The Name Rune

LORELAI: What is that – Rune?
RUNE: What do you mean?
LORELAI: I mean, where did Rune come from?
RUNE: I’m from out of town, I thought Jackson told you?
LORELAI: He did tell me, I meant the name “Rune”. You just don’t meet a lot of Runes, right?

Rune is a Scandinavian name, coming from the Old Norse for “secret lore”; it is the same as Old Norse rune letters and rune stones used for divination and meditation. It’s a rare name in the US so Lorelai is interested in its origins. (The Scandinavians would pronounce the name ROO-ne, whereas in English it’s said ROON). Rune’s father is also named Rune, so perhaps the family has some Scandinavian ancestry).

Diva Glam

LORELAI: Diva Glam.
RORY: I’ve got it.
LORELAI: Bring it up.

This seems to be the lipstick that Lorelai and Rory favour. I think it was made by MAC Cosmetics; the company was founded in Canada in 1984, and by 1998 were owned by Estee Lauder. Famous for their celebrity endorsements, and widely available in department stores such as Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, MAC is one of the biggest-selling make-up brands world-wide. You will remember that Rory linked Lorelai’s make-up to RuPaul, who was the face of MAC in the late 1990s.

Grandaddy

LANE: Hey, Grandaddy, new album used – I love a bargain.

Grandaddy is an American indie rock band formed in 1992, consisting of Jason Lytle, Aaron Burtch, Jim Fairchild, Kevin Garcia, and Tim Dryden. Their debut album came out in 1997, and they released four albums before disbanding in 2006. They reformed in 2012, and have made several live appearances. They released their fifth album in March 2017; two months later Kevin Garcia died from a stroke. Since then, the band have cancelled all planned engagements.

Their “new” album in 2001 was their second, The Sophtware Slump, which came out in May 2000. It gained widespread critical acclaim, and is regarded as one of the best albums of the 2000s.

That Lane buys even recently released albums second-hand demonstrates one way that she is able to afford so many CDs. My guess is that Apple Venus No. 2 was also a second-hand purchase, which is why she calls it “new” even four months after its release date.

Yoko Ono

LANE: A very misunderstood artist and the Beatles would’ve broken up anyways.
RORY: Have you shared this theory with anyone?
LANE: I know it, Yoko knows it, Sean knows it. Julian’s still in denial but what can you do?

Yoko Ono (born 1933) is a Japanese artist, singer, songwriter, peace activist, performance artist, and film-maker. She is famous for being the second wife of British singer-songwriter John Lennon, one of the Beatles. They met in 1966 and began a relationship while John was still married to his first wife, Cynthia, and were married in 1969.

The Beatles disbanded in 1970, and it is common to blame Yoko Ono as one of the primary causes of the band’s break up. Lennon and Ono spent all their time together, even when The Beatles were recording, which went against the band’s unspoken agreement not to allow wives or girlfriends into the studio. Ono frequently made comments and suggestions on the recording process, encouraged by Lennon, but to the other band members’ irritation.

However, The Beatles had experienced a number of stresses, including the death of their manager Brian Epstein in 1967, and the rise of George Harrison as a composer in his own right, with each member of the band beginning to have solo projects of their own. Although Ono placed further pressure on the band and contributed to feelings of ill-will, Lane is correct that The Beatles would have broken up anyway.

Sean Lennon (born 1975) is the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, while Julian Lennon (born 1963) is the son of Lennon and his first wife Cynthia. One reason why Lane says Julian might be “in denial” is that Julian was excluded from his father’s will, with the majority of the estate going to Ono; Julian sued the estate and in 1996 reportedly accepted a settlement of £20 million.

Despite the many factors working against their relationship, Julian is said to be on polite terms with Yoko Ono, and gets on very well with Sean. I’m not sure Julian has ever expressed an opinion on whether Ono broke up The Beatles (and by this stage, probably doesn’t care anyway).

Yoko Ono made several albums in collaboration with John Lennon, while also releasing solo albums – her solo debut album was in 1970. Although critics dismissed her work for many years, in November 2001 she brought out a concept album which was critically acclaimed, so Lane (and the show) was slightly ahead of the trends by recognising her as a misunderstood genius.

Once again, Lane demonstrates a sympathy for creative artists of Asian heritage. Perhaps she can picture herself as another Yoko Ono, bringing out avant-garde pop music with a feminist slant to it.

Lane’s New CDs

For the purposes of this episode, it is important that we understand Lane is a fanatic about popular music. Just in case we forgot that, the episode begins with Lane visiting Rory to show her the big stack of new CDs she has just bought.

The Best of Blonde is the first compilation album from the American new wave band Blondie, which was released in 1981. The album went to #30 in the US, but was much more successful around the world, getting to #4 in the UK, and #1 in Australia and New Zealand.

Kraftwerk is a German electronic music band formed in 1969, founded by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Pioneers in electronic music, they were among the first to popularise the genre, and has been highly influential in synthpop, techno, ambient, hip-hop, and club music. Their 1974 album Autobahn was their first to fully embrace the electronic sound, and the title track became a surprise hit around the world. The album got to #7 in Germany, #5 in the US and #4 in the UK.

