Category: S2Ep5: Nick & Nora/Sid & Nancy

“Burning a little Huck Finn”

TAYLOR: That’s right. She’s breaking the rules, and people who break the rules end up very lonely with no friends because they have become society’s outcasts.
LORELAI: Planning on burning a little Huck Finn after lunch, Taylor?

Lorelai refers to the Mark Twain novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, previously discussed. The novel has been banned and even burned in the US at various times during its history; in the past it was considered vulgar in tone, and today it draws ire for the use of the n-word.

Lorelai is probably equating book burning with Nazi Germany, and is more or less calling Taylor a Nazi, just as she called Headmaster Charleston a Fascist. Anyone who has the audacity to suggest a Gilmore follow the rules is immediately a Nazi and a Fascist, according to Lorelai.

Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts are an international organisation for young people with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, founded in the UK in 1907 by Sir Robert Baden-Powell. The Boy Scouts of America were founded in 1910, after Chicago publisher W.D. Boyce encountered a helpful Boy Scout while visiting England. It currently has over a million members.

We discover in this episode that Taylor Doose is the scout leader in Stars Hollow. It’s another perplexing incident in regard to time of day – it can’t be any later than about 7:20 am when Lorelai finishes breakfast and goes to the counter, because she still has to drive Rory to school in Hartford, which starts at 8.05 am, and Rory is getting very agitated about being late, because it’s the first day of the school year.

Yet Taylor has just finished a two hour outdoor survival training session with the Boy Scouts. It seems bizarre to organise this before the school day begins, on the first day of the school year, no less. He also takes the boys to breakfast at Luke’s Diner (which doesn’t seem like a very outdoorsy thing to do), and they choose food such as burgers and fries, grilled cheese, and doughnuts. I guess learning about healthy breakfasts comes later in the boys’ training. You just have to put all this down to the charming eccentricity of Stars Hollow.

Mojo

LANE: Well, Mojo says.
RORY: So it must be true.

Lane is shown clutching a copy of The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time, edited by Jim Irvin. It contains a detailed list of six hundred albums.

The book was published in August 2001 – just a month previously, as an indication of how eagerly Lane rushed out to buy it. She is using it as a guide as to what records to buy next. You can see that Lane is doing her best to give herself a solid grounding in the history of popular music.

Mojo is a British music magazine, first published in 1993. It focuses on classic rock and is aimed at a mostly boomer readership, but has covered new and alternative acts as well. It was the first mainstream magazine in the UK to feature The White Stripes.

Lane’s Musical Wish List

Lane asks Rory to buy some vinyl records for her while she’s in Hartford. No money seems to exchange hands, but perhaps there is an unspoken understanding that Lane will pay her back when she knows the exact cost.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

A 1963 album by American jazz legend Charles Mingus. It is a single continuous composition (partly written as a ballet), divided into four tracks and six movements. It is one of the most acclaimed jazz records of the 1960s, considered one of Mingus’ masterworks, and is consistently ranked as one of the greatest albums of all time.

!!!!Here Are The Sonics!!!!

The 1965 debut album of American garage band The Sonics. Highly influential on the development of punk music, it is considered an essential piece of Seattle rock and roll history. Rory is impressed enough to ask Lane to burn her a copy.

Kick Out the Jams

The 1969 debut album of American proto-punk band MC5. It was recorded live at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom over two nights at the end of October. It was controversial at the time for the line, “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!”, and some stores refused to carry it. Nonetheless, it managed to reach #30 on the Billboard charts. Considered rather overbearing and pretentious by critics at the time, it is now held in very regard for its high energy live performance, and influence on rock music.

Liege & Lief

A 1969 album by British folk-rock band Fairport Convention. It was the first album they brought out where all the songs were freely adapted from traditional British and Celtic folk music, or original compositions done in a similar style. The title is two words from Middle English, meaning “loyal”, and “willing”. It reached #17 on the UK album charts, and is regarded as a major influence on the development of British folk-rock.

Odessa

A 1969 album by the Bee Gees. It was an ambitious project, intended as a concept album about the loss of a fictional ship in 1899. It created a lot of tension in the band about their musical direction, so that Robin Gibb temporarily left the band. It reached #10 in the UK album charts and #20 in the Billboard album chart, but was poorly-received by both the critics and the public, leading to a decline in the band’s fortunes, until they reinvented themselves as a disco band in the 1970s. (This may be why Rory is dubious about the album). Odessa has since been re-evaluated, and gained increasing critical acclaim.

The Unwritten Works of Geoffrey, Etc

The only album released by Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit, and Greenhill, in 1968. It was a psychedelic folk-rock album which defied categorisation, and the four names on the album were pseudonyms for David Bullock, Scott Fraser, Eddie Lively, Phil White, and John Carrick; it was produced by a young T-Bone Burnett. Recorded in the basement of a Fort Worth radio station, the record was released to widespread indifference. It wasn’t reissued until 2006 (complete with historical liner notes), so it’s little wonder Lane has not been able to locate a copy of this rare album.

Record Breaker Incorporated

LANE: Well, I found the greatest record store in the world. It’s ten minutes from your school and I’m wondering how much you love me.
RORY: Address please.
LANE: Record Breaker Incorporated, 2453 Berlin Turnpike.

The Record Breaker Inc was a real vinyl record store in the Hartford area in 2001, and the address given in the show is genuine. It may have been a store patronised by music obsessed Daniel Palladino.

The address is actually in Newington, a suburb of Hartford, which tells you that Chilton, Rory’s school, must be only ten minutes walk from the store. In real life there are several high schools in Newington, including a private Christian academy, but none fall within this range. As it is in a light industrial area, it seems unlikely to have an exclusive school half a mile from it.

As Rory’s grandparents are said to live five minutes from Chilton, they must also live in the Newington area. Richard may very well play golf at the Farmington Country Club, which is not far from here. Although there are some lovely homes in Newington, there doesn’t seem to be anything quite as luxurious as the Gilmore mansion. I think it is safe to assume this is a quite fictional Newington.

Record Breaker has now been replaced by a video game store called Retro Games Plus.