“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” These are the words of an Entrepreneur who has an idea half-formed and a dream bigger than the sunrise. He or she believes that if you leap, a net will appear. Entrepreneurs are confident in the street-smarts they glean from their failures and their optimistic futurevision lets them see […]

The Other Kind of Excellence Your company is approaching an intersection. The light is green. Turn left and you’re headed toward Excellence. Turn right and you’re headed toward another kind of Excellence. Go straight and you’ll arrive at Mediocrity. Most companies go straight ahead because if they turn left or right they’ll be moving toward […]

Check it out, cub scout. The wizard got two different animators to turn his recent Christmas rant into a video.   You’ll find both versions below. A String Theory Christmas Story Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, Brian Greene and the Bible. Calm down. No one is trying to argue you into faith. Faith is not logical. […]

The Art Gallery under the tower at Wizard Academy, the gift of Don and Sherry Kuhl.

The Library Floor in the tower at Wizard Academy overlooks The Eye of the Storm lecture hall. The four walls of the library floor were built by Laurie and Eric Rhoads, Jean and Andrew Backus, Lori Barr and Steven Dent and Ray Bard. Tim, the very Storm, built the floor below. Wizard Academy: Of the […]

Arthur Ernst Becher, (1877-1960) Watercolor and gouache. Don Quixote Circa 1925. “May God forgive you for the damage you’ve done to the whole rest of the world, in trying to cure the wittiest lunatic ever seen! Don’t you see, my dear sir, that, whatever utility there might be in curing him, it could never match […]

Straight up iPhone photo, no special effects. Don’t tell me dogs can’t use cameras. I call it “Underwater Sunlight.” – Indy

“But hear what? Hear what? The Bible is hundreds upon hundreds of voices all calling at once out of the past and clamoring for our attention like barkers at a fair, like air-raid sirens, like a whole barnyard of cock crows as the first long shafts of dawn fan out across the sky. Some of […]

The Silhouette of Jesus SundayMorningMemo #3 Jesus didn’t invent the printing press. I find that interesting. He never even wrote a book. Jesus was content to let people with imperfect memories tell his story to other people with imperfect memories. If 2,000 years ago I’d had a message for the world, I would have written […]

Why God Needed Abraham SundayMorningMemo #2 Can you open your mind wide enough to consider a big idea? Planetary big? It’s a simple, scientific fact that seven billion of us are crammed on a tiny speck of dust circling an 11,000-degree fireball as it shoots through a limitless vacuum at 52 times the speed of […]

Business Branding or Customer Bonding? Branding – as it is taught today – will at best cause people to remember you and have a mild opinion. But unlike yesterday’s branding, today’s bonding is the beginning of relationship, the essence of loyalty and the foundation of community among human beings. Bonding, when done properly, makes people […]

Have you read the new text on the home page at WizardAcademy.org? I wrote part of it, Princess Pennie wrote the rest. The wizard and Brittington were off making videos for the American Small Business Institute.

Nashville Wizard of Ads partner Tim Miles sent us this true cartoon story, ‘It’s going to be okay.’  Very cool. Definitely worth the click.   New Orleans Wizard of Ads partner Manley Miller sent us this Wall Street Journal Story called Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God (Click, then scroll to the bottom of the PDF.) Cognoscenti Andrea […]

John Skips the Begats A Christmas Story for the Cognoscenti   Stephen Hawking says, “M-theory is the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe.” 1 Michio Kaku believes M-theory to be “so concise that its underlying formula would fit on a T-shirt.” 2 M-theory tells us that time is made of tiny loops […]

Vice-Chancellor Whittington sent an email asking one of his good friends – Andrew Harrison, one of the wizard’s partners – to do something for the Academy. Andrew playfully replied, “No.” The Whitmeister sent the following response: In a small village somewhere in the Alps, a child responds disobediently to his mother. In return she sits him […]

Banging Words Together Words ring like bells when you collide them correctly. It’s in the Bible. In the opening chapter of Genesis we read about the creation of the universe – God spoke it into existence if you can believe it – and we read about the creation of mankind. An interesting chapter, that. The only information […]

Did you notice the wizard quoted me in last week’s MondayMorningMemo? Let the trumpets sound! I have arrived. When William Hackett-Jones read it, he sent the following video addendum. – Indy

The same cognoscenti we heard from last week – a nonny mouse – sent us a comment about the Whole Foods story, above. Farts like a Cydesdale … awesome line!Farts are one of life’s universal jokes … regardless of culture, era, age or level of education … a well timed fart in the right place can bring down the […]

Be sure to take a look at the weekly video training available from The American Small Business Institute at Wizard Academy. See your customers through the lens of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Dr. Richard D. Grant is old enough to be your grandfather, young enough to be your little brother, funny enough to do stand-up comedy […]

Word People Some word-people feel it’s their duty to correct you when you use a word improperly. These people are pedantic, pointy-nose dogs determined to give you a posterior probe, pretending it’s for your own good. I am not that sort of word-person. The people of my tribe believe words are colored with sparkling tints […]

How big a deal is Chang Ucchin? Take a look at the new Chang Ucchin museum in Korea.

