Gilmore Girls Fall: Sweating in Burbank Near Warner Bros. Studios
"Foliage a Deux"
I am not a summer girl and never have been. Spring is fine, but I have seasonal allergies so actually, it’s not fine at all. Winter is good when mild and pretty, but I’ve been (wind) burned by too many intense Midwest winters to really look forward to it. I am a Fall Girl ‘til the end, but it’s an elusive identity that I have been nebulously chasing my whole life.
I have never lived on the East Coast or in the Pacific Northwest. In Chicago (where I’ve spent most of my life), fall lasts about two weeks before The Revenant-style winter kicks in and it usually rains too much1. Somehow, I have never visited New York in the fall. I went to Maine once, a state whose autumnal season I’m sure to enjoy, but I went during the middle of summer. And now, I live in Burbank, Los Angeles, where the current “real feel” is 94 degrees on October 5th.
I drive past Warner Bros. Studios almost every day – sometimes twice – and around this time of year, I often think about the Gilmore Girls. For those who aren’t familiar (all of the men reading), the Gilmore Girls are sort of like the NASDAQ of fall. How? Not sure. I know nothing about the stock market, other than the fact that I have invested $200 into something called an “index fund” and have still not yet grasped what an “index” or a “fund” is. But if you are a man who has never heard of Gilmore Girls, did the term NASDAQ keep you engaged2? Let me know in the comments. Anyways. The point is: Gilmore Girls are fall and fall is Gilmore Girls. The two are interchangeable and they inform one another.
Ironically, Gilmore Girls was shot almost entirely at Warner Bros. Studios right here in Burbank, a quick 10-minute drive from my apartment. On foot, it would somehow become a days-long Forrest Gump style cross-country jog3, like many trips in LA. On the show, it feels like it’s either fall or Christmas eighty percent of the time in their fictional New England town of Stars Hollow. During the autumn episodes, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore are constantly walking to and from fall festivals, corn mazes and Halloween parties. Along with all GG fans, I romanticize these cozy, seasonal moments while binge-watching underneath a blanket chowing down on popcorn4. And then, at some point, I remember that the famous Stars Hollow gazebo covered in orange and red leaves actually lives on a studio lot in The Valley, and suddenly I feel very rational in my lifelong self-deception about autumn.
Fall for me is a feeling and a vibe, curated almost entirely out of thin air using media, home decor and memories of brief fall glimpses from Chicago.
Below is a highlights list of autumnal necessities that fool me into thinking fall is real:
My fall Spotify playlist (who’s gonna hype me up better than me?) that I blast in my car while driving past palm trees and dirt-covered mountains
Trader Joe’s or Bath & Body Works fall-scented candles (I can’t do the leaves and trees ones, because of aforementioned seasonal allergies, but there’s plenty of scents to choose from)
Garlands of fake autumnal leaves for your home from Homegoods or Michael’s
You’ve Got Mail for peak Meg Ryan Girl Fall and autumnal NYC (yes, I am aware that When Harry Met Sally is the better “fall foliage” movie, but Sleepless in Seattle is one of my favorite movies of all time, so YGM is the choice for me, respectfully)
Spooky movies like The Village, Signs… Or The Village. Or Signs (M. Night ‘til I die)
The Kardashian fall festival that happens every October in LA (okay, this is just a fall walk/lights display in Calabasas, but you get why the nickname)
…and finally:
Drinking hot coffee on a hot day because you feel like being cozy but you’re also sweating and it’s 90+ degrees but it’s fine because it’s worth it for *~The Vibes*~
Fall might be a little more like a Santa Claus I choose to believe in as an adult at this point. By choosing to remain in Los Angeles, where autumn does not exist and fall season is actually more like fire season (“Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse,” as Joan Didion once said5), I only have myself to blame. But at the end of the day – I, too, am sweating in Burbank surrounded by fake orange leaves in my apartment pretending it’s fall… and if that’s not the raw, quintessential essence of Gilmore Girls, then I don’t know what is.
I already know my Chicago people are going to come for me and say, “it’s actually been a really nice fall the last few years” and to that, I say: I see you and I hear you.
Problematic gender assumptions on full display here
This is a gross exaggeration, of course. (But the walk would be 1.5 hours…)
Real life evidence of this blog’s title
“Los Angeles Notebook” from Slouching Towards Bethlehem