Handball

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.

White Castle

SHERRY: Great. Oh, of course this does leave you a sad little orphan.
CHRISTOPHER: Oh, that’s okay. I’ll have one of my patented White Castle bachelor dinners.

White Castle, a hamburger restaurant chain in the US operating in 13 states, mostly in New York and the Midwest. It is credited as the world’s first fast-food hamburger chain, founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921 by Walt Anderson and Billy Ingram. Anderson is credited as the inventor of the hamburger bun, while Ingram’s business savvy helped popularise the hamburger. The chain is still owned by the Ingram family.

In real life, the nearest White Castle restaurant to Litchfield is in Nanuet, New York, almost two hours drive away. Possibly Christopher is simply using the name to mean he’ll be grabbing a burger somewhere, or eating at a chain restaurant.

Wednesday Nights

SHERRY: And he told me about how he wasn’t really a presence in her life for years and how he’d like to make up for all that time that he wasted.
LORELAI: Well, he’s been doing really well lately.
SHERRY: I know. He is obsessive about his call dates to her. I mean, it doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing, he’s gotta call Rory Wednesday nights at seven o’clock. I like that about him.

We learn here that Christopher has been phoning Rory every Wednesday at 7 pm since the debutante ball, after years of neglect. It seems a bit suspicious he only became so conscientious when he got with Sherry, as if he’s mainly doing it to impress his girlfriend.

It’s not clear when the Wednesday night phone calls initially started. After Christopher visited them in March 2001, Rory asked for him to phone more often. That could have been when the Wednesday calls were implemented, but if so, there was a big break during the summer, as Christopher moved to Boston then without ever letting Lorelai and Rory know, and they only resumed contact in September 2001.

“I paraphrased Proust”

RORY: Well, having company is about making sacrifices.

LORELAI: Martha Stewart?

RORY: I paraphrased Proust.

Martha Stewart, previously discussed.

Rory refers to Marcel Proust, previously discussed, the author of In Search of Lost Time, a novel in seven volumes.

I’m not sure which part of Proust Rory is paraphrasing from. There are so many times that the author reflects on sacrifices made for other people, and for the benefit of society that it is difficult to choose. However, this sentence from The Guermantes Way, Vol 3 of the novel, stood out for me as possibly reflecting Rory’s feelings:

The same familiar spirit represented to Mme. de Guermantes the social duties of duchesses, of the foremost among them, that was, who like herself were multi-millionaires, the sacrifice to boring tea, dinner and evening parties of hours in which she might have read interesting books, as unpleasant necessities like rain, which Mme. de Guermantes accepted, letting play on them her biting humour, but without seeking in any way to justify her acceptance of them.

Rory also submits to social duties she finds boring, in a way Lorelai doesn’t, but like Mme. de Guermantes, she would probably prefer to be reading “interesting books”, and uses her sense of humour as a coping mechanism to get through them.

That does sound a lot like Rory’s attitude, and if so, suggests she thinks of entertaining her father and his girlfriend as a boring necessity. A big change from the previous season, when she was so thrilled to see Christopher in Stars Hollow. Is it just Sherry making the difference, or is some of the gilt coming off Christopher already?

If this is the source, it means Rory has read at least the first three volumes of In Search of Lost Time.

Puppy on the Christmas Card

LORELAI: I recognized you from your Christmas card.
CHRISTOPHER: Which I’m sure you mocked mercilessly.
LORELAI: Did not. Others, yes, but not yours. You guys were cute, and the puppy was cute.

Lorelai didn’t mock their card nearly as much as others, although she did say that Sherry looked like Tammy Faye Bakker. She so clearly doesn’t resemble Tammy Faye that I wonder if they had even cast an actress for the role at that point? Perhaps Sherry had a make-over for the photo shoot with a touch of Tammy Faye glamour to it.

The puppy is never seen or referred to again. Did they even have a puppy? Maybe they rented one for the photo shoot. Hopefully they didn’t get a puppy for Christmas and give it away in the New Year.

