• Home
  • Memo
    • Past Memo Archives
    • Podcast (iTunes)
    • RSS Feed
  • Roy H. Williams
    • Private Consulting
    • Public Speaking
    • Pendulum_Free_PDF
    • Sundown in Muskogee
    • Destinae, the Free the Beagle trilogy
    • People Stories
    • Stuff Roy Said
      • The Other Kind of Advertising
        • Business Personality Disorder PDF Download
        • The 10 Most Common Mistakes in Marketing
          • How to Build a Bridge to Millennials_PDF
          • The Secret of Customer Loyalty and Not Having to Discount
          • Roy’s Politics
    • Steinbeck’s Unfinished Quixote
  • Wizard of Ads Partners
  • Archives
  • More…
    • Steinbeck, Quixote and Me_Cervantes Society
    • Rabbit Hole
    • American Small Business Institute
    • How to Get and Hold Attention downloadable PDF
    • Wizard Academy
    • What’s the deal with
      Don Quixote?
    • Quixote Wasn’t Crazy
      • Privacy Policy
      • Will You Donate A Penny A Wedding to Bring Joy to People in Love?

The Monday Morning Memo

Elegant Absurdity

April 4, 2022

| Download
https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/30e861dc-bcc2-4446-8b9a-df24b5df9c73/MMM20220404-ElegantAbsurdity.mp3

The choice between a good thing and a bad thing is never a hard choice. The only hard choice is between two good things.

Science is a good thing. And so are the Arts. Why choose?

Rube Goldberg became wildly famous 100 years ago because his elegantly absurd inventions combined Science with Art.

Elegant absurdity surprises and delights us because it reveals lofty creativity and deep commitment aimed at something that is not – to the logical mind – worth the effort.

Confronted with the elegantly absurd, pure logic snorts a derisive laugh, but the heart laughs with peals of pure joy.

YouTube and TikTok are filled with elegant absurdity. OK GO rode the rocket of the elegantly absurd to heights unknown, then Walk Off the Earth rode it like a surfboard to the edge of the world and beyond. The absurdly elegant inventions of Mark Rober and the elegantly absurd shenanigans of Rex and Daniel have given them massive influence in their fields of endeavor.

Marching bands, baton twirling, and tap dancing… perhaps all kinds of dancing… are examples of the elegantly absurd because they require creativity and commitment to achieve something that, again – to the logical mind – isn’t worth the effort.

Indy Beagle has examples of all these for you in the rabbit hole.

Satire is another elegant absurdity.

“Satire has done more to change society than a mountain of political policies. Everything from All in the Family to Saturday Night Live to The Daily Show… (not to mention court jesters, Twain, Menippus, Will Rogers). It’s a battering ram disguised as a rubber chicken.”
– Johnny Molson

But is ‘elegant absurdity’ as absurd as it first appears?

“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”
– Jeannette Walls

“The more evolved an animal is, the more time it spends playing.”
– P.J. O’Rourke

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”
– Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker, p. 19

So there it is. When you are literate in the basic concepts of the Sciences and the Arts, you are qualified to be elegantly absurd. You are that flash of energy, that illumination we see when two wires come into close proximity after having been connected to opposite poles of the same high-voltage battery.

Shine on, bright friend, shine on.

Roy H. Williams

The life and death of Tony Hsieh, the billionaire CEO of online shoe-seller Zappos, is a master class in visionary business leadership and a cautionary tale about how fame can mask deep problems. Hsieh, who sold Zappos to Amazon for $1.2 billion, died in a mysterious shed fire in late November 2020 at age 46. This week, two reporters for The Wall Street Journal — Kirsten Grind and Katherine Sayre — join roving reporter Rotbart to share details from their newly published biography of the business legend. It is a riveting examination of an entrepreneur who, while great, was deeply flawed. MondayMorningRadio.com.

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive the Monday Morning Memo in your inbox!

Download the PDF "Dictionary of the Cognoscenti of Wizard Academy"

Random Quote:

“

And how did this singular individual — this eternal being made flesh — approach power? He rejected it, by word and by deed. And it all began with Christmas.

If a person is going to look for a coming king, the last place you’re going to start is in a stable. But that humble birth presaged a humble life and the establishment of what my former pastor always called “the upside-down kingdom of God.”

Christ’s words were clear, and they cut against every human instinct of ambition and pride:

“The last will be first.”

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

“If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Those were the words. The deeds were just as clear. He didn’t just experience a humble birth; Jesus was raised in a humble home, far from the corridors of power. As a child, he was a refugee.

And when he began his ministry, he constantly behaved in a way that confounded every modern understanding about how to build a movement, much less how to overthrow an empire.

He withdrew from crowds. When he performed miracles, he frequently told the people he healed not to tell anyone else. When he declared, near the end of his life, that we are to “render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” he not only rejected the idea that he was Caesar, he also rejected the idea that Caesar’s domain was limitless.

And then, faced with the ultimate test — an unjust execution — right yielded to might. The son of God allowed mortal men to torture and kill him, even though he could have freed himself from Rome’s deadly grasp.

When Jesus did triumph, he didn’t triumph over Caesar. He triumphed over death itself. When he ascended into heaven after his resurrection, he left earth with Caesar still on the throne.

“

- David French, New York Times, Dec 22, 2024. I like David French because he obviously believes that Jesus never intended for his followers to become political activists. He, like me, remembers that Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” – RHW

The Wizard Trilogy

The Wizard Trilogy

More Information

  • Privacy Policy
  • Wizard Academy
  • Wizard Academy Press

Contact Us

512.295.5700
corrine@wizardofads.com

Address

16221 Crystal Hills Drive
Austin, TX 78737
512.295.5700

The MondayMorningMemo© of Roy H. Williams, The Wizard of Ads®