Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) (18 page)
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Authors: Jennifer Crusie,Leah Wilson
Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Television, #History & Criticism
BOOK: Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series)
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Oh, the buildings. The houses in New England are old, classic, beautiful. Look at Lorelai’s house. It’s
cool
. It has character. A porch. A winding floor plan. Pipes that are so old they don’t work unless Luke works his magic every so often. But the old houses aren’t junk. They aren’t broken down. They are well-kept, historical monuments. Oh, sure, your floor might be slanted and the windows might not open on hot days, and your heating bill might be astronomical because there are so many drafts in the place, but that’s the kind of thing that warms the cockles of a New Englander’s heart. These old New England houses have carvings on the door frames, they have amazing detail and designs on the lattice work on the outside, they have little round windows in turrets with carved railings on the roofs. They were built back in the day when people cared about making each building beautiful and unique. For heaven’s sake, even Lorelai’s
garage
has charm, with its cute little roof and its double doors.
cool
. It has character. A porch. A winding floor plan. Pipes that are so old they don’t work unless Luke works his magic every so often. But the old houses aren’t junk. They aren’t broken down. They are well-kept, historical monuments. Oh, sure, your floor might be slanted and the windows might not open on hot days, and your heating bill might be astronomical because there are so many drafts in the place, but that’s the kind of thing that warms the cockles of a New Englander’s heart. These old New England houses have carvings on the door frames, they have amazing detail and designs on the lattice work on the outside, they have little round windows in turrets with carved railings on the roofs. They were built back in the day when people cared about making each building beautiful and unique. For heaven’s sake, even Lorelai’s
garage
has charm, with its cute little roof and its double doors.
And the churches in New England . . . wow. Do you know that when my mom and brother came to visit me out here, they commented that there weren’t any churches because they thought they hadn’t seen any? Well, there are, but they are usually squat and ugly, and some are even in schools and office buildings. No steeples, no stained glass, no history.
Just take a gander at the town of Stars Hollow, and you’ll see that New England charm. The church, the town square, the gazebo, Lorelai’s inn . . . these are buildings with a history, with a story to tell. With personality.
And how about Richard and Emily’s house? Sure, it’s a mansion, but it’s not a
nouveau riche
kind of building or furnished with black metal couches and mirrored ceilings. Their fireplace, their fixtures, their furnishings . . . have you noticed the carvings on the walls? Or the trim? Their house is beautiful in the way that they used to make things before they decided that slapping up buildings as fast as they could was the way to go.
nouveau riche
kind of building or furnished with black metal couches and mirrored ceilings. Their fireplace, their fixtures, their furnishings . . . have you noticed the carvings on the walls? Or the trim? Their house is beautiful in the way that they used to make things before they decided that slapping up buildings as fast as they could was the way to go.
Walk down the street almost anywhere on the West Coast. Those houses are new. They have a certain look about them. A symmetry. A perfection. A total lack of character. Nothing like New England.
An old house in New England was built in 1650. An old house on the West Coast was built in the early 1900s, and even those are rare. It seems like most buildings were thrown up in the last thirty years, and it looks like it, too. Most of the old buildings out west
look
old. Run down. Outdated. The old buildings in New England look like treasured antiques that were designed and built with care and creativity, and their appeal has not only lasted over the years, but it has grown.
look
old. Run down. Outdated. The old buildings in New England look like treasured antiques that were designed and built with care and creativity, and their appeal has not only lasted over the years, but it has grown.
And the history of New England doesn’t end with the buildings; it’s in the meaning behind those buildings. The history of America is in New England, and that comes through so clearly on
Gilmore Girls
. Take the annual Revolutionary War reenactment in Stars Hollow, when the men dress up in costumes and replay the role that Stars Hollow had in the American Revolution (yeah, it wasn’t much, but the reenactment is still powerful). Or when Taylor and Kirk wanted to rename all the streets in Stars Hollow by their original names. How cool is that? The street I live on out west is only fifteen years old and has had the same name the whole time. Um, yeah, high coolness factor there. And think about Emily’s involvement in her Daughters of the American Revolution chapter. Again, we’re talking a history that’s way bigger than one little town. It’s the history of our country, and it permeates New England.
Gilmore Girls
. Take the annual Revolutionary War reenactment in Stars Hollow, when the men dress up in costumes and replay the role that Stars Hollow had in the American Revolution (yeah, it wasn’t much, but the reenactment is still powerful). Or when Taylor and Kirk wanted to rename all the streets in Stars Hollow by their original names. How cool is that? The street I live on out west is only fifteen years old and has had the same name the whole time. Um, yeah, high coolness factor there. And think about Emily’s involvement in her Daughters of the American Revolution chapter. Again, we’re talking a history that’s way bigger than one little town. It’s the history of our country, and it permeates New England.