All-Boys Private School Uniform and a Yankees Cap

SOOKIE: I’m looking for a guy that looks like a guy that you could be with, only I’m deducting seventeen years off his age and I’m adding an all-boys private school uniform and a Yankees cap.

Sookie is looking around for Christopher, until Lorelai points out Sookie doesn’t know what he looks like. It seems hard to believe Lorelai has never shown Sookie a picture of Christopher, but from the way Rory treasures an old strip of photos of Christopher and Lorelai, it appears they possess no photo of him.

Sookie explains that she’s been looking for someone Lorelai would go out with, but imagining him seventeen years younger and in a private boy’s school uniform. This may suggest that Lorelai and Christopher went to separate single-sex private high schools. In real life, there are no single-sex private schools in Hartford itself, but a few in the nearby surrounding suburbs and towns that Lorelai and Christopher could have easily attended.

I’m not sure why Sookie is mentally making him a teenager in a school uniform when he’s an adult though. Maybe she’s going to then mentally add seventeen years to his age?

She gives him a Yankees cap because that’s what Luke wears!

Amazon.com

RORY: I don’t know if I have time to pick it up.
LANE: What? Rory, do you wanna hear how I used up my five minutes of phone time today? Talking to Amazon.com trying to get them to overnight it to me in a plain package with a return address referencing something Korean and religious.

Amazon, previously discussed as the place Rory buys many of her books. Apparently it’s where Lane buys her new and used music as well.

I’m not sure why Lane couldn’t have just had the CD mailed to Rory’s address, except that I’m starting to think Lane actually enjoys devising zany schemes.

Litchfield

LORELAI: So where’d this business trip take you?
CHRISTOPHER: Your neck of the woods, actually. I’m in the Litchfield area.

Litchfield is a historic town in Connecticut with a population of around 8000 (about the size of Stars Hollow). This comment seems to place Stars Hollow in Litchfield County, the location of Washington Depot, Milford Green, and Woodbury, which can be seen as inspirations for the town and its setting.

What business Christopher could be doing there is a bit of a headscratcher – he works for a Boston company that helps struggling technology companies trim their resources, presumably softening them up for corporate takeovers. Litchfield County is a rural area with a low population density, farmland, and small towns: what tech company could possibly be located there?

I can only think he is actually in Hartford or New York or something, or the whole thing is a lie. Perhaps Christopher has actually lost his job?

Schmitty

LORELAI: Goalie for the bagel hockey team?

RORY: And bump Schmitty?

LORELAI: Schmitty’s over the hill, he’s washed up …

If Rory is referring to a real person named Schmitty, rather than an imaginary one, it can only be former baseball star Mike Schmidt (born Michael Schmidt in 1949), often referred to as “Schmitty”. He played 18 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies between 1972 and 1989. A twelve-time All-Star and three-time winner of the Most Valuable Player Award, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995. Sporting News named him Player of the Decade for the 1980s.

I feel as if Rory made up an imaginary Schmitty, but Lorelai recognised it as the name of a baseball player, hence why Lorelai rapidly jumps to baseball references.

Reader’s Digest World Famous Polka CD

LANE: Okay, I’m dying for news. Give me some headlines.
RORY: Oh, well, I’ve got a debate coming up. And, um, Dean’s been working extra hours lately saving up for a new motorcycle, so I hardly see him. Mom and I haven’t done laundry in three weeks, but I have taken to jumping into the gigantic pile of dirty clothes while we play our Reader’s Digest World Famous Polka CD that we got used for ninety-nine cents.

I wasn’t able to find a World Famous Polka CD released by Reader’s Digest, but I did find Polka Party with Myron Floren on his accordion, released on CD in 1991 by Reader’s Digest. It’s possible that “world famous polka” is simply the sarcastic way that that Rory refers to it – “our world famous polka CD”. Otherwise it’s simply fictional.

Among the snippets from her life that Rory tells Lane is that she has hardly seen Dean since the Bid-on-a-Basket Fundraiser, almost a week ago. Conveniently, he has started working extra hours to save up for a new motorcycle, just after they got into a fight. I think we can assume they aren’t on the best of terms at the moment.