Air Supply

LORELAI: When I was in junior high, I had a boyfriend, Todd something or other. Not a soul mate, but I was crazy about him and he dumped me. I was completely crushed and I could do nothing except lie around and cry and listen to Air Supply, very low point in my life.

Air Supply are an Australian soft rock duo, formed in 1975 and consisting of Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock. They had a succession of major hits worldwide, including eight Top Ten singles in the US, during the 1980s. They were inducted into the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Hall of Fame in 2013.

In 1980, Air Supply released their album Lost in Love, which brought them mainstream popularity and was their first to enter the US charts. As it came out just before Lorelai turned twelve, she could have listened to it in junior high. While getting over her boyfriend Todd, the sad break up song All Out of Love may have resonated with her, with its chorus beginning, “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you”. The song went to #2 in the US, and is Air Supply’s biggest hit.

Bloomingdale’s

LORELAI: So I’m at the mall, and I’ve already found Rachel’s gifts, and I’ve had two sugar cinnamon pretzels, and I’m buzzed on the sugar, and jazzed about the purchases, and I decide to take a victory lap through Bloomingdale’s, and it just so happens that there was an amazing sale in the men’s department.

Bloomingdale’s is an American department store founded in New York in 1872 by Joseph and Lyman Bloomingdale. The stores are now owned by Macy’s, and are well known for their sales.

Lorelai speaks of going to “the mall” as if she means going shopping in Hartford. However, in real life there is no Bloomingdale’s in Hartford, or anywhere else in Connecticut (there used to be one in Stamford, but it closed in 1990).

In real life, if Lorelai had wanted to shop at Bloomingdale’s, she would have had to drive to the city of White Plains, New York – over an hour’s drive away. That isn’t possible, as she completed her shopping trip in two hours; she would have needed more than that for travel time alone.

Rory Shows Emily the Potting Shed

(Rory opens the door and walks in. Emily looks in from the doorway.)
RORY: I know it’s looks small, but it’s really pretty. Come on. See, we had our bed right over there, and Mom put up this really pretty curtain around the tub so that it looked like a real bathroom. And we would just sit outside at night when the Inn would have parties, and we’d just listen to music and feed the ducks and . . . (Emily walks away) Grandma? Grandma wait, what’s the matter?

This is the potting shed next to the duck pond at the Independence Inn that Lorelai and Rory lived in when they first moved to Stars Hollow, as they had no money for accommodation (like the Holy Family, there was “no room at the inn”, and they were put in an outbuilding, so Baby Rory was just like Baby Jesus).

The shed is sturdy but rustic, and is stocked with gardening tools and plants, like any potting shed: it isn’t clear if those things were there while Lorelai and Rory lived there. Their bed is no longer there (they must have shared a single bed together), but the bath has been left, including the curtain that Lorelai put around it to serve as a bathroom wall. Lorelai mentioned that it has rosebud wallpaper, but the shed is painted white inside and doesn’t look as though it’s got the kind of walls that you could easily wallpaper.

It looks impractical for bringing up a baby, and we learn later that they moved to Stars Hollow in the autumn, so it would have been very cold as well (we don’t know what they used for heating). We don’t know how long they lived in this temporary accomodation, but long enough for Rory, who was only a baby when they came to Stars Hollow, to have some memories of it, and long enough that the weather became warm enough for them to sit outside at night. I would guess at least a year, and possibly two. Who looked after baby Rory while Lorelai was working is unknown.

This is the first time that Emily has ever seen the potting shed, and she is clearly distraught to discover the conditions her daughter and granddaughter lived in. Lorelai told Sookie that her parents visited them a few times at the inn while Rory was a baby, but they never saw where they slept at night. Lorelai was probably clever at keeping them away from the shed, but their lack of curiosity is surprising. Perhaps they were scared to push it in case Lorelai ran even further away.

In this case, it is Emily who runs away, too upset to spend any more time with Rory or even say a proper goodbye to her. This incident serves as a device to keep Emily at a distance from Stars Hollow. Emily was having a good time with Rory, and was fitting in well with the townspeople, finding that she had things in common with Mrs. Kim and Michel. By showing her in the potting shed, it explains why Emily doesn’t visit Stars Hollow more often in the future.

Where they lived between the potting shed when Rory was a baby/toddler, and moving into their own house when Rory was eleven, is a complete mystery and never mentioned. Perhaps Lorelai saved up enough money to rent a cheap apartment for them, but renting would make it hard to save for a house. They could have lived in a friend’s house (with Sookie?), but if so, nobody ever refers to it.

In real life, it wouldn’t be legal for anyone to live in the potting shed under Connecticut zoning laws, but I’m not sure that would stop Lorelai anyway – rules were made for non-Gilmores!

“I work here”

EMILY: Do you spend a lot of time here? [at the Independence Inn]
RORY: Yeah. I work here a couple afternoons a week, and I help out with special occasions. They have a lot of weddings here.

We learn that Rory, on top of her heavy school workload, also works part time two afternoons per week at the Independence Inn. This is different to what Rory told Headmaster Charleston in The Lorelais’ First Day at Chilton, when she said that she sometimes worked at the inn after school, so on weekdays. In the Pilot, Lorelai suggested she might want to help out and “earn some extra money” when Rory had a day off between changing schools, which could mean on top of the usual work she did at the inn, or to suggest that Rory helped out sometimes when she had free time.

