All the cultural references in Julie Hecht's fiction

January 21, 2018 • ☕️☕️ 11 min read

This is a chronological list of cultural references that the narrator makes in Julie Hecht’s three connected works of fiction Do The Windows Open?, The Unprofessionals, and Happy Trails To You. The original reason I thought to do this is that I had enjoyed reading her work so much that I thought it might be a nice way to feel more immersed if I read, watched, listened to, or at least looked up all of the other art that she references.

My methodology got kind of a haphazard and I ended up including historical figures that I already knew about and didn’t include the names of restaurants, foods, fashion brands, types of cars, geographic locales, etc. I also decided that I wouldn’t list recurrences in the same short story or novel but I would repeat them if they appeared in two separate stories or books, though I’m not sure what good it does to include the repetitions beyond getting a sense for how frequently certain works or people appear in her writing.

I might have missed some things too. Let me know if you find something that I overlooked.

Do the windows open?

perfect vision

do the windows open?

a lovely day

that’s no fun

were the ornaments lovely?

the thrill is gone

i couldnt see a thing

the world of ideas

who knows why

The Unprofessionals

Peter Pan
Casper The Friendly Ghost
Spellbound
Patrick Buchanan
David Letterman
Pinnacle
Michio Kushi
9/11
Marilyn Monroe
It’s a Gift
Johnny Carson
Sonny Bono
Ulysses
Under Milk Wood
De Boll Weevil
Thelma Ritter
Elvis Presley
“Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Fawlty Towers
Anger Kills
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
A Mother’s Kisses by Bruce Jay Friedman
The Larry Sanders Show
Barbara Stanwick movie from the 1940’s
D.O.A
Double Indemnity
I Married A Dead Man
Christmas in Connecticut
Healing Mudras: Yoga for your hands
Beowulf
“Get off of my cloud” by the Rolling Stones
Catch-22
Keith Richards
Chubby Checker
Fabian
Earth Versus the spider-man, war of the collosul beasts (these might be fictional)
“The Bourgeois Blues”
Hollywood Crime
SCTV
Mind Over Back Pain
Casablanca
Martha Stewart
“Buñulesque”
Rear Window
The Guggenheim Museum
The Stranger
Mel Tormé
Alfred Hitchcock
Dr. Andrew Weil
Foucault
Bob Dylan
Joan Baez
Rick Moranis
Joseph Lieberman
Alfred E. Neuman
Jeff Chandler
Lyle Lovett
John Belushi
Marianne Faithful
Groucho Marx
Boys’ Life
Brigadoon
Alan Sherman’s Biography
Robert De Niro
Christiane Amanpour
Martha Stewart
Emily Dickinson
Elvis Presley
Georgia O’Keeffe
Rachel Carson
Eudora Welty
Greta Van Susteren
Salman Rushdie
No Exit (play)
Ozzie and Harriet
I love lucy
Nietzsche
Nietzche’s Last Days
The Beatles
Rubber Soul
Schopenhauer
Spinoza
Norman Vincent Peale
Freud
British Butterflies (an antique butterfly book)
Joyce Kilmer
John Candy
Heartbreak Hotel
the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
Rock Hudson
Jane Wyman
Shadow of a Doubt
It’s a Wonderful Life
Alfred Hitchcock
The Stranger
Elspeth Alley
Brian Wilson
JFK
Robert Kennedy
Rope
Letitia Baldrige’s Complete Guide to Executive Manners
Vegetarian Times
Paul Newman
Dan Akroyd
Saturday Night Live
Jeff Chandler
Edie Beale
Men Are From Mars
Marcel Proust
The Birthday Party
Buddy Holly
Roy Orbison
Ricky Nelson
John Lennon
Otis Redding
Peter Sellers
Andy Kaufman
Princess Diana
Joseph Heller
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Albert Camus
Dr. Ruth Westheimer
Sean Connery
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Robert Walser
Walter Benjamin
Macbeth
Yves Saint Laurent
Karl Lagerfield
Sonia Rykiel
Valentino
Ungaro
Versace
Paul Schaffer
Cher
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Red Shoes
Michael Powell
Keats
Wordsworth
Percy Bysshe Shelley
William Robinson
Gertrude Jekyll
Wallace Nutting
Frederick Law Olmstead
Gene Kelly
Ernest Shackleton
Blanche DuBois