The Slice: Take all this snow talk and shovel it

We simply have to change the subject around here.

This relentless weather talk threatens to turn us into a bunch of bores.

I mean, how often is there actually something new to say?

So why don’t we rediscover the art of conversation. How about if we reacquaint ourselves with themes such as books and movies.

You’re stumped, you say? Can’t form a sentence that isn’t about berms or roof loads?

OK, take a breath. I’m here to help.

Here are some starter-ideas. Then it’s up to you to take it from there.

Let’s go topic by topic.

Music: Do you have to be a certain age to sing along with Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice”?

Movies: Does deep snow ever make you daydream about Julie Christie in “Doctor Zhivago”?

Education: How many times have you had to put up with me bragging about my childhood school district having a policy that there was no such thing as a snow day?

Literature: Have you read “The Snow Man” by O. Henry?

Sports: Ever wondered how you would have stood up as a player in that ’60s “Ice Bowl” championship game between the Packers and the Cowboys?

Television: Weren’t Rocky and Bullwinkle from a place called Frostbite Falls?

Theater: In what production will you hear the lyric, “Winter for Poland and France”?

Civil War hypotheticals: Would soldiers from the South have had a harder time fighting battles in, say, Wisconsin or Maine, in January?

Spokane trivia: Who said, “It’s just snow, people”?

Geography: Outside what Arizona city will you find a ski resort called the Snow Bowl?

Comic strips: Didn’t you love it in “Calvin and Hobbes” when Calvin made his deranged snowmen?

Colloquial speech: Do you think people in warm climates relate to the use of the word “snowball” to describe something increasing or accumulating uncontrollably?

Pop culture: What – at least in the traditional, G-rated version – was Rosebud in “Citizen Kane”?

Pets/human emotions: Is it possible to be gloomy while watching dogs frolic in deep snow?

Architecture/military affairs: Ever tried using those yellow S-R delivery tubes as snow molds for top-of-the-fort battlements?

Art: Of all her work, don’t you admire Sabra Field’s winter scenes most?

Photography: Is this the season for black and white?

OK, that should get you started on the road to recovery. Remember, talking about nothing but the weather shows a lack of imagination. Good luck.

•Today’s Slice question: What’s the biggest reason there isn’t high school hockey around here?