This story first appeared in the Nov. 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
Aaron Sorkin may have more magical powers than even his most die-hard fans ever imagined.
The super-scribe was taking part in THR‘s annual Writers Roundtable at Siren Studios in West Hollywood when the lights suddenly went out, surprising everyone except the Oscar-winning writer of Steve Jobs, who revealed he has the power to burn out streetlamps simply by walking past them.
“I thought this was a crazy coincidence — that I happened to be walking past streetlamps at the very moment that the bulb is done,” he said at the Nov. 2 taping. “There’s a name for this. It’s a real thing.” It’s called “Street Light Interference,” and there are scads of websites devoted to the subject of this strange electromagnetic phenomenon (though, admittedly, scant scientific evidence to prove it actually exists). “I would tell people about it from time to time,” Sorkin continued, “that there’s this strange thing that happens …” Sadly for Sorkin, the power doesn’t work in reverse. “I can’t make lights go on,” he said.
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