The Taco Cat – Kept Knowledge

Title: “The Gorky Incident Revisited: Twain, Tradition, and the Naked Truth”

By Emily Ridyard (ft. Twain’s Ghost and a Fig Leaf)

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I opened a book today. Not just any book, mind you—Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth. A battered copy I’ve owned for years, like a relic from a different version of myself. The page it fell open to? The Gorky Incident (1906). And let me tell you, if ever the universe had a sense of timing and sarcasm, it was this moment.

Mark Twain tells the story of a likable lad from Tierra del Fuego, a man referred to as “York Minster”—because, why not name a half-naked tribal guest after a grand English cathedral?

York is invited to a swanky ball at St. James’s Palace, and in full innocence and confidence, he shows up in his homeland’s ceremonial garb: a single strip of untanned skin tossed over his shoulders.

That’s it. That’s the outfit.

(Imagine the Queen’s face.)

Naturally, the guards scurried him into the street like a confused streaker at Ascots. Hotels refused him. Papers mocked him. And eventually, friends had to defend him with reason, custom, and cold facts. But Twain—sharp as ever—says custom doesn’t give a damn about facts. It’s not brass or steel. It’s granite. It doesn’t bend. It doesn’t care that you meant well. If you show up half-nude to a Victorian gala, you will be treated accordingly—no matter how pure your intent.

The moral? “Certainly, then, there can be but one wise thing for a visiting stranger to do—find out what the country’s customs are, and refrain from offending against them.”

And yet, in 2025, everyone’s York Minster.

We show up to parties—digital or otherwise—wearing the customs of our own worlds, and are stunned when we’re tossed out of the algorithm, the room, the culture, the comment section.

We defend ourselves with logic, with history, with sincerity.

But the granite doesn’t budge. Not for your truth. Not for mine.

Twain called it over a century ago:

The penalty may be unkind, illogical, cruel, but it will be inflicted just the same.

So here’s the twist:

Twain’s ghost has a message for the modern age:

“Customs are not rational. They are what remain when reason has left the room and shame has tied its shoes.”

And me?

I laughed.

I closed the book.

And like York Minster,

I put my clothes on again.

Because just across the street. I.C.E vehicles are lining the streets. Coming to take “undocumented” foreigners back to wherever.

History is doomed to repeat itself