Brighton — Keep an eye on the Brighton city council minutes. It might not be long before they consider renaming the town Stars Hollow.
Following the success of last fall’s Destination Stars Hollow event, in which 40,000 fans of the show “Gilmore Girls” descended upon the small town, quintupling its population for a day, the event organizers have announced that the event will expand to a whole weekend this year in mid-September.
During the one-day event, Lynn’s on First became Luke’s Diner for the day, Brighton Coffeehouse became the Black & White & Read Bookstore. Visitors could shop at a pretend version of Kim’s Antiques or Taylor’s Olde Fashioned Soda Shoppe.
Why the zeal for a show whose last episode aired nearly 20 years ago?
The show centers on a mother and daughter living in an idyllic small town in Connecticut. It’s the sort of place where a tight-knit group of locals say hello to one another every morning and get up to antics that involve the whole town. They gossip constantly but always show up for one another. Their parents and grandparents knew each other, and everyone is more than willing to retell the old yarns.
Stars Hollow keeps up old traditions, including an Easter Egg Hunt on the village green, the Festival of Living Art, a Knitathon, and a 24-hour dance marathon—rights of passage every child looks forward to being a part of.
The coffee is always freshly brewed, the crisp chill of fall is almost always in the air, and there are no iPhones in sight.
In short, the show depicts life in miniature. A small-town vibe. Life at an understandable scale.
It’s not surprising that 40,000 people wanted a taste of Stars Hollow. More than 80% of Michiganders live in sprawling metro areas that are simply too big to keep a handle on. The possibilities seem endless where so many people live. There is always a restaurant you haven’t tried, streets you haven’t driven down, and locals you’ve never seen before.
The good news? Many small Michigan towns look a lot like Stars Hollow. Real places, not a Hollywood set. Take Dundee, for example. This village of 5,000 in Southeast Michigan on the banks of the River Raisin has a village green with a picturesque gazebo. It has a diner, a 9-hole golf course, a great pizza shop, and even a cafe that can pull espresso reliably.
The Old Mill Museum is a county landmark, and the town puts on the Mayfly Music Festival every summer. The high school wrestling team is a state powerhouse, with seven straight state championships, and a major source of pride.
There are many small places like this in Michigan, and, given the number of people dying for a taste of Stars Hollow, it seems there are many people who want village life. They’d love to walk down the street for a meal and stumble upon a friend. They’d prefer not to find a handyman or a piano teacher on Yelp.
It’s an irony: Young people who leave the one-stoplight towns they grew up in spend their evenings in urban apartments bingeing “Gilmore Girls” on Netflix as a salve against their too-complex world.
Maybe Brighton can become a new landing place for people trying to recapture the small-town vibe. But more realistically, it might just be a stage where we play-act how life was before the cities won out.
Mark Naida is managing editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
