BLANK UP

Intermission.

Michelle: "Huh."
Fanny: "Hmm. I'm confused."
Michelle: "Is this like, supposed to be real life? None of the people acted like people..."
Fanny: "And what the fuck was with that random dance number? Just filling up time?"
Michelle: "Maybe this is somebody's therapy?"
Fanny: "It seems... angry. At the idea of being a play."
Michelle: "It's like it wants us to agree that it's an improvement on theatre..."
Fanny: "-- Yes, like an HBO thing..."
Michelle: "But then you're like, I wasn't trying to clip your wings, I just wanted a compelling reason to be here today."

My friend Sarah -- a Gilmore diehard just like yours truly -- said, a couple weeks back after the Istanbul Situation: "This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen on TV. Including Tyra Banks's talk show."

Michelle: "I'm going to the bathroom. But I'm going to use a thing called the Ortega Maneuver. [Forever and ever, but basically, you don't get up when everybody else does, and that way the line is shorter.]"
Fanny: "That is such a simple plan!"
Michelle: "I know, right?"
Fanny: "No, I mean like, why would you actually have to think that up or call it a plan or give it a special name?"
Michelle: "Anyway. I'm going to be a bitch to that lady some mo..."
Woman: "Oh, excuse me! I'm actually getting up too."

Michelle sees this as a personal victory, rather than one of the human spirit. It's almost like that entire set piece with this lady was pointless all along.

GARDEN OF ALLAH* THEATRE

Ooh, I know this one! It was originally built by this wild lesbian actress in 1919 named Alla Nazimova, she would throw parties there. It's where Joni Mitchell was talking about with the "paved paradise and put up a parking lot," because of how she lived in Laurel Canyon close by, long after the paving had already gone down and they'd moved the whole business to where Fanny and Michelle are now. But my favorite thing I didn't have to look up on Wikipedia -- which I just double-checked and there's not much else about it that would hold my interest -- is the weird drunk F. Scott Fitzgerald postcard: