“Mr. LeSage, sir, I’ve got a tender new script about a sensitive young subway guard that just stinks of courage and integrity. And I know, sir, that next to scripts that are Tender and Poignant, you love scripts that have Courage and Integrity. This one, sir, as I say, stinks of both. It’s full of […]

Brian, good thoughts!   The Neuroscience of Behavior Change link you sent was a great explanation of what Dr. Alan Baddeley calls “Procedural Memory.” You will recall this from The Magical Worlds Communications Workshop at Wizard Academy. Working Memory is consciousness, imagination, the thought you are thinking NOW.  Semantic Declarative Memory contains things you can remember, but you cannot […]

Hello Indy,   There is a lot of speculative reporting on when things will open up and feel more normal but lately, I have been wondering more about how I will reenter the world than when I will reenter the world.   This post (and many others) describes how repetition can form new neural pathways […]

Bad ads waddle like a porcupine and make lots of little points.Good ads charge like a rhinoceros and make a single point powerfully. This is true regardless of your choice of media. Ad budgets are like that, too. When universities ask me to address their Advertising & Marketing majors just prior to graduation, I always […]

In 1993 Majel Barrett Roddenberry appeared on Entertainment Tonight.

“They departed, the gods, on the day of the strange tide. All morning under the milky sky the waters in the bay had swelled and swelled, rising to unheard-of heights, the small waters creeping over parched sand that for years had known no wetting save for rain and lapping the very bases of the dunes.” […]

“I don’t know that everybody should read books. I think that a large majority of people get by very well without art of any kind. They find their beauty elsewhere; in their families, in their loved ones, in sport, in nature. They don’t necessarily need art. I think art is a minority sport. For the […]

(1.) Take a look here, or (2.) email info@thebrimkc.com or (3.) call 816-777-6000.

Wise Men at the Court of Herod, circa 1800. This painting is notable because 9,999 of 10,000 paintings of the wise men show them following the star or presenting their gifts to baby Jesus. This is the only painting the wizard and I have ever seen that shows them at the court of Herod where […]

“Peter’s denial of Jesus shows us how temptation progresses. Overconfidence leads to prayerlessness and prayerlessness leads to misguided zeal. When the temple guards came to arrest Jesus Peter grabbed a sword and attacked the nearest man cutting off his ear (Mt. 26:51). Instead of affirming his bold action Jesus rebuked him.”   “When a person […]

See more of Ashley and Patrick’s awesome videos at Jigsaw Health

“Get Happy” online workshop (virtual, highly-interactive) March 2nd

In the Year 1620: Religious misfits from Holland and England board a ship called the Mayflower, cross the Atlantic in 66 days, land at a place called Plymouth Rock, meet some friendly natives and celebrate Thanksgiving with them, presumably on the last Thursday in November. 1886: The song of Ellis Island, the song of the […]

  Hi Roy and Pennie,   I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Steve Cronen and own Starbeat Advertising and Starbeat Studios in Deerfield, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. This is now our fifty-first year in business. Your books and advice are so right on target I suggest to most of our employees and […]

The main reason that I have stayed a member of the Wizard Academy tribe (even though I am beginning to really loathe the tribalism currently metastasizing in the US) is that the academy has helped me understand people and the world better. A bit better. Kept me and made me more curious. Like a fieldbook […]

And thus ends “Potato Chips” by Manley Miller with Roy H. Williams. If you want to go back and start at the beginning, here’s how to do that. – Indy Beagle

Cheese by G.K. Chesterton Published in `Alarms and Discursions’ (1910) My forthcoming work in five volumes, `The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature,’ is a work of such unprecedented and laborious detail that it is doubtful whether I shall live to finish it. Some overflowings from such a fountain of information may therefore be permitted to […]

Made in 1915, Birth of a Nation was America’s first feature-length motion picture and a box-office smash… It popularized countless filmmaking techniques that remain central to the art today. However, because of its explicit racism and glorification of the KKK, Birth of a Nation is also regarded as one of the most offensive films ever made. Actually […]

Need Marketing Help? Here’s Gary’s Partner Profile.