It’s possible that Rory took on more regular work at the inn once she turned 16 (in Connecticut, there is a limit as to what kind of jobs a child under 16 may perform, although it is legal to work from 14 onward). As Rory doesn’t get home until nearly five pm from Hartford on weekdays, I can only think the two afternoons she works must be Saturday and Sunday – although it’s Saturday afternoon in this episode and Rory isn’t working, so I don’t know. She also says she works extra hours on the numerous weddings, which would mostly be on weekends anyway.

Maybe Rory works for just an hour or so after school twice a week. We never see her at this regular part-time job, so it’s hard to say how she manages her schedule. The job doesn’t seem too onerous, as it never seems to conflict with homework or social life (nor do we ever see Lorelai and Rory arriving home from work at the inn together). It’s possible that Rory is exaggerating her work schedule to impress her grandmother.

YMCA

MICHEL: May I help you?
RUNE: Yeah, I need to know where my room is.
MICHEL: Uh, are you sure you are in the right place? Perhaps you want the YMCA or the local bus station.

The Young Men’s Christian Association, an international organisation founded in London by George Williams in 1844, and based in Geneva, Switzerland. As well as its many charitable activities, the YMCA has hostels all over the world providing low-cost accomodation for travellers.

In real life, there is no YMCA hostel in Connecticut, with the nearest one to Stars Hollow being in New York. As there is also a bus station in New York and not in Stars Hollow, Michel is telling Rune he hasn’t just come to the wrong hotel, but to the wrong town, and should get out. This subtle insult is totally wasted on Rune.

“Whopper over kimchi”

LANE: No, they’d [Henry’s parents] know.
RORY: Know what?
LANE: Know that I listen to the wrong music and wish I could go blonde without looking like an idiot. Or that I’d take a Whopper over kimchi in a heartbeat.

The Whopper is the signature hamburger at the American fast food chain Burger King. It’s a hamburger patty on a sesame seed bun with lettuce, tomato, sliced onion, mayonnaise, ketchup, and pickles. You can add optional ingredients such as cheese, bacon, or mustard at your request. There is a Burger King in New Britain, just south of Hartford – presumably Lorelai and Rory took Lane to Burger King at least once.

Kimchi [pictured] is a traditional Korean side dish made from salted and fermented vegetables, most commonly cabbage or radishes, combined with seasonings such as chilli, garlic, and ginger. A staple food in Korea, the origins of kimchi date back at least 2000 years, although the chilli wasn’t added until the 17^th century. It is the national dish of North and South Korea.

Sears

RACHEL: See, I might consider doing the whole mom thing if I could be guaranteed that I could get one just like her [Rory].
LORELAI: Oh you can, you just have to go to Sears.

Sears, Roebuck and Company, usually just known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded by Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck in 1892. Originally based at the Sears Tower in Chicago, it began as a mail order company and opened its first retail store in 1925. It was the largest retailer in the US until it was overtaken by Walmart in 1989, and merged with Kmart in 2005.

If Rachel had wanted to go to Sears, there is a store in Manchester, Connecticut, just a few minutes drive north of Hartford.

911

RORY: Oh, I’m buzzing. [Takes her pager out of her pocket] … It’s Lane. 911. That’s trig. Gotta go.

As commonly known from movies and television, 911 is the emergency phone number in the US. Trigonometry is obviously Lane’s worst subject at school, so when she pages Rory 911, it means she desperately needs help with her Trig homework.

Cabaret

SOOKIE: Call her now. Ooh, page her, or page her and have her call my cell phone, and we can sing the money song from Cabaret. You be Liza, I’ll be Joel.

Cabaret is a 1972 musical drama film directed by Bob Fosse, and loosely based on the 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret by John Kander and Fred Ebb; this was adapted from the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Drouten, and the 1939 memoir The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood, which the play was based on.

Set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic of 1931, the film is about a young American named Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli), and her bohemian life as a cabaret dancer at the Kit Kat Club. The musical shows the growing rise of the Nazi Party, as the club at first harrasses the National Socialists and then eventually allows them to dominate the audience.

The “money song” from the film is Money, Money, containing the refrain, “Money makes the world go round”. It’s sung by Liza Minelli and Joel Grey, who plays the Master of Ceremonies at the club, and acts as the storyteller of the film.

Cabaret was an immediate box office smash, and received rave reviews from critics as a completely different kind of musical – cynical, kinky, political, and bleak. It was the #7 film of 1972 and received eight Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Actress for Liza Minelli, and Best Supporting Actor for Joel Grey. It holds the record for the most number of Oscars won by a film that did not win Best Picture. Cabaret is regarded as one of the best musical films of all time, and it turned Liza Minelli into a gay icon.

Cabaret was first released on DVD in 1998, so Lorelai and Sookie might have rented it quite recently.

“I can’t wear your mother’s clothes”

PARIS: I can’t wear your mother’s clothes.
RORY: Yes you can, I do it all the time.

Surely the reason Paris can’t wear Lorelai’s clothes is that they are different heights – Liza Weil is about 5 inches shorter than Lauren Graham. Oddly enough, Rory gives Paris one of Lorelai’s mini dresses to wear, and it is very short on Paris as well, even though when a short person borrows a tall person’s clothes they will inevitably be a lot longer on them.