And this history comes full circle back to our educational institutions. One reason New England schools are so deserving of their snobbery is their history. My high school was more than 100 years old. Yale? Founded in 1701. Harvard? Founded in 1638. Generations upon generations of the same family have attended these institutions. Look at Logan. His grandfather belonged to his Yale secret society (Life and Death Brigade, anyone?). So did his dad. And now, so does Logan. That’s history, folks, and that deserves special treatment. Guess when Stanford was founded? 1891. Harvard has 253 more years of history than Stanford. The difference alone is more than twice Stanford’s age.
It’s not just the historical buildings that make the town of Stars Hollow a classic New England small town. Stars Hollow is a living, breathing entity unto itself, made of all the people who live there, its history, and its heritage. The people who live in Stars Hollow are connected to the town in their hearts and souls in a way that simply doesn’t happen other places. The population of America is migrating west, so most of the people out here are originally from some place else. Half the people I work with out here are from New England! But in New England, most of the people have roots in the region. That gives them a rich sense of connection with the land and the community.
Even the physical layout of Stars Hollow is classic New England, with its delightful town square where all the celebrations and people-sightings occur. So many New England towns have places like these where the town comes together: a big grassy area, maybe a gazebo, trees that get decorated during the holiday season. You don’t see that in new towns, designed to try to squeeze as many houses as possible onto a single plot of land. And without the town center, there’s no central place to bring people together.
And the small-town characters . . . man . . . where do I start? Everyone in Stars Hollow is into everyone else’s business, as well as the business of everyone who ever lived there. Like, when Luke and Lorelai started dating and the town became all upset because if they broke up, people would be forced to align their loyalties with one or the other of them, forcing half the town’s population to stop eating at one of the two decent eateries in town. And the discussion descended into a recap of when the chocolate guy and the flower girl dated several decades ago and then broke up, forcing everyone to choose between chocolate and flowers for Valentine’s Day. These kinds of intrusions into your personal life simply don’t happen in the big cities, or in the transitional towns that have people moving in and moving out on a regular basis. You need a steady population base that cares about the other people in town to make this happen. In New England, you get that. On the West Coast, where people don’t have the same kind of roots, you don’t. Not to that extent.
Sigh.
And we can’t forget about the weather. There is simply nothing like New England winters. Freezing cold. Gray and dingy. And, oh, the snow. How I miss the snow. Me and Lorelai, we’re like twins. Remember the episode where the first snowflake of the season came down and she held up her face and basked in the glory of it? I so felt her love. There is nothing like that first snowflake of the season. The crisp, fresh air that seals your nostrils shut. That stillness of the air that is only present when snow is falling. It’s magic. I don’t care if you’re four or forty or eighty-seven-and-a-half. That first snow, that first flake, is magic.
And it doesn’t stop there. I completely understood Lorelai’s pain when she stepped into that icy puddle and soaked her foot. I’ve done that! It’s so awful, and miserable to be hustling into work with your foot slowly freezing off your body. And whenever someone rushes into Luke’s diner, all huddled up because it’s so cold that the sprint from the car to Luke’s front door pretty much lays them out? Love it! There’s nothing like that slam of frigid air when you step outside to wake a person up.
How fondly I recall sprinting from the restaurant to the car on a date in high school, huddled by the passenger-side door, my whole body shaking from the cold,
begging
my date to hurry and get the car open because I was
so
cold. Now
that’s
bonding. Or the time I tried to stop my Jeep on a snowy road and slid right on down the hill until I came to a gentle stop in a snowdrift? I’ve used that story tons of times to bond with other people about driving in the snow. It’s a
thing
that you get, or you don’t. Out west you can’t drive on the side of the road so your right tires compress the snow drifts. It just doesn’t work the same way out here; I just end up giving myself a flat tire from side-swiping the cement curb.
begging
my date to hurry and get the car open because I was
so
cold. Now
that’s
bonding. Or the time I tried to stop my Jeep on a snowy road and slid right on down the hill until I came to a gentle stop in a snowdrift? I’ve used that story tons of times to bond with other people about driving in the snow. It’s a
thing
that you get, or you don’t. Out west you can’t drive on the side of the road so your right tires compress the snow drifts. It just doesn’t work the same way out here; I just end up giving myself a flat tire from side-swiping the cement curb.
On the temperate West Coast, schools get canceled at the
forecast
of snow (and I’m not exaggerating). No one owns heavy parkas or mittens (unless, of course, they ski, but that’s another topic). No one even knows how to drive in the snow! Two inches of snow absolutely shuts down the city out here. Hello? Get some backbone!
forecast
of snow (and I’m not exaggerating). No one owns heavy parkas or mittens (unless, of course, they ski, but that’s another topic). No one even knows how to drive in the snow! Two inches of snow absolutely shuts down the city out here. Hello? Get some backbone!