Hollywood has been feeding us romanticized history ever since Birth of a Nation splattered across the silver screen in 1915. Romanticized history is a lie. People will always believe lies that reinforce their worldview. Hollywood feeds us romanticized history because we love it, and the fictions we love best are those heroic stories of pioneers and […]

“My beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees of the world.” – Charles Bukowski  

When I am an old woman I shall wear purpleWith a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer glovesAnd satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tiredAnd gobble up samples in shops and press […]

Next week – Feb 22 – will be final potato chip in the bag… sigh. If you want to go back and start at the beginning, here’s how to do that. – Indy

From: SandraXXXXX@AOL.comSent: Wednesday, Feb 10, 2021 12:00 PMSubject: Commercial Best home services commercial is very bad. “a neighborhood that smells like sausage.” Not funny at All. You need to remove that commercial. It sure did turn me off. Sent from my iPhone When an email reader at BEST HOME SERVICES received that complaint, they forwarded […]

Mick’s campaigns always get attention. BIG attention. Notice how he uses 25 seconds of this 30-second ad to set up the pivotal, all-important line: “… you call Best Home Services. They always have 4 trucks standing-by, waiting for last-minute calls.” Part of getting BIG attention is getting snarky complaints from people who believe their special […]

“Joy is always a function of gratitude —  and gratitude is always a function of perspective.” – Ann Voskamp

https://youtu.be/-F0yhz7y_gs?t=4

Prior to Covid, the Gross Domestic Product of Jamaica was about $16 billion per year. The tourism industry provides about one-fourth of all jobs in Jamaica. In recent years, Jamaica has become a regional leader in Information Technology Export Services (ITES). As the largest English speaking territory in the Caribbean, Jamaica has more than 30 companies operating […]

Hot Country, Cold Sport. Contrary to my assumptions, they didn’t do it because they thought it would be funny. Four members of the Jamaica Defense Force did it as a statement of pride and determination. Dudley Stokes, Devon Harris, Michael White and Caswell Allen traveled from their tropical island to snowy Canada hoping to make it into the […]

Only 2 chapters left! This chapter is the beginning of the big, sad, optimistic, New Orleans ending. Can you believe we started this book 33 weeks ago? If you want to go back and refresh your memories of the earlier chapters, this is your ticket to get there. – Indy Beagle

Cassidy Kate: age 5, chose Atlanta to see Giant Pandas (she was disappointed in their relatively diminutive size) age 10, chose Hershey, PA for one obvious reason. age 15, a wild Northwest driving tour from Chicago to Washington state taking her brother along. Samuel Byron: age 5, chose Boston to eat fish and go to […]

by Wizard of Ads Partner Dave Young I’m in a local networking group and the question, “Should I buy Facebook ads?” almost always comes up when I tell a local business owner that I do marketing and advertising consulting. I disappoint them with my answer. Let me show you why. One problem is that there […]

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“I went to a nearby Konditorei for coffee and a 15,000-calorie slice of cake and planned my assault on the city. I had with me the Observer Guide to Vienna, which included this piece of advice: ‘In Vienna, it is best to tackle the museums one at a time.’ Well thank you, I thought. All […]

Read the whole story in the New York Times

The stroke of a pen makes billions vanishAnd the printing presses are too slow.This is the day the world changes foreverAnd a new age comes Beware the snow. From down a long highway the walkerArrives again and is turned away.Foreign lands rejoice and rue the day.History writes Beware the talker. A is 6. B is 12. […]

In 1555, Nostradamus published a book containing 942 quatrains that were supposed to predict future events. Observers soon came across a handful of predictions that seemed to be fulfilled and Nostradamus quickly became a celebrity. In reality, most of his prophecies are worded vaguely enough to trigger wild bouts of apophenia. When King Henry II was […]

Fortune Tellers, Nostradamus, and the Mystical Con Reed Berkowitz is a designer of alternate reality games, experience fiction, and interactive theater.The next 8 paragraphs (with an occasional change,) are borrowed from his brilliant article published at medium.com. Apophenia is the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas) [Note from […]