes to create Lotus Cards: Notecards with Heart. Roving reporter Rotbart says Melissa is special for a couple of reasons: One – she’s a senior citizen unafraid to launch a new business, and […]

There are 5 kinds of people in the world – at least as far as contribution to society goes. Those who build the world. These are your bricklayers, urban planners, landscapers, fintechs, and perhaps even politicians. Those who defend the world. These are your service members, security providers, martial arts senseis, and judiciaries. Those who […]

“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”– Louis-Hector Berlioz, composer (1803-1869) The most famous symphony of Berlioz is strangely autobiographical. Obsessed with an actress, Berlioz pursued her for years until she married him, but the marriage quickly fell apart… Symphonie Fantastique is about an artist who is doomed by his obsession […]

Roy, Thank you for re-framing for clarity and felt needs. Your edits were of great help.  What will this new division of Wizard of Ads be called? Is it a medley of words?  Aroo! Paul M. Boomer paulboomer@wizardofads.com

Paul, you are in the business of  Employee Optimization.  The essential question you are posing to business owners is this: “Your employees are your biggest expense. Isn’t it time you optimized them?”   The typical business owner thinks they understand how to “manage” employees, so the development of an energized company culture that creates magnetic employee retention and […]

Paul,Thank You for doing precisely what I asked. 🙂 You made my job easy for me. You even ranked the outcomes according to your confidence to deliver! As a result, I was able to use only the best ideas from the top half of your list, giving you 8 headlines that promise precisely what you know you can do.(1.) I used the outcomes […]

“It would be interesting to see whether a nation governed by small boys would not be a better, happier nation than those ruled by old men whose prejudices may or may not be conditioned by ulcerous stomachs and perhaps a little drying up of the stream of love.” – John Steinbeck, Sea of Cortez, p. […]

How to Teach Your Dog to Talk The wizard was reading in his big leather chair in the library of the tower, so I hopped onto his lap, wedged myself alongside him, and closed my eyes for a nap. I have been doing this since I was a puppy. I was almost asleep when I […]

“A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” – Albert Camus

“Under live oaks, shaded and dusky, the maidenhair flourished and gave a good smell, and under the mossy banks of the watercourses whole clumps of five-fingered ferns and goldy-backs hung down. Then there were harebells, tiny lanterns, cream white and almost sinful looking, and these were so rare and magical that a child, finding one, […]

This week, in Part Two of roving reporter Rotbart’s conversation with business historian Gary Hoover, the two turn their attention to women and minorities who overcame long odds to build or lead successful companies.They will also reveal the failures and rebounds of some great American companies and share the story of one executive whose business […]

Last week, Cedric Yau asked, “Is the BeagleSword the Beagle sword or the Beagle’s word?” It’s both, sort of.  1. In Indy’s introduction to the rabbit hole, he says, “the terminus page is where I give you the BeagleSword, a word or phrase I suggested when the wizard was writing.” That Beagle’s word brings color […]

What are these women talking about?   Why do they seem forlorn?   Where are they and on what do they stand?   What happens next?

Who are we?   What are we carrying?   Where are we going?   And what are we going to do when we get there? 

A silhouette is not a shadow. A silhouette is what we see when we look toward the light. A silhouette speaks of things to come. Painters and writers and photographers and historians and the makers of movies have always seen this, always known it. You have always known it, too. Shadows speak of the past. […]

Daniel Denny was my brother-in-law, the husband of Pennie’s second-oldest sister, Pattie. When we bought the land for the campus in 2004, Daniel volunteered to move to Austin and build whatever we wanted. When we decided to carve a 100-yard subterranean approach aimed at the North Star 14 feet deep in the solid limestone of […]

“There was a moment when the light was just right, and my shadow appeared, ready for battle, alongside the Oxford English Dictionary on a Tuesday afternoon in Austin, Texas in the winter.” – Don Quixote Visually, a shadow is a hole in the light. A shadow carries the distorted shape of a moment beyond the […]

How to Run a Con Austin McConnell: So it’s April of 1956, and radio host, Jean Shepherd, is on a roll during his overnight show on WOR Radio in New York. The latest source of his ire: people who pretend to know everything, the snobs, the posers who fancy themselves scholarly critics, the day-people who blindly […]

“The house has grown into a knowledgeable witness. It has been party to early seductions, it has watched homework being written, it has observed swaddled babies freshly arrived from hospital, it has been surprised in the middle of the night by whispered conferences in the kitchen. It has experienced winter evenings when its windows were […]

“In the kingdoms of England, the sound of the bells is already one of the customs of the afternoon, but the man, while still a boy, had seen the face of Woden, had seen holy dread and exultation, had seen the rude wooden idol weighed down with Roman coins and heavy vestments, seen the sacrifice […]

We felt the frozen fist of winter last week, so the wizard scribbled that little verse on the previous page. When Princess Pennie read it, she told us about an American woman who had lived in a frightfully cold part of the world for a year and then written about it. The woman said that […]

