[Editor's Note: As I may have mentioned, Skip and I had a road-trip game we played, a cross between the classic structure of a "Dialogue of the Dead" and the popular "We Were There..." book series, as in We Were There at the Battle of Britain, We Were There at the Alamo, etc. 

Skip would play Lytton Strachey's blue-stocking sister Pippa, but with a touch of Alice James, Rose Williams, and other famous sisters thrown in, as the occasion demanded.  I was the composite character of Nelly Panderings, which was originally the name we'd given to Peter Frampton as a cursory reading of his lyrics will make clear, but as a personality Nelly came to incorporate the traits of many other people we knew or had read about.  If Denham Fouts for instance had had a sister, it would be Nelly.  If Stephen Tennant or Ronald Firbank were to overhear one of our conversations, they would recognize themselves in Nelly.  You get the point.  Or not.  It doesn't matter.

One of our finest works, composed while extremely high and driving blind in a snowstorm on Pennsylvania's Route 80 somewhere between Pittsburgh and New York -- the famous "We Were There: Nelly and Pippa at the Apocalypse" -- is regrettably lost, as is "Nelly and Pippa at Hiroshima," and "Nelly and Pippa in Paris for the Terror." 

Fortunately, however, my clairvoyant skills have emerged relatively unimpaired even after years of alcohol and drug abuse and a recent detox off Aspartame, and so I am able to channel past and future Dialogues of the Dead (DOD's) and thus provide the odd diversion from our usual analysis of people and places having strictly to do with 1904. 

Please be aware that although no book deal is yet in place for the complete Nelly and Pippa series, if you have an interest I encourage you to act fast!  Serious offers only will be considered; include your contact information in the comment field.]

Scene: The Elysian Fields, a smart cocktail party in progress.  Scantily clad angels, Abercrombie and Fitch models in their mortal lives, serve ambrosia, nectar.

PIPPA:  Don't  be obvious, Nelly, but I have the oddest feeling that's Stalin at your 2 o'clock -- no no no for heaven's sake don't turn round now he'll see you looking.  You know how you stare.

NELLY:  It's funny but I felt an icy draft just now, actually.  Like the time Andrew Crispo was behind me at that Sotheby's reception, do you remember?  You were with Claus von Bulow and I kept mistaking him for Klaus Barbie and then Baron Thyssen came in and I thought he was Satan.

PIPPA: Like the time you thought Son of Sam Berkowitz was on the F Train with us.

NELLY: Well you know, don't you, that he was adopted.  When that came out in the Post you can imagine, Jews everywhere breathed a sigh of relief.  Everyone knows you can't be a serial killer if you're Jewish.  They obviously got a goyische --

STALIN: (thick Russian accent, interrupting) As blind man say to fishmarket, Good Morning Ladies.

PIPPA: (coldly) Hellohowareyou.

NELLY: Oh Mr. Stalin, we were just talking about you.

PIPPA: (aside) We were doing no such thing.

NELLY: Well, we were talking about how the Jews had to escape Russia and then your Russian Mafia followed and now they all live in West Hollywood.

PIPPA: We weren't actually saying anything of the sort.

NELLY: Oh come now, serial killers, Mafia, what's the difference?  You know, don't you, there are elections in your country tomorrow, Mr. Stalin.  "Managed Democracy" they're calling it. 

STALIN: Putin step down.

PIPPA: Well, not exactly, Comrade.  Dmitry Medvedev is hardly a change of pace.  He's even had voice coaching lessons to sound more like Putin.

NELLY: Isn't he a character in a Chekhov play?  We should ask.  I think I saw Anton playing croquet with the Princesse de Lamballe, poor thing.  You know don't you when they paraded her head on a pike past the poor dear Queen's window when they were imprisoned...

PIPPA: (ignoring Nelly) You might be interested to learn, Comrade Stalin, that penal conditions in modern Russia are growing more brutal, reminding people of your wicked ways.  There is video footage on the internet of prisoners being beaten at a prison near Yekaterinburg. 

STALIN:  Putin must keep up with neighbor, as American say.  Bush have Gitmo, Abu Graib, all fun and games. 

NELLY: Not to change the subject but what I would love is one of those adorable Russian doll sets, with the little doll inside the little doll inside the little doll -- what?  They made a set with Putin inside Medvedev and who knows who else is inside?  Perhaps, Mr. Stalin, you're the itsy bitsy little tiny one in the center of it all, would you like that?

STALIN: What I like is Russian woman be more like West Hollywood gay boy.  Why not, I say to Russian woman?  Why not you shave legs and mustache and be smooth like gay boy?  No beard, no hair on ass.  Like baby. 

PIPPA: You are a disgusting monster, Stalin.  I just hope you're happy you've consigned your nation to follow your sad example, once again oppressing the people under an authoritarian regime, stripped of any shred of freedom of expression or concepts of transparency and accountability, your Parliament incapable of independent action, your media in the control of the State -

STALIN: Like American model.  That is example Putin follow.  How you say?  No beat them, join them.  What?  Is true.  Come.  I teach you.  We go find Comrade Reagan.  We are big friends now, me and Ronnie. 

NELLY: (to Pippa, anxiously) Oh, do you think we could?  I know it's awful, but Maime says Nancy is due to show up any day now, and what if she did while we were there, to greet her?  You know how disoriented she'lll be, and really it would be divine -- but ohmygod quick!  Your twelve-o'clock.  Is that William F. Buckley or The Devil's Spawn, I can never tell them apart.  Right over there, the one talking to Caligula.