Squids in Sports Night

Sports Night, if you haven't heard of it, is the show Aaron Sorkin created before The West Wing. It was a half-hour show set backstage at a late-night cable show called, yes, Sports Night, and ran between 1998 and 2000. Thanks to the kindness of lamentables, I've been gradually working my way through it over the past couple of months.

Now, I knew from a certain episode of The West Wing that Sorkin seemed to be a space fan, but I was still taken a bit by surprise by 'The Sweet Smell of Air'. Dana Whitaker, the producer of Sports Night, wants to discuss a potential Michael Jordan interview with her boss, the managing editor Isaac Jaffe:

DANA: Hi, Isaac--

ISAAC: Hi. Dana, listen to this, this is fantastic. [reads from magazine] "Bioengineering might one day create living creatures adapted to survival in space."

DANA: OK.

ISAAC: Space birds.

DANA: ... OK.

ISAAC: Don't you wanna know how they're gonna fly without air?

DANA: Uh ... OK.

ISAAC: It says here they're gonna fly on sunlight.

DANA: ... So, we got this Michael Jordan offer ...

ISAAC: And further out where the sunlight grows weaker, they're gonna bioengineer a squid.

DANA: ... Squid?

( Read more... )

Reports that Aaron Sorkin is a Stephen Baxter fan remain unconfirmed.

Another One Down

Bye-bye Infinite Matrix:

12.30.05

Resistance is futile, but even so, it's best to go out kicking and screaming, don't you think?

So the Infinite Matrix will present a final fireworks of stories, essays and columns, and then will cease publication. The site will stay up for a year or so, although older work may be removed as the rights run out.

Look what we've got: a final Runcible Ansible, with its accustomed bite, a fantastic story by Rudy Rucker, The Men in the Back Room at the Country Club, grafitti photos by A. Fluffy Bunny and original art by Seattle street artist Charles Whiteside, two more columns by Howard Waldrop, an essay on race, TV, and science fiction by Pam Noles, a story by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, an essay by William Gibson. There are even a few surprises to go up over the next few days.

More later. I'll be in touch.

Eileen Gunn

Ach. It's a shame.