Rory’s Books from the Buy a Book Fundraiser

Rory buys several books at the fundraiser, but only a couple of the titles are visible. Gypsy the mechanic is volunteering her time to work at the fundraiser, and she points Rory to the astronomy section, as if Rory has an interest in this area, and Gypsy somehow knows about it. Both quite surprising things to learn! The Buy a Book Fundraiser is held outside the library, and may be raising funds for new books.

Inherit the Wind

A 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, fictionalising the events of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial. This was a legal trial in July 1925 where schoolteacher John Scopes was taken to court by the state of Tennessee for teaching human evolution. There was intense media scrutiny of the case, with publicity given to the high-profile lawyers who had taken the case. The prosecution had former Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, while Clarence Darrow defended Scopes – the same lawyer who had defended child murders Leopold and Loeb, previously discussed. Scopes was fined $100, but the case was overturned on a technicality. The case was seen as both a theological contest, and a test as to whether teachers could teach modern science in schools.

The play gives everyone involved in the Scopes Trial different names, and substantially alters numerous events. It is not meant to be a historical account, and is a means to discuss the McCarthy trials of the 1950s, where left-wing individuals were persecuted as Communist sympathisers, under a regime of political repression and a fear-mongering campaign.

Rory might be particularly interested in the play because of the focus it places on the media, with reporter E.K. Hornbeck covering the case for a fictional Baltimore newspaper. He is based on journalist and author H.L. Mencken, previously discussed as one of Rory’s heroes, who gained attention for his satirical reporting on the Scopes Trial for the Baltimore Morning Herald.

Inherit the Wind premiered in Dallas in 1955 to rave reviews, and opened on Broadway a few months later with Paul Muni, Ed Begley, and Tony Randall in the cast. It’s been revived on Broadway in 1996 and in 2007, as well as in Philadelphia, London, Italy, and India.

It was adapted into film in 1960, directed by Stanley Kramer, and with Spencer Tracey starring as the defence lawyer, Dick York as the schoolteacher, and Gene Kelly as the Baltimore journalist. It received excellent reviews and won awards at the Berlin Film Festival. It’s also been made for television in 1966, 1988, and in 1999 (starring George C. Scott, Jack Lemmon, and Beau Bridges). It seems likely that Rory watched the most recent version on television.

Letters to a Young Poet

A 1929 collection of ten letters written by the Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, to a young officer cadet named Franz Xaver Kappus at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Austria between 1902 and 1908.

Kappus had written to Rilke, seeking advice on the quality of his poetry, to help him choose between a literary career, or one as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Kappus had been reading Rilke’s poetry when he discovered that Rilke had earlier studied at the academy’s lower school in St. Pölten, and decided to write to him for advice.

Rilke gave Kappus very little criticism or suggestions on improving his writing, and said that nobody could advise him or make life decisions for him. Over the course of ten letters, he instead provided essays on how a poet should feel and seek truth in experiencing the world around him. They offer insights into Rilke’s poetic ideas and themes, and his work processes.

Kappus did meet Rilke at least once, and despite his concerns about pursuing a military career, he continued his studies and served for 15 years as an army officer. During the course of his life, he worked as a journalist and reporter, and wrote poems, stories, novels, and screenplays. However, he never achieved lasting fame.

This is a book which features a future journalist – but one who yearns to become a poet. Is it a sign that Rory secretly wishes she could become a creative writer instead? Is she hoping that being successful in journalism will help her become a published author (it’s definitely a help in getting novels published, or at least considered). Is it even a hint that she will become a writer in the future, as she does in A Year in the Life, but is not destined to become famous from her writing? (Most published writers, even quite successful ones, don’t get famous, after all).

And is this correspondence between a poet and a student at a military academy meant to suggest that Rory is still thinking of Tristan, who went away to military school? Are she and Tristan actually writing to each other, or is the show leaving the door open for Tristan to possibly return in a future season, since they didn’t know how long One Tree Hill was going to last?

“What makes you think I care about you?”

JESS: What makes you think I care about you?
RORY: I don’t mean care care, like care. I mean if you like me at all . . . not like like. I just meant that if . . . if you think of me remotely as the sort of person that you could occasionally stand to talk to then you will try to get along with my mom, that’s all.

