Unsolicited Catty Remarks for US Weekly's "Fashion Police"

Looks like Jessica's taking fashion tips from her man Tony Romo!


Ri Ri needs to learn that there's a fine line between hippie chic and hippie FREAK!


Sorry Lady Dada, Slipknot auditions were last week!


Belly button rings are SO over!


She went for Betty Boop, but ended up making Harvey Keitel turn to drink in "Bad Lieutenant"!


Johnny Depp is a true fashion original and can do no wrong in our eyes.

Kate Hudson Has One More Oscar On Her Shelf Than You Losers

If you're ever at a loss as to what to make the premise of your latest rom com, just remember you always have "assuming custody of your dead friend/sibling's child" to go to in a pinch.

Unsolicited Pieces for Pitchfork's "Top 200 Tracks of the 1990's"

94. Puff Daddy - Come With Me
What does it mean when such bold, genre-defying music is used to accompany such unadulterated schlock entertainment? Can we shake the fetid memory of the 247th godawful CGI retread stomping the shit out of NYC and focus solely on Puff's unfuckwithable flow, reminding ourselves that the phrase "from and inspired by" is merely a sly marketing ploy? Or do we just accept that it is impossible to remove the presence of Godzilla from what is otherwise one of the freshest hip-hop tracks of the last 20 years, and appreciate the dichotomy contained therein? All I know is that when the "BMM-KCH-BAH" beat kicks in on top of that HUGE violin riff, all considerations of pop vs. art, real vs. fake, whether or not that really is Puff in that Fine Young Cannibals video, go out the window like yesterday's molted lizard skin. In the words of Matthew Broderick, "Holy shit!"

176. Seven Mary Three - Cumbersome
Seven Mary Three are often dismissed as being merely Puddle of Mudd in chrysalis, but listen again to that chorus: "I have become cumbersome/To my girl". What always set frontman Jason Ross apart from the rest of his post-grunge peers was his sometimes shocking vulnerability, and it's never more apparent than in this track. The really incredible part, though, is that he has a crack band willing to follow him into the abyss. As the chugging guitar of the verse snags and hangs over the lyrics like an unanswered question and Ross lays bare his (really, all of our) emotional trials and tribs, you can feel it: something's about to drop.

26. Everclear - Heroin Girl
Props if you can make it through this one: picking up where Lou and Neil left off, Everclear mastermind Art Alexakis crafts one of the most harrowing drug yarns in recent memory. Even if you're not chasing the dragon (I've never sampled the stuff myself), you'll still feel drowsy and incoherent when the Black Flag-caliber punk evisceration has whirled you through every minute, wrenching detail of the lives a long-gone chick and a guy who didn't see the future coming. Everclear: pure, undiluted, straight to the gut.

2. Marcy Playground - Sex And Candy

Kurt Cobain. Mulder. Beck. Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction." Stephen Malkmus. Not even one of those icons (or, shit, all of them combined) could step to the nonchalant shrug that this song dropped on our collective consciousness circa '98. MP's John Wozniak (this is before his solo outing as 5pyramidz, remember, he was still John Wozniak back then people) couldn't even be bothered to SING the damn thing. It's a testament to the ethos of a decade now long past that people would positively CRANK this shit like it was Daddy Yankee.

It does make some weird sort of sense: everyone knows the '90s were the most chilled out decade ever. We had a pothead for a president, Nintendo 64 had just come out, 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were just a twinkle in Dick Cheney's penile implant. A lot of people wouldn't rank this song as high as it is on our list (hell, "Save Tonight" only clocked in at number 41), but it can't be denied that in some way, at a remote but cherished time in our lives, this track spoke for a part of all of us. All together now: "Hangin' round/Downtown by myself/And I've had too much caffeine/And I've been thinkin' bout myself." Mama this surely is a dream, indeed.

Predictions for the Series Finale of "Mad Men"

Following the dissolution of his third marriage to reality TV starlet Kim "$o Hood" Schleidenbach, Don retreats to Bobby(now Robert Francis)'s McMansion in the Atlanta suburbs. Desolate and beyond redemption, he pilots his son's Lincoln Navigator into a river and drowns laughing after seeing this commercial in hi-def:

Souleyman in the Citay

When Omar Souleyman strode onstage at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on a crushingly hot June 27, he was flanked by at least two official videographers, along with a hype man who hovered about the stage continually snapping photos with an iPhone, often directly over Souleyman's shoulder. The internationally celebrated purveyor of hyperspeed Dabke seemed utterly unfazed by the bordering-on-overbearing presence of these documentarians; in fact, the impression conveyed by this performance was that Omar Souleyman was, is, and shall remain utterly unfazed by anything at all.