You wouldn’t see that happen in Stars Hollow. Throw on the snow tires, whip out the ice scraper to clean off your car, and have at it. And come on, where on the West Coast would Luke be able to make Lorelai her very own skating rink in her front yard? It was so sweet of him to give her the gift of skating to help her mend her relationship with snow after the tree fell on her car, a gesture of his true love for her. Out here, what kind of weather is there to bring a man and a woman together? Forty-degree rain? Seventy-degree sunshine? What’s special about that? How does that kind of weather force a man to dig deep and face his feelings about his true love? It doesn’t. Face it, if you want romance, you need the frigid icy cold of New England to make it happen. I’ll bet the divorce rate is way lower in New England than anywhere else in the country. Misery bonds people. End of story. Well, I suppose earthquakes and volcanoes erupting would kind of rock the boat, but then you’re talking about having to extract true love from a lot of dead bodies and rubble, and quite frankly, that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Nope, give me a man who shovels out my Jeep for me and makes me a skating rink, and I’m a happy girl.
So, are you with me, or what? You’re feeling the love for New England now, aren’t you? You’re wondering what school your neighbor graduated from, you’re thinking that your daughter could use a little more appreciation for the power of prep school, you’re envying the feeling of being so cold that your brain freezes, aren’t you? And you’re looking down the street at the ordinary houses, and your heart is aching for a town with history, right? You’re even thinking the cold winters might not be so bad. See, home—the building or the place—isn’t always about perfection. Home is about the imperfections that make it unique, that are familiar and cozy, that make you reach inside yourself and find strength and warmth you didn’t know you had.
You might not be able to pack up and move to New England, but you can live vicariously by watching
Gilmore Girls
. Forget the witty dialogue. Forget the eye candy (mmm . . . Luke is sooo delicious). Forget about wanting to gag T. J. because he’s so annoying. Forget about wondering what job Kirk will have next. And definitely forget about wondering when Logan’s going to grow up and be the man Rory deserves. Don’t bother analyzing the three generations of mother /daughter relationships and figuring out how you can relate them to the women in your own life. Instead, bask in the all that is New England and feel the love.
Gilmore Girls
. Forget the witty dialogue. Forget the eye candy (mmm . . . Luke is sooo delicious). Forget about wanting to gag T. J. because he’s so annoying. Forget about wondering what job Kirk will have next. And definitely forget about wondering when Logan’s going to grow up and be the man Rory deserves. Don’t bother analyzing the three generations of mother /daughter relationships and figuring out how you can relate them to the women in your own life. Instead, bask in the all that is New England and feel the love.
Trust me. You’ll never be the same.
Award-winning author
Stephanie Rowe
writes paranormal romance for Warner Books. She also writes teen fiction for girls under the name of Stephie Davis. For more information, visit Stephanie on the Web at
www.stephanierowe
. com or
www.stephiedavis.com
.
The Best Things in Life: Food, Books, and Sex
Gregory Stevenson
Dining with the Gilmores
RORY: If the house was burning down, what would you save first, the cake or me?LORELAI: Not fair! The cake doesn’t have legs! (“Red Light on the Wedding Night,” 2-3)Somewhere in between talking and reading lies this show’s third passion: Food. Luke cooks it, Taylor sells it, Emily and Richard barter tuition to get Lorelai and Rory to come eat it with them, and everybody talks about it endlessly. In an effort to unpack the overload of groceries, Gregory Stevenson talks about what pudding, coffee, and Rice-a-Roni mean to
Gilmore Girls.
I
AM A MOST UNLIKELY FAN of
Gilmore Girls
: a thirty-something, testosterone-fueled male whose ideal recreation involves bruising football matches and obscure martial arts; a person who any day would choose a horrible Steven Seagal movie over anything starring Meryl Streep. And yet I find myself enamored of this family drama about mothers and daughters who do nothing but talk. How do I explain this?
AM A MOST UNLIKELY FAN of
Gilmore Girls
: a thirty-something, testosterone-fueled male whose ideal recreation involves bruising football matches and obscure martial arts; a person who any day would choose a horrible Steven Seagal movie over anything starring Meryl Streep. And yet I find myself enamored of this family drama about mothers and daughters who do nothing but talk. How do I explain this?
I attribute my fascination to two things: small-town community and food. I grew up in a small town, so the close-knit identity and wacky characters of the fictional Stars Hollow ring true to me. I come from a town where nearly a thousand people, including the mayor, attended the funeral of our local transvestite, who used to parade around town in sneakers, a flowery dress, and a hat made from KFC boxes. Suffice it to say that Kirk seems relatively normal to me.
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