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. […]

Pecking: How Procrastinators Get Things Done When you’re facing a big project, starting is the key to finishing. Sounds easy, right? “Just get started.” But you and I know there is a tall stone wall between here and there. The other side of that wall is called “Doing the Project,” but this side of the […]

Roving reporter Rotbart is being mysterious about his guests this week. All he’ll say is that their names are Peter Desberg and Jeffrey Davis and their clients include Apple, Boeing, Toyota, Dell Computers, and Honda. But the roving reporter promises his guests will be incredibly entertaining and provide actionable advice, regardless of the business you’re […]

Strategy before tactics is not controversial.  I’d go as far as to say it’s not debatable. You can’t implement a plan without having a plan.  If you want to be known for something, you must first decide what you want to be known for. But I get repeatedly asked, “what’s the best way to advertise?”  […]

About eleven years ago, I attended Wizard Academy – a wonderful session on unleashing creativity.  I had just found out I was carrying twins – so all the available wine was hard not to swallow. I remember telling you this as you were leaning back on a chair in the kitchen. It was a wonderful experience, the […]

“They have so much time, these old folks. They stroll their grocery carts down the middle of the narrow aisle in the frozen food section looking for nothing in particular. These old folks wait to locate their purse or wallet only after the checker has totaled and bagged their three items—like it’s a big surprise […]

Brad, That’s what you see every month when you volunteer, right? And if I am correct, you’re the guy who brings the brownies. Who was Neil? What’s the title of the book?   The first two paragraphs frame the setting and introduce a few questions into the mind of the reader. Paragraphs 3 and 4 set the hook and make the reader […]

“The minute the phrase ‘having it all’ lost favor among women, wellness came in to pick up the pieces… Before we knew it, the wellness point of view had invaded everything in our lives: Summer-solstice sales are wellness. Yoga in the park is wellness. Yoga at work is wellness. Yoga in Times Square is peak wellness. […]

“My brother, Eddie, died on Christmas day of 2010. My fondest memories of him go way back to when I was in fifth grade and Eddie was in eighth. We played football on Curtiss Street with our neighborhood buddies. Eddie could rifle a football faster and more accurately than anyone I knew. Most often, he had […]

Jack finally made it to the white banquet table under the entrance covering, snagged a cardboard food boat loaded with fettuccine alfredo flecked with bits of bacon, baked broccoli, and a cheese bun, a plastic fork stabbed into the pasta. Bob talked him into a triple-chocolate brownie baked the day before by a volunteer who […]

“Geneticist, mathematician, surfer, ‘glamour’ photographer and winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Kary Mullis comes from a rare and cherished school of intellectual activity – that of the deep and genuine eccentric. Indeed, in these times of academic blandness, when the power of the grants committee and the influence of the scientific referee so […]

11.1 Million The estimated number of job openings in the United States on the last business day of November, according to the median of estimates of economists surveyed by FactSet. That would be up from 11.033 million at the end of October and would roughly equal the July level of 11.098 million, which was the […]

The Final Four Paragraphs of Kary Mullis Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech For three months I did sporadic experiments while my life at home and in the lab with Jennifer was crumbling. It was slow going. Finally, I retreated from the idea of starting with human DNA, I wasn’t even absolutely sure that the Genentech sequence […]

#1 Wedding Chapel in the Heart of Texas Chapel Dulcinea became the world’s first Free Wedding Chapel in 2005. The chapel hosts more than 1,000 weddings/year at a cost of more than $240,000 for staff and maintenance. Yes, we’ve been spending $240 per wedding to let couples get married here for free. Obviously, this is […]

Volkswagen isn’t making these yet, but they say they’re going to in 2022. We’ll see. The Tiny Tribe and I think these are very cool. – Indy

If Clay Stafford were to put all of his titles on a single business card, that card would be the size of a movie poster. Clay is a poet, a screenwriter, a playwright, a film and television producer, a director, showrunner, actor, educator, reviewer, and top-tier public speaker. His books have sold nearly four million copies. He […]

Click here to read the story behind the Global GDP graphic above.Now, with the global economy in mind, watch the very interesting video below. – Indy

“Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books and told by college professors. It is easier to be taught than to attain. It is easier to accept than to investigate. It is easier to follow […]

A wonderful story is dazzling and attractive… This is the basis of all successful advertising.

“Many times after one of my six-week classes is completed, a student, excited by what he or she has just learned, has said to me, ‘You should teach an advanced class!’ I am always flattered, but always a little surprised. Advanced? I know for a fact that they have not mastered the most basic principles, […]

“If you want to believe in something, then believe in it. Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason you can’t believe in it… Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage and virtue […]

Hyundai doesn’t claim the Santa Cruz is intended to carry big loads or do heavy work. At 196 inches from end to end, It’s smaller than most other pickups on the market, even relatively small ones like the Toyota Tacoma or the Honda Ridgeline. Instead, the all-wheel-drive Santa Cruz’s four foot long bed is intended […]

“The Samburu warriors have arrived – four of them, two holding drums, a child in the shadows minding a yellow longhorn cow. They came yesterday, too, after the morning game run, when Lou and Mindy were ‘napping.’ That’s when Charlie exchanged shy glances with the most beautiful warrior, who has scar tissue designs coiled like […]

The peak of human intellectual activity occurs at about 70 years old, when the brain begins to work at full strength. The Brain of an Older Person is More Productive Larisa Ragozinaayurvedaplace.com25 Feb 2021   The director of the George Washington University College of Medicine reports that the brain of an elderly person is much more […]

Cyrus Freidheim was the publisher and CEO of the Chicago Sun Times, the Chairman of Chiquita Brands International, the vice chairman of Booz Allen Hamilton, and a director at Virgin America and Allegheny Energy. He has also held important posts at Union Carbide, Ford Motor Co. and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Tens of thousands of people around the […]

SANTA & the MYSTERY of LIFE Santa is of course a fabrication.He’s a rich tapestry woven from a number of different bits & bobs. Ancient impulses instigated by the sun. Religious mythology. Children’s books. Ad men. Children exist in a world of magic and emotions. Santa is not just a celebration of a winter holiday season. He is a character […]

“Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes. Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes. And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military […]

WRAL TechWire, Nov 25, 2021 – “For years many demographers have been warning of a permanent worker shortage in the coming decades. It may just be that the pandemic brought the shortage earlier.” “An important concept in demographics is the ‘replacement birth rate’. This is the birth rate needed to replace deaths and keep the […]

In his 1974 autobiography, Clive Davis, then president of Columbia Records, described his initial impression of David Clayton-Thomas singing at the Café Au Go-Go: “He was staggering… a powerfully built singer who exuded an enormous earthy confidence. He jumped right out at you. I went with a small group of people, and we were electrified. […]