KIRK: I won’t take up much of your time. I was just wondering what your store hours are. MRS. KIM: For people who come to buy things, come with cash, it’s ten to six, Sunday through Friday. For people who wander around, blocking aisles, touching things with dirty hands, never buying or asking for eighty percent off, we’re closed.
The opening hours of the antiques store are 10 am to 6 pm, every day except Saturday. The Kims are Seventh Day Adventists, so Saturday is the Sabbath, and they don’t work on that day. Their piety must lose them a lot of business, being closed for half the weekend. By the way – only wanting to be paid with cash sounds as if they are tax dodgers.
LANE: Bible class has been moved an hour later, all to accommodate the reverend’s handball schedule.
In America, handball is a sport where players use their hands to hit a small rubber ball against a wall; it is sometimes called wallball. The idea is to hit the wall with the ball in such a way that your opponent is unable to do the same without hitting the ground twice, or hitting it out of bounds. The game is played on a small court, similar to a squash court. It is possible that the high school gym is used for handball in Stars Hollow.
The first historical record of someone hitting a ball against a wall with their hand is from Scotland in 1427, when King James I was a keen player. The game in America may go back to the American Revolution, but the earliest mention of the modern game is from San Francisco in 1873.
In the next season, we discover the Seventh Day Adventist pastor is named Reverend Melmim, although in real life, Seventh Day Adventist pastors aren’t actually addressed as “Reverend”.
It seems that even though Lane is grounded so badly she isn’t allowed to leave home, even to attend school, she is allowed to go to Bible class with her mother (and presumably, church). Later in the episode, we discover Bible class is on Saturday morning.
As Mrs Kim told Stars Hollow High that Lane had an infectious disease and was too sick to go to school, letting her out to attend Bible class seems like something the school would get to hear about.
RORY: We must have something. LORELAI: Not unless Divine Providence has placed a miracle brie and cracker plate in the fridge.
In theology, Divine Providence, or simply Providence, is God’s intervention in the world. There is both the “general Providence” of God maintaining the existence and order of the Universe, and “special Providence” of making some extraordinary intervention in people’s lives, such as a miracle. It would definitely be a minor miracle to find a Brie cheese and cracker plate has appeared in your fridge!
LANE: I only get five minutes a day of outside phone time but unlimited time to call the Psalm a Day line. A big ripoff, by the way, because Psalm 79 has been on there for three straight days. That’s not in keeping with what their name clearly implies, which is a new psalm per day, every day. Not the same tired one from the previous two days.
Mrs Kim has given Lane unlimited phone privileges to call the Psalm a Day Line, a number where you pay by the minute to hear a psalm each day – the same psalm being up all day.
Psalm 79 is identified in the Old Testament as “a psalm of Asaph”. Asaph was a member of the guild of musicians, and he may have either written, transcribed, or collected the psalms with his name attached, or they were produced by his guild, or written in a style he initiated.
Psalm 79 is a communal lament upon the destruction of Jerusalem, probably by the Babylonian army in 587 BC, and in particular the defilement of the Temple by allowing dead bodies to lie there, without burial.
The psalm expresses some sentiments pertinent to Lane’s situation, in particular asking how long God will remain angry at them and begging for mercy. It mentions hoping the groans of prisoners will help change God’s mind, just as Lane hopes her mother’s anger will eventually soften so that Lane can be released from her prison.
O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple, they have reduced Jerusalem to rubble.
They have left the dead bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your own people for the animals of the wild. They have poured out blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury the dead. We are objects of contempt to our neighbors, of scorn and derision to those around us.
How long, Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire? Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you, on the kingdoms that do not call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob and devastated his homeland.
Do not hold against us the sins of past generations; may your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need.
Help us, God our Saviour, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name’s sake. Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Before our eyes, make known among the nations that you avenge the outpoured blood of your servants. May the groans of the prisoners come before you; with your strong arm preserve those condemned to die. Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times the contempt they have hurled at you, Lord.
Then we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will praise you forever; from generation to generation we will proclaim your praise.
LORELAI: Hey, let’s sit at the counter. RORY: Nah, the counter, those are not the power seats. LORELAI: Yes, but with no one here we can sit at either end and play bagel hockey.
A bagel is a ring-shaped bread roll which is boiled before being baked, resulting in a dense, doughy interior with an often crisp crust. It originates from the Jewish communities of Poland, and is first mentioned in the 17th century, although very similar breads can be found in 13th century Arabic cookbooks, and a bagel-like bread was made in Poland as early as the 14th century.
They are a popular bread product in North America and Poland, especially in areas with a large Jewish population. Brought to the US by Jewish Polish immigrants, they came into general use by the last quarter of the twentieth century.
They are so closely associated with Jewish culture that the verb “to bagel” refers to a Jewish person deliberately using typically Jewish words or phrases in front a stranger to signal to them that they are also Jewish.
JESS: I don’t know, bet you have a lot of supporters on this. Pat Buchanon, Jerry Falwell, Kathie Lee Gifford.
