Origins of Suri

Tom Cruise has a new baby with Katie Holmes tonight. Lots of people are pretending to doubt his paternity or her pregnancy, but we’ve had a couple of contacts with Cruise dating back to the Mimi Rogers years, and a few with fellow Scientologists like John Travolta, and they’ve been all right and downright good folks with us.

And ten years on, we’re still amazed by this whole process of bringing a new one on board this battleship Earth, so congratulations, Tom and Katie-- and what’s up with the weird celebrity name?

Suri? The official word is that the Roman Catholic unwed mother and former potential Roman Catholic priest (imagine those lawsuits) and high-level Scientologist Tom gave the kid a Hebrew-derived name.

We looked it up and all we could find were alpacas and Indians.

According to Surinetwork.org, “Suri alpacas are distinguished in the camelid family by their unique fiber characteristics. The fiber grows parallel to the body while hanging in long, separate, distinctive locks. Its artistic style enhances the graceful appearance of the animal compared to the soft, wooly look of huacaya alpacas.

“Suri fiber locks, made up of high-luster fibers, drape down the sides of the body in a twisted or flat form of various size. Suri fiber has a slick hand and softness with an exquisite luster. Suri fiber is in demand and consistently brings a premium price in the fiber market. Suri alpacas emanate extraordinary vigor, intelligence, ease of breeding, and adaptability to hot and cold climates. These attributes rank high on the list of many reasons for treasuring Suri alpacas.

"Suri Fiber is used for ...
• High fashion fabric for men's and women's designer clothing
• Luxury apparel, coats, sweaters, and unique decorator items
• Specialty interior fabrics and textiles."

Then we found a guy named Suri who has a homepage:

“I am Surendra a.k.a Suri... born on the 4th of March, 1976. Well... that makes me a Piscean. Although I am not that big a follower of Linda Goodman to tell you whether I fit into the same sect of Einsteins, the dream and the effort still is on!”

He made his way from Banglore, India to Texas Instruments.

And Siddharth “Sid” Suri, a PhD student who offers Faulknerian wisdom like “"There is no such thing as bad scotch. Some scotch is just better than others," and coincidentally has an adviser named Michael Kearns, who’s no relation to us, as far as we know, and no relation to Michael Kearns (left), the gay performer, who’s also no relation to us, but which brings us back to Tom Cruise, we guess.


(And forget about Brooke Shields coincidences or Katie-prisoner conjecture. Howzabout Tom’s ex and chief rumour-starter Mimi, forced by Fox to sit front and center in the American Idol audience tonight to promote her new show--co-starring Tom’s Magnolia costar Philip Baker Hall...)