CarolAnn and I recently got Netflix.
As a writer of dialogue myself I’m a slobbering fan of Aaron Sorkin for his creation of The West Wing and Studio 60. With Netflix I was anxious to get another look at Sorkin’s Sports Night for the first time in a dozen years. I immediately fell in love with the show again and settled down to watch all 45 episodes in three days.
Here’s what I discovered:
I don’t care if you’re watching Sorkin or Neil Simon or William-Fricking-Shakespeare, stylized dialogue gets appallingly self-caricatured if you watch too much in one sitting. Also, like picking up a Southern drawl after spending a weekend in Atlanta it’s highly contagious.
I’ve started speaking Sorkinese.
This morning as CarolAnn was leaving for work we had the following conversation:
Me: What do you want for dinner?
CA: What?
Me: Dinner. What do you want?
CA: Tonight?
Me: Yes, tonight. What do you want?
CA: For dinner…
Me: Right.
CA: I don’t care.
Me: Maybe not now but you will. If it was dinner time right now, what would you want?
CA: Where are my keys? Hey, can you please do some laundry today?
Me: Laundry, yes, but first I want to figure out dinner. And, how would I know?
CA: What?
Me: What, what?
CA: How would you know what?
Me: Where your keys are. How would I know?
CA: Found ’em! Gotta go. Surprise me. Chicken fried steak.
(She gives him a peck on the cheek and goes out the back door.)
Me: Which? Surprise you or chicken fried steak?!
Two things come to mind: 1) 45 episodes in 3 days!
2) Chicken fried steak – yum!
When I ask Gordy that early in the day he always says “It’s not even lunch time. How can I even think about dinner.”