Footnotes to the TV series
PARIS: I want everyone to read the chapters on acting I photocopied out of Houseman’s memoirs tonight.
Paris gives the group chapters photocopied from Unfinished Business: Memoirs 1902-88, written by John Houseman, Romanian-born British-American actor and producer of theatre, film, and television. His memoirs were published in 2000.
LORELAI: Sell it on the Internet, make a fortune. First we brought you Pamela and Tommy Lee, now prepare yourselves for the crazy antics of Rory and the Bard!
Pamela Anderson (born 1967), Canadian-American actress, model, and author, previously mentioned. In 1995, she married her first husband, Tommy Lee (born Thomas Bass in 1962), drummer for heavy metal band Mötley Crüe.
A sex tape of the couple on their honeymoon was stolen from their home in 1995, and widely discussed on the internet. Anderson sued the video distribution company, but eventually Pamela and Tommy entered into a confidential settlement agreement with the company, so that the sex tape was once again made available to subscribers, resulting in triple the normal traffic to their websites. Sceptics believe that the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
LORELAI: The Bible said all that, huh? Did it, did it mention me by name? I’m just . . . okay, I’m just kidding. So, um, judging by your Billy Graham impression, I am guessing that you didn’t send me an ice cream maker, so maybe you could just give me Aunt Clarissa’s phone number?
William “Billy” Graham (1918-2018) was a prominent American evangelist and ordained Southern Baptist who became well-known internationally in the 1940s. He held large outdoor rallies and his sermons were broadcast on television from 1947 to 2005, with an entire lifetime audience of over two billion, meaning he preached the Gospel to more people than anyone in history. He repudiated racial segregation, and invited Martin Luther King Jr to preach alongside him at a joint rally in 1957. He became the spiritual adviser for every US president from Harry S. Truman to Barack Obama.
PARIS (to Rory): Why don’t they just sew our sides together and rename us Chang and Eng?
Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1879), Siamese-American conjoined twins of Chinese ancestry, previously mentioned. Born in modern-day Thailand (then called Siam), they were brought to the US in 1829, and became wealthy by exhibiting themselves in “freak shows”. After ten years, they retired from touring, became American citizens, bought slaves, married two sisters, and fathered twenty-one children between them. For many years, conjoined twins were called “Siamese twins” because of Chang and Eng’s birthplace.
LORELAI: Okay, clearly this is shaping up to be one of those moments that Saint Peter’s gonna show on the big video screen when I die, and I for one do not wanna see the three of us staggering around with cider ice cream slathered all over our faces while my soul hangs in the balance, so until I can find out who sent this, no one goes near it.
Saint Peter was one of the Twelve Apostles, and a major leader of the early Christian church – by tradition, the first bishop of Rome, or first pope. The Gospel of Matthew speaks of Jesus giving Peter the keys to the kingdom of Heaven. In modern depictions, particularly cartoons and jokes, he is literally the keeper of the gates of Heaven, and responsible for deciding who is allowed in and who isn’t.
EMILY: Well, come on, say a little more than that.
LORELAI: It’s great Mom, it’s fabulous. It’s just a notch below Rembrandt.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Dutch artist, and considered one of the greatest painters in the history of art. He is especially renowned for his portraits, and in particular, his self-portraits [pictured].
RORY: I wonder if Grandpa’s still in Akron?
LORELAI: Well for Akron’s sake, I hope he’s moved on to Boise.
Boise is the capital of Idaho, a city with a population of around 240 000. It’s more than two thousand miles from Akron, so not a natural place to “move on to” from there.
David Lynch, previously discussed, grew up in Boise. As he’s Amy Sherman-Palladino’s favourite director, I expect that’s why it rates a mention.
EMILY: Oh, now you have a problem with swans and thrones.
LORELAI: Because swans and thrones scream one thing, Mom. Siegfried and Roy.
Siegfried and Roy were a duo of German-American magicians and entertainers, famous for their appearances with white lions and white tigers. They were Siegfried Fischbacher (1939-2021) and Roy Horn (born Uwe Horn, 1944-2020). They had a very successful act at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas from the 1990s until 2003, known for their flamboyant style, sometimes compared to Liberace.
MIA: You marched up to me, looked me right in the eye and said, ‘I’m here for a job. Any job.’
LORELAI: Well, IBM had turned me down for the CEO slot, so I was desperate.
IBM is an acronym for the International Business Machines Corporation, a tech company headquartered in Armonk, New York, founded in 1911 by businessman Charles Ranlett Flint as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, receiving its current name in 1924. It is nicknamed Big Blue.
One of the largest companies in the world, IBM produces and sells computer hardware and software, and provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. It’s also a major research organisation, which has invented such things as the automatic teller machine, the floppy disc, the hard drive, magnetic stripe cards, and barcodes. IBM employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, and five National Medals of Science.
When Lorelai was job-hunting in 1986, the CEO of IBM was John Fellows Akers (1934-2014), a Yale alumnus who had only been in the role a year. In 2001, the CEO of IBM was businessman Lou Gertsner (born 1942), who took the role in 1993. He is largely credited with turning the company’s fortunes around, and was the first to be hired from outside the company.
MIA: Nice to see you, Lucas.
LUKE: You’re the only person in the world who can call me that, Mia.
We now discover that Luke’s name is actually Lucas, and Luke is his nickname. Even Lorelai didn’t know that before. It seems like a definite Star Wars reference, with the film featuring a hero named Luke Skywalker, written and directed by George Lucas (who appears to have been inspired by his own name for Luke S, get it? – both were raised in the desert, and have several other parallels, which George Lucas has admitted).
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 