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The Slice: Selfies update and animal art

Back when I announced my plan to take selfies with readers and others, I declared an intention to post 100 of these photos on The Slice Blog before the end of the year.

Then, last summer, I was out of action for a couple of months. That put me behind.

Still, I have posted pictures of 75 “Paul’s People” and intend to keep cruising toward 100. But I want to add a new category.

So, weather permitting, please email me photos of you with a snowmarmot you built.

Slice answers: Bill Brock had some ideas about how “Moby-Dick” would be different if Captain Ahab’s obsession had been a marmot instead of a whale.

“Ahab had been waiting, waiting for years to have his vengeance on the marmot, the Great White Marmot.

“There was hatred between them, a visceral, searing hatred that was kindled one night in the driving rain of a cheerless November, in a hobo camp beneath the Monroe Street Bridge.

“It was the night the marmot chewed through Ahab’s blue tarp and laid waste to his stores of Slim-Jims and Red Man tobacco.

“That was when the gloves came off, the battle was joined. That’s when the fur began to fly.”

I would read that.

Wade Griffith had a thought about how Herman Melville’s revised novel would open. No more Ishmael. The classic book would begin…

“Call me Steve.”

And Ann Hill said the reworked story would be drier and probably harpoon-less.

Slice answer: If Sue Kassa turned her place into a bed and breakfast she would name it after the Spanish expression meaning “My house is your house.”

Where you would take food writer Calvin Trillin: Natalie Buchberger said Trillin would be favorably impressed with the restaurant Clover on East Sharp Avenue.

This date in Slice history (1995): Warm-up question: Did people ever greet one another by saying “Hee-haw,” or is that just something they do in “It’s a Wonderful Life”?

Today’s Slice question: I don’t recommend this as a way to be in the world. But have you ever had dealings with someone and found him or her quite likable, but you intentionally maintained a distance because you have discovered that when you really get to know a person, there’s almost always something about that individual – religion, politics, cigarettes, whatever – that would be a wall between the two of you?

Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; email pault@spokesman.com. Charlie Schaefer is puzzled by those who drive with their headlights on during daylight hours.

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