Word around the campfire is that the 2020 Telluride Film Festival might begin a day early, or on Thursday, 9.3. Maybe. Who knows?

Journo pally: Okay but do you really think Telluride can happen in early September?

HE: Sure! Actually, I don’t know. I suspect it will. Maybe they’ll hand out special blue-tinted passes to people who’ve been tested 15 to 20 days before arriving. You’ll have to send the certificate a week or two before it begins. The tested people will be allowed to congregate. The second-class festivalgoers (those who haven’t been tested) will have to maintain the usual distances and sit two seats apart. Plus no feeds or parties to speak of.

Journo pally: Well, I hope you’re right.

HE: The curve will be totally flat by August, most likely. Perhaps even by mid to late July. Yes, the virus will resurge whack-a-mole style, but Telluride people are not high-risk types for the most part. Healthier, smarter, better educated, wealthier (except for the journalists), more conscientious, better diets, no obesity to speak of. The odds of the 2020 Telluride Film Festival being turned into a catastrophic coronavirus pigfuck are not high.

Journo pally: I do hope that scenario proves more or less accurate. I’m not as convinced as you, but if that’s the way it happens, I think we’ll be fine.

HE: You’re saying in a very gentle way that I don’t really know anything. Which is true, of course. But I need to believe in this. I need to be believe in a future that includes a little bit of open-air happiness and fraternity and the return of films screened in theatres.