Footnotes to the TV series
LORELAI: Oh, I’m a Bedouin. I’m homeless!
The Bedouin, nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. Originating in the Syrian Desert and Arabian Desert, they spread across the rest of the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa after the spread of Islam. The English word Bedouin comes from the Arabic badawī, meaning “desert dweller”.
PARIS: There is no alternative to Harvard.
RORY: Except Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Sarah Lawrence, et cetera, et cetera.
Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and Sarah Lawrence, previously discussed.
Columbia University, private Ivy League university in New York City. Founded in 1754 as King’s College, it was established by royal charter under King George II. It is the oldest university in New York, the 5th oldest in the US, and one of only nine founded before the Declaration of Independence. It was renamed Columbia after the American Revolution.
One of the wealthiest universities in the world, its alumni, staff, and students have included seven Founding Fathers of the United States, four US presidents, 33 foreign heads of state, two secretaries-general of the United Nations, ten justices of the US Supreme Court, 101 Nobel laureates, 125 National Academy of Sciences members, 53 living billionaires, 22 Olympic medalists, 33 Academy Award winners, and 125 Pulitzer Prize recipients.
PARIS: . . .shouldn’t even be taken into account. This dovetails nicely into my feelings about population control. It’s a little hot in here, can we do something about that? Anyway, population control has been dramatically successful in most European countries to the detriment of some, especially Italy, which is experiencing a marked drop.
The birth rate declined in Italy in the 1970s, which, coupled with postwar mass migration, led to a rapidly ageing population. However, recently the birth rate has grown significantly, and since the 1980s, Italy has attracted migrants, particularly from Eastern Europe and North Africa, helping their population grow.
Paris’ interest in population control does seem to continue – her beliefs verge on eugenics, and in A Year in the Life, she is head of a fertility clinic.
PARIS: It’s partly my parents’ fault, they didn’t brand me properly. I should’ve been at the 92nd Street Y or Brick Church.
RORY: Prep schools?
PARIS: Preschools. It decides everything.
The 92nd Street Y and the Brick Church School are both upmarket faith-based preschools on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City – this may suggest that Paris lived there when she was a small child, her parents moving to Hartford later.
Does this provide a hint of why Paris never quite fit in at Chilton? The other alternative is that she believes her parents should have moved to New York for her preschool education, which is just selfish and impractical enough to be believable for Paris’ character.
The 92nd Street Y [pictured] is a secular Jewish cultural centre which offers a diversity of programs, including a nursery school. The Brick Church is a Presbyterian church which has offered early childhood programs since 1940, and members of the congregation receive preference in the highly competitive application process.
The fact that Paris considers both these preschools as options she could have had suggests that Paris’ mother may be or originally was Presbyterian. Either that, or she has no idea how preschools actually work.
LORELAI: Hey, who are you on with?
MICHEL: The Cheshire Cat Inn.
The Cheshire Cat was the B&B in Portsmouth where Lorelai and Rory stayed on their road trip to Harvard [pictured]. Apparently there is also a Cheshire Cat Inn near Stars Hollow. Oddly, neither Lorelai or Rory remarked on this coincidence when they were at the B&B. Did the writer (Daniel Palladino) just run out of ideas for names here?
LORELAI: We need to double check, triple check. Julio! He doesn’t start ’til six but sometimes he comes here early because his sister-in-law Rita gives him a ride on her way to work in Salisbury.
Salisbury, previously discussed. Another town said to be close to Stars Hollow.
DEAN: I got into Southern Connecticut State.
RORY: Oh, that’s great.
Southern Connecticut State, previously discussed.
Dean applied to the university in New Haven, seemingly as a way to impress Rory. Nothing ever seem to come of this, and the fact that Lindsay doesn’t say anything about going to college may provide a clue as to why.
POE 1: I myself attended West Point … I’m embarrassed to say that I was court-martialed in 1832 and forced to leave.
POE 2: Excuse me, but I was expelled from West Point in 1831, not 1832.
The United States Military Academy, also known as West Point, in West Point, New York. The site was originally Fort Clinton; it sits on strategic high ground overlooking the Hudson River. Founded in 1802, it is the oldest of the five American service academies and educates cadets for commissioning as officers into the US Army. The entire central campus is a National Historic Landmark and popular tourist destination.
Edgar Allan Poe entered West Point in 1830, and after deciding to pursue a career as a poet, purposefully got himself court-martialled in 1831 by refusing to attend classes, formations, and classes. The second Poe is correct.
LORELAI: Or complain when he goes back to being Fred Larson, Tampa dentist.
Tampa, a city on the Gulf Coast in Florida with a population of around 380 000. A military centre during the 19th century, today the city’s economy is driven by tourism, health care, finance, insurance, technology, construction, and the maritime industry. Lorelai has something of an obsession with thinking everyone staying at an inn or B&B is a dentist.
LORELAI: That reminds me – Yale, best drama school bar none. Put that in the pro column.
The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, founded in 1924, and providing training in theatre arts. It is a partner of the Yale Repertory Theatre, and is ranked as one of the very best theatre conservatories in the US. The Juilliard School in New York is usually said to be the best of all, however.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 