Oliver Moorcraft-Sykes is an acclaimed spiritualist, scrivener, and amateur orthodontist living and writing in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His accomplishments are too many and varied to list, but suffice it to say that he’s done everything that George Santos has done, and then some. Should you have any questions or concerns about his writing, please do not hesitate to try and contact him.
In theory, as an abstract concept, I am very much drawn to the idea of spring cleaning. The springtime, after all, should be a time of renewal. Tabula rasa. A time to make a fresh start by purging the accumulated clutter of the past year from our lives. And, God knows, my home could use… Read more »
I’ve always disliked Aesops’ fable of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant, with its pathologically selfless commitment to busy work and ceaseless networking, does make some kind of sense as a symbol of the complete buy-in to the all-work-no-play ethos and motivation-through-fear that employers like to pretend they don’t force upon us. As a… Read more »
I’m not sure when I’ve more intensely looked forward to the arrival of springtime. I’m a lifelong lover of winter, and a proud resident of a very winter-oriented city. But … As I’m writing this, it is currently minus-9 degrees Celsius, with a windchill that drags it down to minus-18. Last night, the northeast wind… Read more »
There is nothing more miraculous than you, nothing more astonishing than me. The way we can hold our breath for such a long time, or peel an apple in a single long strip, or make music with our brains, our fingers, our breath. The way we can sometimes set aside our own needs, our own… Read more »
Like Lennon and McCartney, I don’t tend to care too much for money. I’m not so sure about their assertion that it “can’t buy me love,” though. Margaret Atwood once observed that “the Eskimo had fifty-two names for snow, because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.” If I… Read more »
There are seemingly countless ways in which I am imperfect. I have never, for example, been much of one for structure or planning. That whole left brain, linear thinking, attention-to-detail stuff has never come easily to me. Also, I tend to be lazy and forgetful. I go to bed too late, and I don’t function… Read more »
Winter has slowly and surely worn us down. Everyone we know is sick, getting sick, recovering from being sick, or keeping a low profile to avoid getting sick. Our limbs feel heavy as granite, these days, and our lungs like over-filled vacuum cleaner bags. We are briefly duped by a weak sunbeam on our face,… Read more »
In the six thousand years or so since the birth of human civilization, it has surely never been easier to envision the ultimate, quite possibly imminent, seemingly inevitable demise of our species. Nuclear brinkmanship, overpopulation, underpopulation, technological uprisings, climate catastrophe, epidemiological devastation, alien invasion, zombies, parasites—from the fanciful to the all-too-plausible, there’s seemingly no end… Read more »
This week, to mark the upcoming Valentine’s Day celebration, part two of my three-part column of thematic playlist and menu choices will offer up selections that connect in some way to themes of romance and intimacy. However, I also want to recognize the fact that there are few things in life more irritating than two… Read more »
Companionship, food, and music—they form a magical confluence of human pleasure. When those three elements come together in an inspired way, it’s a great argument for the beneficence of the universe and the value of being alive. Over the course of this and the next two columns, I will be dishing up a menu of… Read more »