In Memoriam: Ashleigh Brilliant 1933–2025

I first encountered Ashleigh Brilliant in an evening art class. He was handing out free postcard Pot-Shots to all the students. Recognizing him and his cards, I told him I had once sent him some ideas for his cards. He pulled out copies of his two rejection cards, and asked which one I had received. Mine said, “The answer is NO, but isn’t that better than no answer at all?”

Since my response was the better of his two rejections, we started talking to each other and then continued to do so for the next 40 years. I later learned he never accepted anyone else’s suggestions for new Pot-Shots.

Our friendship continued over the years with walks, talks, arguments, and much laughter. We talked about life, mostly his, which was certainly more interesting than mine. Plus, he kept diaries from childhood — with all entries neatly typed. I practiced my comedy routines with him. Plus, lunch out, dinner out — the usual stuff. Almost 40 years of shared lives.

For Steve Gilbar’s edited Library Book Writers on Libraries: A Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Santa Barbara Public Library, Ashleigh’s entry was a poem about my wife titled “On the Retirement of Shirley Morrison as Santa Barbara Children’s Librarian.” We were both very touched.

Ashleigh’s short, insightful comments on, well, nothing was off-limits — death, diets, travel, love, public speaking, time itself — started life as humble postcards around 1950 BC (Before Computers). The postcard size was perfect. Starting with specialty racks in local bookstores, healthy sales resulted from stores around the country. Then came posters, calendars, T-shirts, caps, napkins, paperweights, mugs — you name it. If a company paid royalties to print Pot-Shots on their products, who was Ashleigh to deny them?

He did call upon a squad of lawyers now and then to keep things legit.

Eventually, Ashleigh added newspaper syndication. He also found time to write a series of 10 books expanding on his mini-philosophies. I recommend them all.

Besides worldwide success, this man’s passionate local campaigns — with tireless publicity — made him a popular one-man institution, much like our Courthouse and Mission.

Over a long, colorful career, he wrote 10,000 original epigrams, which he also illustrated. Make note of all the different print styles in his own calligraphic hand that appear on the cards! Then he added a weekly newspaper column that has run for more than 10 years.

With his wife, Dorothy, handling the business stuff, Ashleigh built a successful, worldwide career. He once declared that he was “The World’s Only Full-Time Professional Epigrammatist” — even though The Guinness Book of World Records did not honor his claim. Their loss.

Ash loved to walk. He has hiked through many countries. And over these many 40 years in Santa Barbara, he has circled the blocks around his home and his office almost every day, in every kind of weather. He could sometimes be seen walking and reading at the same time. He biked the city, long after he should have given that up.

He once ran for a seat on the Santa Barbara City Council. He didn’t get many votes — possibly because he sang all of his speeches in the campaign.

Then there was his long, arduous campaign to have gas-powered leaf blowers banned. This conflict finally resulted in a city ordinance restricting their use. (Mostly ignored — but still….)

Reader’s Digest declared Ashleigh the second most quoted author in their magazine. Number One is Mark Twain. Ashleigh could live with that.

In person, he could be cranky, exasperating, obstinate — no thesaurus could contain this man. He was also quite rigid in performing daily routines. All shirts had to have short sleeves, with two pockets, one always filled with Pot-Shots to hand out.

He ate only two flavors of ice cream, one of which was mint chocolate. I’ve forgotten the other one.

He loved music — except all those “mawkish” love songs. One of his heroes was satirist musician Tom Lehrer. Ashleigh also wrote great song parodies and produced a whole album to prove it.

Here is one of my favorite Ashleigh anecdotes: I once showed Ash how the Copyright trademark — a “C” in a circle — looked just like the symbol on many fire extinguishers (meaning good for chemical fires). With only a second’s pause, Ash asked: “How come the copyright people did not copyright the copyright symbol?” Indeed.

He was indifferent to food, clinging fiercely to certain products and brands. He loved pea soup — but only Andersen’s pea soup. Most of all, he loved chocolate — anything and everything chocolate.

One of his favorites is a cookie from Australia, called Tim Tams.

Ashleigh Elwood Brilliant will be remembered for a long time by anyone lucky enough to have known him. I am one of those lucky ones.

A memorial will be held for Ashleigh later this month. If you are interested in attending, please email julissa@staceywrightsb.com for details.