From Gene Weingarten’s column in Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine:
“Virus,” he said. Some speaker probably canceled because they don’t want to die, Tom theorized, so they’re probably flinging you out there just to see what happens. . . .
I informed Tom that his supposition was preposterous. As soon as the words came out of my mouth my laptop issued a little ding. It was a Google alert; I get them for any new Web item that includes my name. In this case, it was a newspaper story, under the headline “Authors cancel appearances at Tucson Festival of Books, cite coronavirus concerns.” Mo Rocca, the author, comedian and a mainstay of NPR’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” was one of the cancelers, and, according to this story, he had been replaced by me. . . .
I had been to the Tucson festival once before, and it was a beautiful, terrific, well-run venue for displays of the sort of blatant authorial ego book festivals tend to encourage. . . .
Then came another news alert. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new advisory: No one over 60 (um, check) should take commercial transportation (check), especially planes (check), most especially if they have a compromised immune system (check, from a long-ago bout with hepatitis).
I canceled the trip.
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