Notes
[1] TOE is in fact a common abbreviation for “Theory of Everything,” at least among physicists. Where religions once provided “theories of everything,” the current scientific search for this has to do with a mathematical model that would incorporate all the fragmented theories of physics into one elegant whole. Interestingly, one of the fellows leading the charge is Garrett Lisi, a surfer Dude based in Maui who lives in his van (sometimes). When we contacted him about this he replied, “I can get you a TOE by three o’clock!” Far out. Dudeism has compeers in high places. See: http://bit.ly/10nCT.
[2] Chapter 6 in Robertson and Cooke’s The Big Lebowski: The Making of a Coen Brothers Film delves widely into this.
[3] The date on the check he’s writing as he watches George Bush initiate a war of Biblical proportions upon Iraq? September 11, 1991. Ten years to the day before the consequences of that “aggression” would be made clear. This really freaks people out. But we assure you, it’s not a prophecy. The Dude is just a man, man.
[4] The city’s name comes from “Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles” (Our Lady the Queen of the Angels)—that is, the Catholic Virgin Mary. No actual angels were ever thought to have spent any time in Los Angeles.
[5] Though the Stranger says, “I can die with a smile on my face without feelin’ like the good Lord gypped me,” he’s using a term many consider offensive, an epithet for gypsies, who were seen to be dishonest in commerce. But the Dude’s philosophy can be said to honor that of the gypsies. Parts, anyway. Is the Dude a gypsy king?
[6] Dudespaper article concerning this research: http://bit.ly/elm1sy.
[7] This is underscored at the end of the film by Walter Sobchak’s own determination that the Gulf War was “all about oil.” It is possible that this was the first commercial film to outwardly espouse this idea. Three Kings and the famous scene with Mark Wahlberg being forced to drink oil came out a year later. Perhaps that’s why Walter’s assertion is muffled by the sounds of bowling: People weren’t ready to accept this idea yet.
[8] “Wasn’t it Jack Kerouac who said, ‘If you own a rug, you own too much?’” Ed Burns, Confidence (2003).
[9] “We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892. Wilde may have introduced the term “dude” to U.S. shores. See “Dude Defined”: http://bit.ly/bJnIqe. “Googie” stars were an important part of 1950s space-age design—the era of suburban bowling alleys and lofty post-war aspirations.
[10] An eye for an eye came originally from the Babylonian (present day Iraq) “Code of Hammurabi” before it was adopted into the ancient Jewish canon. This “code” contains some of the most horrific punishments ever dreamed up by humankind. So, though “an eye for an eye” morality may still be popular, taking it in context might reveal its correlative brutality.
[11] German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche imagined the coming of a new type of man, an übermensch (overman or superman), who would free himself from the bonds of religious and cultural conditioning and truly think freely. He also addressed the idea of “eternal recurrence” in which all events will occur over and over again in our universe, the acceptance of which should inspire not horror, but a form of contentment, at least in “great” men. Though both the fascists (like the other Lebowski) and the nihilists (like Uli) championed the ideas of Nietzsche, most scholars contend that neither actually understood his ideas properly. We think Nietzsche would have been pretty impressed with the Dude, though—he is both a truly free thinker, and at the same time appears wholly content with all the events in his life, unsavory as some of them may seem to others.
[12] It is important to mention that “bum” comes from the German bummler, meaning “loafer,” and originally had nothing to do with the idea of mooching. A bum was a lazy person, but not necessarily a drain on society.
[13] “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Bible, Mark 2:27. And “The ideal is the enemy of the good.” Voltaire, “La Bégueule,” 1772.
[14] The Dude is even wearing professional tai chi shoes, not sneakers, so you know he’s really into some kind of Eastern thing.
[15] During recording, Dylan would play the song, “The Man In Me,” in a completely different tempo than originally agreed upon, which could be part of the reason the song has such an easygoing, improvised feel to it (http://bit.ly/1qQX6e).
[16] Note that while it may seem strange that the Dude’s door opens outward (and causes him grief later in the movie), outward-opening doors are actually safer because they’re harder to break down from the outside.