How does Elon Musk know the right person to hire? His insightful answer will make you smile.

Wizard of Ads partner Tim Miles sent us this. It’s very cool. Definitely worth the click.

“Someone once observed that the difference between Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher was that whereas Thatcher believed that she was always right, Blair believed not only that he was right but also that he was good. Visitors to the big technology companies in California come away with the feeling that they have been talking to […]

The Architecture of Dreams  My first house was a small frame home built in the 40’s. A small wooden box. Two bedrooms, one small bath, a itty bitty kitchen, single living room and an attached one car garage. Did I mention it was small? Over the years I completely remodeled it, put in central air, converted the […]

Here’s another example of Folk Art by Ruth Mae McCrane. Life Among The Shanty (1992) sold Sunday for $550 plus a 23% buyer’s premium.  (19″ x 25″)

This is a detail featuring the Magi (Wise Men) from a 500 year-old painting by Hieronymus Bosch (1450 – 1516) an Early Netherlandish painter. “His work is known for its fantastic imagery, detailed landscapes and illustrations of moral and religious concepts and narratives.” – WIKIPEDIA Anytime I run across a trippy image of the Magi […]

Painted by Janet Munro in 1984, this View Of Otsego Lake is a wonderful example of what’s often called Naive Art, Outsider Art, Self-Taught Art or Folk Art. At 66” wide x 50” high, this is a BIG painting. The opening bid on Saturday (Nov. 14, 2015) was $2,500 and the final selling price was $11,000 plus a […]

“I’m not even sure these new instruments are genuinely ‘social.’ There is something decidedly faux about the camaraderie of Facebook, something illusory about the connectedness of Twitter. Eavesdrop on a conversation as it surges through the digital crowd, and more often than not it is reductive and redundant. Following an argument among the Twits is like listening to […]

Aaron Sorkin is the greatest screenwriter in the history of television and I should know because I’m a beagle. Aaron creates fascinating characters and writes amazing dialogue. Here’s what The Sorkin has to say about social media: “I have a lot of opinions on social media that make me sound like a grumpy old man […]

Did you forget that I can walk into paintings and photos and interact with the scene? Well, here’s what I forgot: the crown I’m wearing is from a much later era. That’s why the two hammerheads behind me are beginning to create a scene. This painting is interesting to me because it’s done in the […]

Seriously, don’t click this link until you’re securely strapped in. – Indy

Brad Whittington – our novelist friend and resident expert on live Jazz music – sent you this VERY INTERESTING 3-minute video to serve as an example of how the Cognoscenti of Wizard Academy consciously choose a perspective to help accomplish a desired outcome. Frank, Frost, Monet.  Upton Sinclair, in an interview with Rene FulopMiller on March […]

Blake wrote this in England in 1794 when George Washington was President of the rebellious “colonies.” – Indy

Be sure to watch the video beneath the How I Met Your Mother clip, the Letterman clip. It’s hilarious. – Indy

Dotson-Cervantes Gotas de Oro is like Hungarian Tokaji or Canadian ice wine, but a little less sweet. I liked it. The princess liked it. The wizard liked it. Bought several bottles of it. Hard to find. Hard to get. “This week has been a hard one. I have put the forces of evil against a potential […]

If you read the wizard’s rant last week, you’ll remember his response to the guy who foolishly claimed, “It’s been proven that we remember more of what we see than what we hear.” The wizard asked, “Would you be willing to trust the opinion of Professor Steven Pinker whose research on vision, language, and social […]

The London Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor. Despite its long-winded name, the London Society did not distribute charity but specialized in cutting off funds for social welfare. Its leaders believed a distinct line must be drawn between the ‘deserving poor’ (those facing hard times as a result of unfortunate […]

Read more about the creation of the British Empire at http://www.friesian.com/british.htm

This is a clip from a PBS special showing us where Geoffrey of Monmouth created the legend of King Arthur. To see the whole 1-hour special, look here.

Private Academy classes

“Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.” – Michael Pritchard

Read more about the creation of the British Empire at http://www.friesian.com/british.htm