My  name is J.W. Ocker. OTIS is usually a chronicle of my visits to the unusual ...oddities of nature, art, science, and culture. During Sep...

I didn't realize the shot was going to be full-body or I would have changed out of my slippers. September 26, 2023 — Many of you have be...

September 25, 2023 — There’s a heavy corollary to the idea that I might have lost Halloween in the war. It’s that I lost all my joys—writing...

September 24, 2023 — I went to Salem today. That’s a simple statement, obviously, but what I mean by it in the context of my evolving relati...

September 22, 2023 — The Halloween Season is my favorite time of year, but my past two Halloween seasons were—and I’ll use a word I’ve never...