Coolly, purposefully prowling the stage, Souleyman wasted no time with superfluous gestures, pausing only to make measured exhorting signals to the gesticulators below, or to receive lyrical coaching from his onstage adviser (the guy with the iPhone). Decked out as he was in full-body thawb and keffiyeh in the oppressive heat, not one bead of sweat manifested itself anywhere on Souleyman's visage for the entire performance.

Souleyman is a consummate entertainer, and every aspect of the show from the circling cameras to the cool-customer nonchalance was carefully calibrated to project the idea of capital O capital S Omar Souleyman; the unflappable, deeply intense figure hailing from a place utterly remote to most Westerners, a man who clearly lives to engage and entertain but who remains to a large extent mysterious and unknowable.

This is not to imply a cynically calculated approach on the part of Souleyman or his musicians and handlers. Of course, one must be familiar with Souleyman's music to really get the full complexity and character of this concert. For the unschooled: it basically sounds like Excepter at triple speed played on pitch-shifting keyboards while Souleyman intones Syrian poetry and candy coated digitized Oud flies in from the top of the Burj Khalifa here just watch this and this. Basically, it's really intense and out-there. Souleyman's impenetrable attitude onstage actually served to heighten the intensity; since he stayed so reserved for the lion's share of the show, the moments in which he really threw himself into a phrase or lyric (especially when he was met by an immense shifting wall of psych Korg)were genuinely transporting.

But that's all just so much talk. I guess that what I'm ultimately trying to express is that of the two concerts this past weekend at which an iPhone played a crucial role, I think I chose the right one to attend.

Unsolicited Suggestions for Nicholas Sparks

Missed Connection: A recent divorcee strikes up a steamy romance with a human rights lawyer turned Zen Buddhist practitioner when he sells his grandfather’s mahogany armoire over Craigslist in an attempt to rid himself of earthly constraints. They must struggle to balance their love against the demands of her newly-opened bakery and his duties running a Northern California Zen monastery. Soul-searching trips to wine country abound until he is killed in a helicopter accident.

Mystery Fax: A harried travel agent and single mother starts receiving strange faxes at her Cape Cod office. At first she believes they are solicitations or a wrong number, but then discovers they are desperate dispatches from a brave handsome journalist held captive by FARC guerillas in Colombia. They continue to exchange messages through this rapidly-disappearing form of communication; non-platonic feelings erupt. Finally, with the help of her ex-husband David Morse, she goes to South America to attempt to rescue him. He is tragically killed after eating a poisonous jungle plant but not before giving our heroine the courage she needs to open the tearoom of which she had always dreamed.

Texts from Ocracoke: A 40-something CPA and recent divorcee is taking some time to herself on the Outer Banks when she meets and falls in love with a ruggedly handsome pediatrician who had his larynx torn out by a leopard while working in Namibia for Doctors Without Borders. Since he has lost the ability to speak, they communicate with each other largely through text messages. She must overcome her long-standing technophobia (“I never use anything fancier than an adding machine,” she admits at one point) so that love can blossom in this coastal paradise, and so they can open a rare book shop together, thus fulfilling her lifelong dream. Tragically, though, he is killed when a really heavy book falls on him.

Coo-Coo for You: A young American doughboy fighting in World War I meets a beautiful French village girl while AWOL from this horrible, pointless fighting that is tearing this world apart. He is eventually found and brought back to the line, but continues to send poetry and communiqués to her via passenger pigeon. Cruel fate conspires to make it impossible for them to reunite after the war, but they meet again in Paris when they are both 120 years old and he happens to walk into her granddaughter’s créperie. They live happily ever after but passenger pigeons go extinct because of their overuse in wars.

Happy Birthday: Das Vidanya

Das Vidanya marked its one-year anniversary a few days ago. What has changed since April 3, 2009? Let's run this down in bullet form, but with dashes:

-Posts are generally shorter: It's hard for me to believe that I was able to write posts longer than four paragraphs towards the beginning of this blog's history. These days, Das Vidanya topics rarely gestate in my mind long enough to be crafted into posts, and those that do are ineffable and fleeting at best. Erring towards short and sweet has kind of become a thing with Das Vidanya.

-More erratic posting: Boy, I sure was a Talkative Terrence last spring, eh? Yeah, not no more. I'll refer you to the explanation above: Topics - ineffable! fleeting!

-More embedded videos: Everyone knows that it is important to utilize visual aids when dissecting important topics e.g. L'il Wayne. More videos! Plus you can call your friends around to watch them and when they ask "Dude what the hell blog is this" you can say "I dunno". Increased video embeds should in no way lead you to infer laziness on my part.

-I moved back to Northern Virginia: I don't want to talk about it.

Thanks again for your loyal readership and let's make this next year the specialest one of all!