Patrick “Pat” Buchanan (born 1938), right-wing political commentator, politician and broadcaster. He was an assistant and consultant to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and one of the original hosts of CNN’s current events program, Crossfire. He has expressed sympathy for Nazi war criminals and support for eugenics, denied the Holocaust, and called for the lynching and horse-whipping of the young men of colour wrongly convicted in the Central Park jogger case. In 1990, he argued the case for music censorship in a debate on Crossfire.
Jerry Falwell Sr (1933-2007) [pictured], Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and conservative activist. He was pro-segregation and pro-apartheid, and a supporter of Anita Bryant’s campaign to oppose equal rights for gay people (he denounced Tinky Winky from the Teletubbies as a gay icon). He sued both Penthouse and Hustler magazine in the 1980s for an article and an advertisement that he believed had defamed him or caused him distress; the courts ruled in favour of free speech.
Kathie Lee Gifford (born Kathryn Epstein in 1953), television presenter, singer, songwriter, and author. She is best known for her fifteen-year run as co-host of Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee. She became a born-again Christian at the age of 12, and was a secretary/babysitter to Anita Bryant. I’m not actually aware of any censorship she has advocated for.
RORY: And we can split up holidays evenly. Like, I’ll be with you on Labor Day… LORELAI: Okay. RORY: … her on Memorial Day. LORELAI: Enough. RORY: I’ll have to find out about her religion though to see how Hanukkah will factor into this, unless you want to convert to Judaism and then take over Hanukkah for yourself.
Labor Day: a federal holiday in the US celebrated on the first Monday in September to honour the trade union and labour movement, first made official in 1894. Culturally, it is the unofficial last day of summer.
Hanukkah [pictured]: a Jewish festival, also known as The Festival of Lights, commemorating the recovery of Jerusalem and re-dedication of the Temple during the second century BC. It is observed for eight days and eight nights, and festivities include lighting candles, singing songs, and eating fried foods such as potato cakes and doughnuts. Although a minor festival, it has taken on great cultural significance in the US and elsewhere, as it takes place around the same time as Christmas.
RORY (looking at photo of Sherry): Nice looking lady. LORELAI: Mm hmm. Like a young Tammy Faye Bakker. RORY: But prettier than that.
Tammy Faye Bakker, born Tamara LaValley (1942-2007) was the ex-wife of television evangelist Jim Bakker (born 1940). She and her husband ran a televangelist program called the PTL Club, founded in 1974; it was dissolved in 1989 when Jim Bakker was convicted and imprisoned on indicted on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy. Tammy Faye divorced Jim in 1992, and married Roe Messner, a church building contractor (so by this stage she was actually Tammy Faye Messner).
Tammy Faye was known for her eccentric and glamorous image, and her views which often diverged from mainstream evangelical Christianity. For example, she supported the LGBT community, and reached out to HIV positive patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996, so was already terminally ill when this episode aired.
It is unclear what age “young” Tammy Faye Bakker was that Lorelai believes Sherry resembles. Knowing what Sherry actually looks like, perhaps when Tammy Faye’s hair was brown, before she dyed it blonde. That would have been in the 1960s, when Tammy Faye and her husband Jim had a puppet show on a Christian TV network.
The viewer may decide for themselves whether Sherry looks like Tammy Faye Bakker at any age, but I personally cannot see any strong resemblance (I can barely see a weak resemblance). I’m surprised that Rory doesn’t disagree any more strenuously than by saying Sherry is “prettier than that”, and can only think that she walks on eggshells when it comes to her mother’s jealousy over Sherry.
I’m not sure how Lorelai’s frame of reference for picturing a young Tammy Faye Bakker is in the 1960s, before Lorelai was born. I find this whole reference quite confusing.
MISS PATTY: Lorelai, there you are you naughty, naughty girl. LORELAI: Okay, he was not that much younger than I am. I met him at business school, not his Bar Mitzvah.
A Bar Mitzvah is a coming of age ceremony for boys in Judaism, undertaken when a boy is aged thirteen. For the female equivalent, see Bat Mitzvah.
As Lorelai begins calling relatives to find out if they sent her the ice cream maker, we learn a few names from the extended family. They are identified as aunts and uncles, which may be courtesy titles for any elderly distant relatives. Or they could be Richard’s aunts and uncles, the siblings of either Trix, or Richard’s father.
Aunt Bobbie. Aunt Bobbie is a traditional Bible-thumping Christian, by the sounds of it.
Aunt Clarissa. Turns out to have recently died. Aunt Bobbie seems to suggest a belief that Clarissa would have been hell-bound.
Aunt Bunny. Has also died.
Uncle Randolph. The older brother of Bunny. Lorelai doesn’t seem to think he has much longer to live.
The Pennsylvania Gilmores. A branch of the family in this state is next on Lorelai’s list. It sounds as if she is working her way through the Gilmore side of the family first.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 