Footnotes to the TV series
PARIS: Paris is here. Couldn’t wait to jump in there and take over, could you?
RORY: Tell it to the Timex salesman.
Timex, global watch manufacturing company founded in 1854 as the Waterbury Clock Company in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1944, the company became insolvent but was reformed into Timex Corporation, now headquartered in Middlebury, Connecticut. The name was inspired by Time magazine and Kleenex, I guess because they are two successful products.
Sookie tells Lorelai that she complimented Jackson on a frog tee-shirt he wore while they were dating, so he bought her a frog figurine to celebrate six months of going out. There was another one for Christmas, and he told his family to buy her frog figurines for every occasion. Now she has a frog collection.
She tells this depressing story as if it is a cute anecdote. Sookie was so smart about relationships when she was single, and usually gave Lorelai good advice. Then she became incapable of even telling her boyfriend, later husband, that she didn’t love frogs all that much. They are a symbol of her inability to communicate with Jackson.
LORELAI: I don’t lie to guys to make them like me. I just got stuck when he said fishing and camping, and I was trying to be nice and not say, “Fishing? Great – cold, wet, and smelly. My three favorite things after those witches from Macbeth.”
Macbeth, previously discussed. The three witches play a pivotal role in guiding the plot.
The Kim family are planning a wedding for Lane’s cousin James, said to be “quiet and skulky”, so the family arranged a marriage for him with a girl from Korea who “doesn’t speak a word of English”.
This sounds absolutely awful for the young woman, coming to a country where she doesn’t speak or understand the language, to marry someone she’s never met. Amazingly, Rory and Lane express zero sympathy or concern for her, Rory even quipping that she hopes they make air holes in the box she’s shipped out in, as if she’s an animal.
Dave will be playing at the wedding, and during the conversation, it turns out that Rory has attended many weddings at the Kim household – so many that Lane says she is accepted as an honorary member of the family. We don’t see Rory and Lane together that much, so this is a nice way to tell us that in fact they are very close and have shared many important times that aren’t shown onscreen. It doesn’t really gel with the way Mrs Kim treats Rory in the show – certainly not like a family member (mind you, she’s not very warm to her actual family members).
Notice that the book Rory is carrying in this scene is Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman. Rory is shown reading this book all the way back in “Red Light on the Wedding Night”, so eighteen months later she is either still reading it, or is re-reading it. Although re-reading books is common, is re-reading biographies all that common, I wonder? I feel as if they are getting a bit lazy in finding new books for Rory to read (or be shown reading).
Rory and Lane go to buy cosmetics at the beauty store. Kirk is now working there instead of Shane, making this another of Kirk’s jobs (it raises the question, does Taylor own this business as well?). Kirk does have an interest in beauty products, having created his own line of skin treatments, which was shut down by the EPA.
I don’t know whether Shane has left the job at the store, or if she works there on a different shift. If the latter, her shift has changed, as she previously served the counter at the same time Rory was home from school.
LANE: Rory! Rory! The numbers are all adding up, the planets are aligning, and I am going to my senior prom!
In American English, a prom is a ball or formal dance held by a school or college, especially at the end of the academic year for final year students – that is, the senior class. It is is considered one of the essential milestones in a young person’s life, given great weight and significance in US culture. Prom is short for promenade, and the word has been in use since since the late 19th century.
ALEX: Ready to try another? I hear there’s one from Peru that comes with a Surgeon’s General warning.
Peru, a country on the west coast of South America. Despite Alex’s warning, Peruvian coffee is said to be mild and light in flavour.
The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. The US surgeon general is nominated by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.
In 2003, the Surgeon General of the US was Richard Carmona (born 1949); he was in the post from 2002 to 2006. In 2014 he wrote a book called 30 Days to a Better Brain, where he actually promoted coffee as a healthy drink that could improve mood and memory.
Alex’s children are named Hillary and Jeff, aged six and nine; he shares custody of them with his ex-wife. Hillary seem to have named their daughter after Hillary Clinton, previously discussed and frequently mentioned, as a sign of their Democrat allegiance.
[Lorelai is sitting at a table as Alex walks over with two little coffee cups]
ALEX: Okay, now this is the Sumatra blend. It’s supposed to be a little sharper than the Colombian.
Sumatra, one of the Sunda Islands in Indonesia. Sumatran coffee is considered one of the world’s top speciality coffee, with an intense flavour.
Colombia, a country in South America which is one of the five biggest exporters of coffee in the world. Their coffee is said to have a mild, smooth flavour.
DAVE: I mean, you’ve got the potential, but you’re sloppy. I need a clean roll on the toms but powerful, like Moon.
The toms refer to tom drums a cylindrical drum with no snares, named from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala language of Sri Lanka, derived from thammattama, from the Tamil word thappu, a type of drum.
Referring to Keith Moon, previously discussed, drummer for The Who, and one of Lane’s drum heroes.
Dave and Lane have come up with a plan to keep their relationship a secret from their bandmates – Dave will put Lane down in public, patronise her, and insult her. Lane is totally into it, as she loves zany schemes and keeping secrets.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 