“As a young man, Achilles ventures forth into the world, where he proceeds from one exploit to the next, vanquishing all manner of opponents until his reputation precedes him far and wide. Then, at the very height of his fame and the peak of his physical prowess, Achilles sets sail for Troy to join the […]

“The first two U.S. elections were essentially not contested, with George Washington as the universal preference. So the third election, which occurred in 1796, was the first truly contested election, and it immediately showed the vitriol and ad hominem attacks we have come to expect in presidential politics. In it, Thomas Jefferson was accused of […]

I woke last night.A wolf howled at the moon.It was Old Man Winterwhistling his tune. He came up the drive,Knocked on the door,Handed me a letter. “Who is this for?” “For you,” he said coldlyWith a bit of a sneer,“Playtime is over.Winter is here.” I looked in his eyes,“You’re a man I admire.I insist you come […]

Your actions cast a shadow across space and time, affecting people directly – or indirectly – for generations. You already know this. The rest of what I’m about to tell you is speculative, but I believe I am right: Visually, a shadow is a hole in the light. A shadow carries the distorted shape of […]

Let’s talk about frame rates. Movies shot on film are shot at a 24-frames-per-second. This means that 24 slightly different images flash every second, but your eyes cannot detect the gaps between the images. Video in the US displays pictures at 29.97-frames-per-second (NTSC) because the frequency of our energy source (alternating current, AC) is 60 Hz.  […]

When General Electric announced its plan to break itself into 3 different companies last November, roving reporter Rotbart invited business historian Gary Hoover to explain GE’s decline. One company Hoover founded was acquired by Barnes & Noble, while another was purchased by Dun & Bradstreet. These days, Hoover is executive director of the American Business […]

And now we’re going to flash back to the rabbit hole where Friar Duck brought a guest without permission…

No: it is not yours to open buds into blossoms.Shake the bud, strike it; it is beyond your power to make it blossom.Your touch soils it, you tear its petals to pieces and strew them in the dust.But no colours appear, and no perfume. Ah! it is not for you to open the bud into […]

GOAL TWO:  I want to add 3 senior partners to the Wizards of Ads. The rainmakers of the partnership – and I am not one of them – have been pursued by really BIG clients in recent years to help them take their businesses to the next level. {Keep in mind the partner group contains […]

I have 2 goals for the first quarter of 2022: GOAL ONE: I want to recruit some business owners to give my newest partners a chance to work their magic. The senior Wizard of Ads partners lovingly refer to the partners I have added in recent years as, “the cubs.” I invited each of these […]

My Plans for 2022 I have no plans to retire because I am certain I wouldn’t enjoy it. But I do have plans for what I want to accomplish in the first quarter of 2022. The Wizard of Ads partners have grown their clients by extraordinary percentages during the 20 years since I first gathered […]

“Jesus lived as a common man among common men. He lived where they lived – fishermen, tax collectors, shepherds, street vendors – and He loved them all, outcasts of every kind, the untouchables, lepers, lunatics, Samaritans, street people and women taken in adultery. He loved kids and crowds, celebrations and solitude, miracles and quiet meals […]

“Now that we’re in the thick of another US college football season, it occurs to me that IT application developers might benefit from having a different mental model to represent the work they do.” “When I talk to architects, analysts and programmers about their projects, they often describe them as if they were heading in […]

This is the MondayMorningMemoyou should have gotten: A Second Reality

On July 23, Eagles Auditorium was raped and pillaged, anointed and sanctified, by four musicians calling themselves after a utilitarian device for opening and closing architectural entryways and medicine cabinets; The Doors. Yes, The Doors. Jeweled glass panels, knobs that resemble spitting phalluses, mail slots that glow like jack-o’lantern lips – and not a welcome […]

The wizard and I both enjoy the wordplay of Tom Robbins. In fact, the Random Quotes Database at MondayMorningMemo.com contains the same number of Tom Robbins quotes as John Steinbeck quotes.  And you know how much the wizard likes Steinbeck. In 1997, Tom said a 1967 performance of The Doors helped him to find his voice […]

22-year-old Jim Morrison, freshly graduated from UCLA, showed America the sharpened new edge of serrated Rock in this video recorded in the autumn of 1966. Their debut album – The Doors – was released in 1967. 

“This is the side of Jim Morrison few people ever get know. He is always depicted as an obnoxious drunk maniac but he was so much more. He was a highly sophisticated, intelligent, well read southern gentlemen in his quiet moments which his close friends say was his demeanor the majority of the time but […]

“Truth, in the grand sense, cannot be treated merely like an accretion of facts. Truth is a story we tell, a history we accept, an agreement we make, a conversation and a negotiation. Truth is nothing without belief, and for one person to believe another, there needs to be trust between them.” – Jose A. […]