Footnotes to the TV series
MAN 2: I was in France during the Big One.
MICHEL: Oh, that’s nice. So –
MAN 2: Nice? It was a war. What’s nice about that?
The Big One, an informal name for World War II.
This Doose relative is played by veteran actor Bob Larkin. He was born in 1929, so when World War II broke out, he was only ten years old. His character is apparently meant to be about ten years older than the actor’s real age.
RORY: But how are you gonna make Young Chui dump you? Just be a really bad date?
LANE: Oh, no, we’ve already talked to him. He’s totally on board … See, he’s in love with this Japanese girl named Karen who his parents don’t approve of, so he and Karen see each other secretly while his parents keep setting him up with nice Korean girls. He’s the male me.
Conveniently, the Korean boy Lane has been set up with already has a Japanese girlfriend named Karen, kept secret from his parents because they don’t approve of him dating non-Korean girls. Karen is a Japanese girl’s name meaning “lotus flower”.
DAVE: Is abi-death a word?
Dave is trying to pronounce the word abideth (said ah-BY-deth), an archaic form of the word abides. The fourth stanza of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” begins:
That Word above all earthly powers
no thanks to them abideth
ZACH: Dude, can you chill out about your freaking elevenses ’til we get this song straightened out?
BRIAN: I’m hypoglycemic. If I don’t get something in my system, I’m gonna crash.
Hypoglycemia, the medical term for low blood sugar. Hypoglycemia may result in headaches, tiredness, clumsiness, trouble talking, confusion, fast heart rate, sweating, shakiness, nervousness, hunger, loss of consciousness, seizures, or death. It is usually caused by taking medications used to treat diabetes, such as insulin.
People sometimes use the word in a non-medical sense, to mean that they feel a bit faint or dizzy because their blood sugar has dropped due to not eating for a while. This is called “postprandial syndrome”.
BRIAN: I thought there was gonna be coffee, too.
ZACH: Dude, can you chill out about your freaking elevenses ’til we get this song straightened out?
Informal British for a short break for light refreshments, served in the late morning, around 11 am. Known in other parts of the world as morning tea, coffee break, or morning snack. Popular British children’s books such as Winnie-the-Pooh and Paddington Bear have made the word reasonably well known.
ZACH: [sings] “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.” Dude, what’s a bulwark? … It says, a bulwark never failing.
BRIAN: I think it’s a wall.
A bulwark is a defensive wall built as a fortification to protect a castle, town or city, so Brian is basically correct.
This is the hymn which Dave’s band is rehearsing, since Mrs Kim has hired them as a Christian act.
“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, a well known hymn written by Protestant reformer Martin Luther, composed around 1528. The first line paraphrases that of Psalm 48.
LORELAI: And you couldn’t have taken two seconds at work to call and tell her that?
JESS: No.
LORELAI: Really? You don’t get breaks? Do you get food, water? Should I get Michael Moore on the phone?
Michael Moore (born 1954), filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His documentaries frequently address the topics of globalisation and capitalism.
LORELAI: Well, that’s what most of us had to put up with. Where do you think the Susan Faludis of the world came from?
Feminist author Susan Faludi, previously discussed.
LORELAI: Most of us had first boyfriends like Brian Hutchins … Seventh grade, I’m sitting in the library, walks up, asks me to go steady. I say yes. He walks away and I don’t see him again until the tenth grade when he tries to sell me a dimebag at the Sadie Hawkins Day dance. And he was way overcharging for it, too.
In North America, a Sadie Hawkins Day Dance is one held, usually by schools and colleges, where girls invite boys, rather than the usual convention of boys inviting girls to a dance.
It comes from Sadie Hawkins Day in the Li’l Abner comic strip by Al Capp, an unspecified day in November when unmarried women could chase bachelors, and marry the one they caught. First introduced in a strip in 1937, by 1939 there had been Sadie Hawkins events held at over 200 colleges.
A dimebag is a small bag containing $10 worth (usually 1 gram) of marijuana. Lorelai’s forgetful admirer seems to have either charged more than $10 for it, or put very little product in the bag. Although Lorelai didn’t buy the marijuana from Brian, she knew enough about buying drugs to know he was trying to rip her off, suggesting some level of familiarity with the subject.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 