Footnotes to the TV series
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.
EMILY: I never really truly appreciated the Atlantic Ocean before. Three thousand lovely miles of water.
The Atlantic Ocean, the second-largest of the world’s five oceans, with an area of about 106,460,000 square km (41,100,000 sq mi). It covers approximately 20% of Earth’s surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known for separating the “Old World” of Africa, Europe, and Asia from the “New World” of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The name Atlantic refers to the ocean being beyond the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Africa, opposite the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.
There are 3360 miles between Hartford and London, or 2929 nautical miles – very close to Emily’s estimate of 3000.
Note that Emily thinking of the lovely miles of water that used to separate her and Trix is very similar to Lorelai once saying that the best thing about Stars Hollow is the “miles and miles and miles” it is from Hartford – underlining that Lorelai’s relationship with Emily is very much like Emily’s relationship with Trix.
LUKE: Dean had that girl for two years. You have a little fight after two months, you walk out, and it’s over?
Jess and Rory have actually been going over for a little over three months, since mid-November.
It annoys me that Luke says, “Dean had that girl for two years”. He had Rory? He owned her? And why does Luke call her “that girl” like he hardly knows her? It’s very strange and a bit creepy.
JESS: I was attacked by a swan. Okay, you happy? A stupid swan.
LUKE: Now, how ’bout the real story?
Luke professes disbelief that Jess’ black eye came from a swan attack. Swans are notoriously aggressive during breeding season, and can do some damage when provoked – generally of the bruising variety, rather than breaking bones or anything. Breeding season is April to June, and this is February, but if you’re unlucky, swans can attack at any time.
I’m not sure why Luke doesn’t believe Jess at first, nor why Jess is too embarrassed to tell Rory the truth. For that matter, why is everyone so sure that Dean gave Jess the black eye? Had it happened before? Does Dean seem that dangerous? And if she believes Dean did hurt Jess, why is Rory angry at Jess, rather than Dean?
An interesting point to ponder: most swan-related injuries actually occur when the person is running away from the swan – falling over and cutting their knee, or getting a branch in their eye running through trees. (In one unfortunate case, drowning while trying to escape). Is it possible that this is really how Jess got a black eye, and is this why he is so embarrassed?
LORELAI: Then we picked the same Dean Martin song on the jukebox twenty-five times and people started complaining, so we picked the Bee Gees’ “New York Mining Disaster” and they begged for Dean Martin back.
Dean Martin, previously discussed. It would be interesting to speculate which Dean Martin song they kept playing – my guess would be his signature song “That’s Amore”, which begins, When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie. It makes sense that a pizza place would have that song on the jukebox. Unfortunately, it looks as if John’s of Bleeker Street doesn’t actually have a jukebox. Possibly the jukebox was somewhere else.
“New York Mining Disaster 1941”, the 1967 international debut single by the Bee Gees, written by Barry and Robin Gibb, and their first song to hit the charts in both the UK and US. It received a lot of attention, because rumours had been circulated that the Bee Gees were actually The Beatles, playing under assumed names. It went to #12 in the UK and #14 in the US, and was most popular in the Netherlands and New Zealand, at #3.
Barry and Robin wrote the song sitting in darkness during a power cut. The song recounts the story of a miner trapped in a cave-in. According to the Gibb brothers, the song was inspired by the 1966 Aberfan disaster in Wales. According to Robin, there actually had also been a mining disaster in New York in 1939, but not in 1941, and he thought “New York” sounded more “glamorous”.
JESS: What if Dean had sucker-punched me and I had to defend myself? You’re not even considering the possibility that that’s what happened?
RORY: Dean wouldn’t do that.
JESS: Oh, no, he might get his big white Stetson dirty.
Stetson, a brand of hat symbolic of the pioneering West, made by the John B. Stetson Company, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1865. They quickly became associated with legends of the old West who wore Stetsons, such as Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane, Will Rogers, and Annie Oakley.
Later, cowboys in Western movies were invariably shown wearing Stetson hats – in film symbology, the “good guys” are often thought of as wearing white Stetsons, and the “bad guys” black ones. In actual fact, it isn’t as clear cut as people seem to remember this trope, but film and TV cowboys such as Tom Mix and the Lone Ranger must have helped cement the idea of the good guy wearing a white hat.
LUKE: Got a great book, it has walking tours of old historic Manhattan. You know, before Disney got a hold of it.
I don’t know if you can say Disney “got a hold” of Manhattan, but they do have a significant presence there, like other major corporations. Their offices were at this time on the Upper West Side, there was a Disney store on Fifth Avenue [pictured], a TV station in Times Square, and the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway, to name a few. The Disney cruise lines also dock at a pier on the Hudson River.
LUKE: Oh, what show?
LORELAI: Levittown, it’s a new musical.
The musical that Lorelai is going to see with Alex, Sookie, and Jackson is fictional. Levittown is a hamlet on Long Island, New York, built by Levitt & Sons as a planned community for returning World War II veterans between 1947 and 1951.
It was the first mass-produced suburb, and became a symbol of the American Dream, and of racial discrimination – the Levitts would only allow whites to buy in the suburb, and as late as the 1990s, only a tiny portion of the community were non-white. They built other Levittowns in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico.
Oddly enough, a real play called Levittown – a drama, not a musical – opened off-Broadway in 2009, to lukewarm response, although successful enough to be staged a few times since then.
In real life, there weren’t any new musicals debuting in New York in February 2003.
In the background in the town square is a memorial to Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779), Polish nobleman, soldier, and military commander who has been called the “father of the American cavalry.”
Driven into exile after a failed uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he came to North America to help in the American Revolutionary War, following a recommendation by Benjamin Franklin. He distinguished himself throughout the revolution, most notably when he saved the life of George Washington.
Pulaski became a general in the Continental Army, and he created the Pulaski Cavalry Legion, reforming the American cavalry as a whole. He was killed at the Battle of Savannah, and is remembered as a hero who fought for independence and freedom in Poland and the US.
Numerous places and events are named in his honour, and he is one of only eight people to be awarded honorary United States citizenship. There is a very fine statue in his honour in Hartford, and the memorial in Stars Hollow may be an attempt to provide a fictional counterpart.
LORELAI: It’s like a Dean Martin Roast.
RORY: Those are never funny to me.
LORELAI: Yeah, they’re mean.
The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast is a series of television specials hosted by entertainer Dean Martin, airing from 1974 to 1984. For a series of 54 specials and shows, Martin and his friends would “roast” a celebrity. Roasting means to joke about and insult a celebrity, while also honouring them. The roasts were patterned after the roasts held at the New York Friars’ Club.
The specials were released on DVD, which is presumably how Rory was able to watch them. I find it unbelievable they would buy DVDs they didn’t find funny, or that they dislike “mean jokes” – Lorelai and Rory are both pretty cruel when it comes to humour. I can only think this is a little act they are putting on for Emily.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 