Saturday, January 1, 2011

Burnt bottoms at dacha

Comrade peasant Tatiana Chaucerova 
expresses concern over dacha ruckus.

By Comrade Marienka

Home from Paris, urania celebrated Christmas with Beloved in a state of connubial bliss. Although there had been some concern beforehand that Beloved might repeat the birthday faux pas, all went smoothly.  “I tell Comrade Beloved, ‘No more fainting in house. I hit everybody over head with skillet if fainting happen,’” said Comrade housekeeper Netochka Nezvanova. Thanks to her flawless French and her former connection with Prince S. and Count B., Comrade Nezvanova was able to procure an appointment with the exclusive French couturier, Madame Urania Chanel de Newtoniere. 

“This is an unprecedented event,” announced Jarek Ňadra, urania’s personal spokesperson and sometime bra designer for the glitterati. Normally, Madame Chanel de Newtoniere does not grant appointments without three recommendations from the exclusive ranks of the rich and famous. It is quite an honor for Beloved.” Under the careful guidance of Madame Urania and Comrade Nezvanova, Beloved purchased a velvet opera coat and a pair of embroidered violet silk moiré shoes for urania, reported an anonymous seamstress who asked to remain anonymous for reasons of anonymity.

Despite the connubiality of the day, there were some faint rumblings of discord. On Christmas Eve, the Earl of Macintosh arrived unexpectedly.  Finding everyone asleep, he decided on a forced entry down the dacha chimney. “I thought they might be dead and need rescuing,” said the Earl defensively. “All I got for my concern was a burned bottom and a thwack on the head. I guess I just didn’t have the app for it.” Comrade housekeeper expressed doubt about the Earl’s story. “Dead people no need rescuing,” she said. “I know Don Juan when I see him.  This earl he Don Juan. I thwack over head with skillet.  Maybe I thwack again if he no go home.” 

The ruckus created by the Earl’s arrival had local comrade peasants diving for their bomb shelters. “It sound like how they say in United States, “Armageddon.” We not believe in Armageddon here. We believe in enlightened post-Marxist state,” said Comrade peasant Tatiana Chaucerova, wife of Mtislav Chaucerov president of the Comrade Peasant Chaucerian Society.  Comrade Chaucerova added, “The whole event was like a medieval morality play. First there came a great howling, then a mighty growling, followed by much thwacking and gruntling.”

As for urania, she understandably swooned.  Neither Beloved nor the Baron had much to say as they slept through the fracas. The Baron just twirled his mustache and muttered incomprehensibly under his breath. “Noise?” asked Beloved. “I heard a slight bump, but I thought it was probably just urania swooning again; otherwise, I slept like a log.”  Comrade Nezvanova responded tersely, “Comrade Beloved sometime he be log.  Then he need thwack and kick in bottom.  I do both maybe.”

Great Aunt Martha Mucus, who had descended on the dacha for Christmas, said dourly about urania, “That shameless little sauce-box swoons on purpose.  She’s been doing it since she was four, when she put little Carl Utterback-Mucus in a cardboard box and pushed him down a steep mountain.”

We at the Dark Tea Times confess this is the first time we have heard of the little Carl Utterback-Mucus debacle. Surely our fair urania would do nothing like that. “Of course she would. She did,” said Great Aunt Martha tartly. 

Who has been kissing under mistletoe?
By Comrade Staff Person Anon.
Illicit kisses?

On the fifth day of Christmas, rumor began hurtling recklessly round the dacha.  An anonymous member of the paparazzi snapped a photograph purportedly of urania kissing someone, who was not Santa Claus, under the mistletoe. Jarek Ňadra, urania’s personal spokesperson and sometime bra designer for the glitterati, hotly denied the rumors. “Purported’ is the key word,” he said. “The woman in the picture could be anyone.  Her face is obscured in the shadows.  This is all just so much tittle-tattle. Distressing, distasteful, and dubious.”  When confronted with the picture, urania fainted. Doctors are worried.  As for the man in question, some say he is the Earl of Macintosh.  The Earl has also hotly (a truly operative word in his case) denied the rumor.  “That couldn’t be I.  My bottom was severely injured four days ago. I still cannot sit down.  The demned doctors have said I may be sitting on a doughnut pillow for months.” Only time will tell. As for urania she wept copiously. “I don’t even own a dress like that one . . . although it is very nice.” After this brief comment, she understandably returned to her Soviet-issue fainting couch to nibble Belgian chocolates and read Somerset Maugham’s novel Cakes and Ale.


Missing pig while still unmissing
News flash . . .

An urgent letter has just arrived from the missing Comrade editor Davusha who was last seen while investigating a lead about a missing pig named Bella Ella. We have made the bold decision to print the letter in full:

Dear Comrade Editor Marienka,

I am writing to you from the Hotel Otrada in Odessa where I have been sequestered under heavy guard after being abducted from my home by two Russian thugs and a mysterious woman known only as Vixen. After being forced to drink a cup of drugged eggnog, I awoke three days later to find myself thousands of miles away in overly luxurious surroundings.

I soon learned from the two Russian bodyguards who are my keepers that I am in a suite in the Hotel Otrada, the only five-star hotel in Odessa, where Teddy and the Throes happen to be staying during their Ukrainian tour. Aunt Ida and Mrs. Whimpersnapple are here as well, having come along to chaperone the boys on the tour. Mrs. Whimpersnapple, who grew up in Odessa, is acting as an interpreter for the band.

It seems some Ukrainian oil tsar who calls himself Tamurlane is a big fan of Teddy and the Thoes’ song Cold Drizzle, which was a huge hit in the Ukraine. The band had intended to end their tour before the holidays and spend Christmas at the Mucus farm in Oklahoma. But their plans went awry. Instead the boys are being forced to do eight more performances.

According to a source I dare not name, I have been kidnapped because of my connection to the band. I have been encouraged" to write reviews of the performances for the Ukrainian newspapers praising the band and the benevolence of its new “sponsor” Tamurlane. If the band misses a performance, I am to be shot immediately and thrown into the Black Sea. “They” say we will all be free to leave Odessa after the band completes its tour with a special New Year's Eve performance at Tamurlane's palatial estate outside Odessa.

One of my guards—André, as he calls himself (who knows what his real name is)—is a charming fellow, with a penchant for great literature. He has brought me many wonderful books to read during my imprisonment here. Currently I'm reading Marlowe's Tamburlaine in honor of our host.

Only the Throes, Aunt Ida, Mrs. Whimpersnapple, André, and I know that Teddy did not accompany the Throes on their Ukrainian tour. Tamurlane's people all think that Ludovic is Teddy because he is the front man for the group. I shudder to think what will to us all if Tamurlane finds out that Teddy is still in the states.

If anything happens, I hope I can depend on André. He is risking his life to get this letter to you. I must say goodbye now before the other guard Vlad returns. He is not at all friendly, and I am certain we would all be done for if he intercepts this letter.

Comrade Editor Davushka
Hotel Otrada
Odessa
____________________



Fashions to Faint For

We are shocked—almost to the fainting point—to learn that our well-heeled society patronesses do not own opera cloaks.  To remedy this shocking lack in their wardrobes, we are now offering an exclusive selection of opera coats to faint for . . . of course.

Fashions to Faint for is open by appointment only.
Contact Madame Urania Chanel de Newtoniere.

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