A very pertinent question from Jess. Rory acts as if they are already half-way to being in a relationship by telling Jess he has to be nicer and more polite to her mother. But as Jess notes, neither of them has said anything about having feelings for the other, even platonic feelings.

A flustered Rory quickly backpedals, but she has given Jess the opportunity to let Rory know how he feels. By agreeing to be nicer to Lorelai, he is tacitly saying he does care about Rory, at least as a friend. And by asking, Rory has let him know that she wants him to care for her.

“Fruit named streets”

LORELAI: Well, you know, there’s some really cool places over on Peach. Or on Plum. Hm, Orange. Basically, any of your fruit named streets are pretty nice.

This seems slightly naughty of Lorelai, since Dean lives on Peach Street. I’m sure Jess wouldn’t want Dean as a neighbour! It’s as if she’s telling Jess she’d prefer Rory to date someone who lives on Peach Street.

This might suggest that the streets named after fruit trees are in a particularly nice part of Stars Hollow.

Price Yeah!

This is the music that Jess is sleeping to when Luke wakes him up. Price Yeah!, is by the American indie rock band Pavement, first released on their EP Slay Tracks: 1933-1969 in 1989. The EP was self-recorded, and is experimental hard-core punk.

The band were partly inspired by their home town of Stockton, California, a place they considered flat and boring that they wanted to escape from – something that Jess can probably relate to.

Being an extremely limited release, copies of this EP quickly became collector’s items selling for hundreds of dollars. Jess is most likely listening to Westing (By Mustang and Sextant), a compilation of Pavement’s early EP’s and singles which was released in 1993.

The song begins:

Just cause I’m fakin’
Doesn’t mean I’m wrong
Cause I bought my price, yeah,
No I got it at cost

And there’s the things I know
Wrote them down on your nib
Just remember turning
It’s a rapid affair

Jess knows that he is faking it – but is he faking by hiding his true level of misery from Luke and the town, or is he faking by pretending to be less interested in Rory than he makes out? He’s aware of the price he is paying, but considers it worthwhile. The “rapid affair” may allude to how quickly he fell for Rory, and the things he wrote down to the annotations he made in Rory’s book.

Jess says he needs loud music on in order to sleep. Possibly he got into that habit needing to block out the sound of his mother partying or entertaining guests. Or even the sound of Liz having sex or fighting with her companion of the moment. Or they just lived in an apartment block where there was a lot of noise from other people, and little insulation against it.

Either way, it’s a sign that he didn’t have the best environment growing up. Unless he simply hasn’t adjusted to the quietness of the country after living in New York?

If Jess always needs loud music in order to sleep, how on earth has poor Luke been able to get any sleep? For that matter, why is he surprised to learn about it now? Has he just been gritting his teeth for six months and working long days on little sleep, and this is the final straw? And why haven’t any of their neighbours complained?

“We’re friends”

LORELAI: So you and Jess aren’t friends?
RORY: Well, yeah, we’re friends … I mean, we’re not good friends but we’re friends. We’re friendly. But that doesn’t mean that we’re friends in the traditional Webster’s dictionary definition of friends … Friendish might be a better term.

Rory struggles to define her relationship with Jess. They get along well (they’ve obviously kept talking since their “friend date” after the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser), bur Rory knows they are not friends the way she is friends with Lane, or even with Paris.

Yes, what is the dictionary definition of a boy you are attracted to who’s also attracted to you and you share a common interest you can talk about and like spending time together, and you’re both flirting with each other behind your boyfriend’s back? The best she can come up with is “friendish” – someone you’re friendly with, without exactly having a friendship.

Someone else might say that Jess is actually Rory’s “crush”, but she is too far in denial to acknowledge that. Lorelai looks sceptical, as well she might.

“You called him Duke”

RORY: People are different once you get to know them. If you’ll remember, you weren’t too fond of Luke when you first met him.
LORELAI: That’s not true.
RORY: You called him Duke for two years just to make him mad.

A meta-reference to the fact that in the original pilot of Gilmore Girls, the Luke character was named Duke. Amy Sherman-Palladino, the writer for this episode, jokes that must’ve been the teasing nickname Lorelai gave him at first. Luke’s character was originally meant to be a woman named Daisy, so the change from Daisy to Duke seems like a Dukes of Hazzard reference.

