One of my favorite works of Irish literature is The Weaver’s Grave, a short story by Seumas O’Kelly, published in 1919. The weaver of the title is dead and in need of burial, but in this poor and stony part of Ireland, graves for one family are often stacked one on top of another, and the passage of the years and wearing down of the gravestones mean that elders from the locality must guide the gravediggers and mourners to the correct spot. Despite the premise and setting, the story is often very funny, encompassing one argument after another between two old men who are tasked with finding the weaver’s final resting place. The search soon gives way to a fiery row about whether a certain spot holds the weaver’s family, or is in fact the grave of the Raffertys, the last Rafferty buried there having been Julia, the local midwife. It is decided to dig, and when they almost immediately strike a coffin, it’s obvious this is indeed the wrong grave.
The old man who had sworn they were digging up the Rafferty site is both triumphant and reproachful: “It’s Julia Rafferty you struck. She helped many a one into the world in her day, and it’s poor recompense to her to say she can’t be at rest when she left it… And I’m hoping Julia will forgive you this day’s ugly work.”
Which brings me—don’t worry, I’ll show you how—to Kim Kardashian and the Ripley’s Believe It or Not “Museum” in Orlando, Florida, and how shared tastelessness brought both business entities together to have Kardashian wear, for a matter of minutes at the Met Gala, the Bob Mackie–sketched, Jean-Louis–executed dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to sing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in 1962.
I’m not going to discuss the horrorstruck reaction of the fashion-history and curatorial community, as that is very well covered here and here. I don’t plan to go on about Kim’s having ties stitched onto the dress’s zipper and visibly stomping her clear-plastic heels all over the hem. I won’t even give you my easy-to-guess opinion of Heritage Auctions permitting Kardashian to flounce around her hotel room in another dress designed for Monroe, the green sequined Norman Norell that Marilyn wore to the Golden Globes in 1962.
No, what has caused me to take to