[17] Walter’s ex Cynthia’s dog isn’t a Pomeranian, but a Yorkshire terrier. Just as the marmot in the bathtub is a ferret, and Donny mixes up Lenin and Lennon. Also, Jeffrey Lebowski is not what you call the Dude, his Dudeness, or El Duderino. Perhaps taking potshots at postmodernist linguistic theory, The Big Lebowski is full of fluxed-up semiotics. Nearly every scene involves the inability of any of the characters to communicate properly.
[18] Though close-cropped comedian Dom Irrera plays Tony, the role was originally meant to go to an actor “about the same age, from whose livery cap a ponytail emerges,” according to the Coens’ published version of the screenplay. This suggests a closer cultural and sartorial compeer of the Dude. But then, it wasn’t necessary. The Dude relates to everybody.
[19] The Dude’s jelly sandals were Jeff Bridges’ own. He also wore them in White Squall in 1996. Similarly, the Japanese baseball shirt was also his own. He wore that as well in The Fisher King (1991). The Dude obliges!
[20] Germans and other continental Europeans don’t generally play cricket. But the cricket bat clearly suggests a foreign and unwelcome version of the all-American baseball bat depicted on the Dude’s shirt in an earlier scene, though held, oddly, by a Japanese baseball player. The whole notion of American national identity is hilariously mangled in The Big Lebowski, suggesting a sort of loss of the clear parameters of an earlier era.
[21] The Stranger pronounces the word “bar,” but he is saying “bear” in an antiquated rustic American dialect. Though there is some disagreement about this among Lebowski fans, the theme song from the 1960s Daniel Boone TV series proves that “bar” was an acceptable pronunciation of “bear.” See: http://bit.ly/dYnizn.
[22] Douglas Adams’ character Dirk Gently was born with the name Svlad Cjelli. It seems that Eastern Europeans have cornered the market when it comes to wacky and philosophical detective work. They also don’t like to use their given names.
[23] Of course, it’s not just the Dude who repeats lines from other characters. In The Big Lebowski universe, certain phrases and words like “Chinaman,” “abide,” “parlance of our times,” “where’s the money, Lebowski?” “this aggression will not stand,” “no funny stuff,” “your answer for everything,” “nothing is fucked,” “have it your way, Dude,” and more float around and inhabit characters’ brains like spirits. Each time a line is repeated from another context it helps to illuminate just how much we are products of our culture, rather than the other way around. Nevertheless, the Dude seems to navigate this stream of weird clichés with more finesse than the others, employing them gingerly and at arm’s length.
[24] Though the Dude dates his check September 11, 1991, Bush delivered his “aggression will not stand” speech in the summer of 1990. Either the Dude has postdated his check by a year or so, or in addition to not knowing if it’s a weekday, he also doesn’t know what year it is. And that’s cool. That’s cool.
[25] In the second dream sequence, the bowling shoe cabinet that reaches up to the sky and up to the moon behind Saddam Hussein is a clear reference to the myth of the Babylonian ziggurats, which progress-obsessed men built in order to produce a “stairway to heaven.” As a result of which, God got angry and made it impossible for man to communicate and get along by creating “the language problem.” Do you see what happens, Domini?
[26] “The darkness drops again but now I know/That twenty centuries of stony sleep/Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,/And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
[27] Does it reveal anything when we find out that Donny is Greek (his last name is Karabatsos)? One wonders—in a film where “Jesus” is a vicious and deranged pedophile, might it not mean something that a character who represents the highest peak of ancient civilization is presented as a feeble dimwit? Well dude, we just don’t know.
[28] It is also one of the oldest, if not the oldest, commonly played sport in the world. 5,000 years of Dudeyful tradition.
[29] Today, “abide” is a word most commonly used by Christians to describe their loyalty to Jesus Christ. The Dude even adopts a shlumpy Christ-like stance with beers in hand as he says his signature line. While technically it’s just an echo of the other Lebowski’s statement that “I will not abide another toe,” it’s also got some of that olde-tyme religious flavor to it. Just like that good sarsaparilla.
[30] In the Buddhist sense of the word. Though almost everyone has “strings” (responsibilities to family, friends, jobs, etc.) Buddhism says we shouldn’t be “attached” to the outcomes or expectations of those relationships.
The truth of reality, is that you are a simple emanation of your core. Your core is the pure energy within. Within, your true self is a singularity of your own consciousness.
Shut The Fuck Up Donnie. Let us all kill the little man inside us questioning all of our great leaps towards happiness