Young Marble Giants were a Welsh post-punk band formed in 1978, with Alison Statton providing vocals for the instrumentation of brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham. Their minimalist sound was in sharp contrast to the aggressive punk rock dominating the era. They only released one album – Colossal Youth, which came out in 1980. It is one of the most highly-regarded indie recordings of all time and a major influence on Nirvana.

Among the CDs you can see a copy of Up on the Sun, the 1985 album by American rock band the Meat Puppets. The album has a more psychedelic feel to their earlier hard rock punk albums. The band was a great influence on bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Dinosaur Jr.

You might wonder how Lane managed to afford all the CDs she bought. She worked part-time at the antiques store, and later we learn her parents paid her $100 a month in wages. It seems that Lane also bought most of her music second-hand, and says that she loves a bargain. Later on, we find that Lane buys her CDs from Amazon, the same place Rory buys her books.

Earn Enough For Us

This 1986 song by English rock band XTC is playing in the background during the opening segment while Rory and Lorelai get ready for school/work.

The song is from the band’s album Skylarking; it is their best known album and generally regarded as their greatest work. It was initially ignored in the UK, but managed to get to #90. In the US, it became a hit on college radio and reached #70. Today it is regarded as one of the best albums of the 1980s.

Earn Enough For Us was never released as a single, but is the first track on the second side. The song is about a man struggling in a demeaning job to support himself and his wife in a ramshackle house. Learning that he is about to become a father, he is proud, but also worried about how they will manage financially.

It’s a reminder of the years of struggle to support herself and Rory that Lorelai has been through. The album came out when Rory was two years old, just as Lorelai began living in Stars Hollow as a single mother and working as a maid. Maybe it was a song that helped her get through those difficult early years.

Michael Chrichton

LORELAI: Every now and then, I’m seized with an overwhelming urge to say something like, “As Marcel Proust would say …”, but of course I have no idea what Marcel Proust would say so I don’t even go there. I could do, uh, “As Michael Crichton would say ..”, but it’s not exactly the same, you know.

Michael Chrichton (1942-2008) was a best-selling American author, screenwriter, director, and producer. He is best known for his science fiction, thriller, and medical fiction novels. Many of his books have been adapted into action films. Lorelai has apparently read at least one of his books, but it is unclear which one/s, as he was a fairly prolific writer.

In 2001, his most recent novel would have been Timeline (1999), a thriller about time travel to medieval France. This is a rather amusing counterpoint to Proust’s masterwork In Search of Lost Time, which is also set in France and deals with the problem of time in a completely different way.

This Old House

MAX: And yet, as soon as that dinner’s over and I start cleaning up, suddenly that’s when you’re starving.
LORELAI: What can I say – watching someone work makes me hungry. If I hadn’t stopped watching This Old House I’d be five hundred pounds right now.

This Old House is a highly popular home improvement television show which has aired since 1979, and is broadcast from Stamford, Connecticut. Presumably Lorelai started watching it after she bought a house of her own in Stars Hollow so she could learn how to do home repairs; she probably stopped watching it once she realised she could get Luke to do everything for her.

We last saw Max having his first date with Lorelai in Love and War and Snow. We only just now discover that they been dating happily ever since and are still together.

Damien

LORELAI: Look, I know it [her treatment of Skippy] was bad, but this was a vicious hamster. This was like a Damien hamster with little beady eyes and a big forked tail and … a cape with a … hood …

Lorelai is referring to the 1976 horror film The Omen, directed by Richard Donner. It is about a little boy named Damien (Harvey Spencer Stephens) who appears to be the Antichrist, and around whom numerous unexplained tragedies take place. The Omen was the #5 movie of 1976 and received excellent reviews; it also gained an Academy Award for its score. Today it is recognised as a horror classic.

Interestingly, Rottweiler dogs feature in the film as a mysteriously evil force. Buttercup is part-Rottweiler, suggesting that, like Skippy, she may have ended up being another “bad pet” that Lorelai would have had to abandon if Lorelai had adopted her.

Cosmo Woman

NURSE: Ms. Gilmore, uh, I need you to –
EMILY: It’s not “Ms. Gilmore”, it’s Mrs. Gilmore! Mrs. Gilmore, I’m not a Cosmo Woman!

Emily is referring to Helen Gurley Brown (1922-2012), who became editor of Cosmpolitan magazine in 1965 after the success of her best-selling 1962 advice book Sex and the Single Girl. She championed glamorous, fashionable, and sexually liberated women, who became known as “Cosmo Girls”.

It’s possible that Emily, in her state of distress, has somehow confused Helen Gurley Brown and feminist Gloria Steinem (born 1934) – Steinem became the editor of Ms. magazine in 1972, which featured Wonder Woman on its first cover.

Emily would have been a wife, and then a mother, at the time of the rise of Gurley Brown and Steinem – very proud to be “Mrs. Richard Gilmore”, and the opposite of the independent career woman in Cosmpolitan, and of the woman speaking out against the restrictions of marriage and family in Ms.

I’m not sure whether she says “Cosmo Woman” via mixing up Cosmo Girl and Wonder Woman from Ms. Magazine, or whether she simply can’t bear to refer to herself as a “girl” when she’s a mature-aged woman.