Apparently Luke and Lorelai didn’t get along when they first met, and it took two years for Lorelai to call him by his correct name. This sounds awfully similar to the plot line where Tristan keeps calling Rory “Mary” when he first meets her, as a flirtatious tease.

In the world of Gilmore Girls, someone getting your name wrong is a sure sign they secretly like you! As Tristan was originally slated to be Rory’s boyfriend (before the actor went to a different show), it also seems to be a sign you are destined to end up together.

Rain Gutters

Lorelai needing her rain gutters cleaned was mentioned in “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” – she was hoping that the “Collins kid” might clean them for her. Luke remembers this, and suggests Jess could clean her gutters instead. Lorelai puts him off by saying she’s already got people lined up for the job.

Rory puts her head down sadly or sullenly when Lorelai balks at Jess coming to their house. Note that Rory is holding the ice creams hugged close to her chest, so her body heat will melt them even faster. I’m pretty sure that’s not ice cream in those cups marked “ice cream”.

Liz Sends Jess’ Stuff to Stars Hollow

LORELAI: Where’d all this come from?
LUKE: Jess. Liz shipped the rest of his stuff last week. He finally unpacked.

Jess moved to Stars Hollow six months ago, and his mother Liz has only just now boxed up all his possessions and had them shipped to Luke. If Jess had any hopes that living with Luke was just an extended vacation, they have now been thoroughly dashed. The knowledge that his mother has truly kicked him out of home and he is stuck in Stars Hollow must come as devastating news. I think we can assume that the Jess we see in this episode is a deeply unhappy boy.

“White trash Hearst Castle”

LORELAI: I’ve never seen so much stuff. It looks like a white trash Hearst Castle in here.

Hearst Castle, estate of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, previously discussed.

Note Lorelai’s shocking implication to Luke that his nephew is “white trash”, said while Jess is just in the other room. Lorelai has said some truly awful things about Jess, a troubled teenager who is the nephew of a close friend. This isn’t even the worst one.

“How dare you put this on me?”

LORELAI: I was just thinking, you know, all these years, no matter what my relationship status has been, whether I’ve been dating or hibernating or whatever, I think I’ve always had you in the back of my mind – you know, the prospect of us being together. But this prospect was sort of indefinitely on hold while you, you know, found yourself and, uh, got your personal life together so that you could really be there for me and especially for Rory. But you and I have been so linked in my mind that I think I have unconsciously sabotaged every decent relationship I’ve had, including the one with Max, because I was waiting for you, and I shouldn’t have been. And now that I see that, and I see you settling down with Sherry, I think I can move beyond it.
CHRISTOPHER: Good, I’m really glad this is good for you Lorelai.
LORELAI: It is. Chris?
CHRISTOPHER: How dare you put that on me?

After seeing Christopher again, and being confronted by Emily’s beliefs that Lorelai belongs with him, Lorelai has a realisation that she has been waiting for Christopher to get his life together so that he can be with her, and with Rory. She believes that she has unconsciously sabotaged any relationship she’s ever had, because she was waiting for Christopher. Now that Christopher is with Sherry, she thinks she can get over Christopher and move past it.

When she shares this self-insight with Christopher, he is furious, saying that Lorelai is blaming every failed relationship on him (she wasn’t, but you can’t help thinking that Christopher has a lot to do with the fact Lorelai is incapable of holding down a relationship for more than a few months).

Of course, what really upsets Christopher is the realisation that he could have been with Lorelai all this time, if he’d only made more effort. Now he’s made the effort to show her he’s capable of being responsible, and instead of making Lorelai want him more, she’s ready to give him her blessing and move on. His badly-thought out plan is coming unravelled!

Lorelai really puts up with a lot of crap in this episode. She has Sherry show up unannounced and then rather creepily try to bond with Rory while telling Lorelai she won’t be involved in their lives. Then she’s unfairly abused by Emily, and by Christopher, who also embarrasses her in public in the process. She tries so hard to rise above it and do the right thing, and doesn’t get any understanding or compassion for it.