What's THIS For...?!http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/Fall-of-Because/blog/default.htmen-USCopyright © 2009 DominikThu, 08 Jan 2009 21:28:04 GMTThu, 08 Jan 2009 21:28:04 GMTSampa v.1.0 (www.sampa.com)http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss120Death by 1,000 ContainersI am in The (dreaded) Container Store, who sends me mass mailing after mailing encouraging me to spend a grocery bill on a new closet shelf, and the DJ is killing me.

It is not by choice but by last resort that we've come here. An old house, built for Depression-Era needs, does not have the closet nor kitchen storage space for modern-age wardrobes and gluttony. You have to invent new places to put "stuff," when that stuff ("needed" or not) gets in the way when not in use.

Everything here is expensive. Everything here seems like a quick, almost intuitive way to simply solve a storage problem -- yet with a giant, "where else you gonna find it?" premium slapped on top of what a reasonable person might pay to solve a little clutter.

As I said, we've come here as last resort: Because Big Box hardware's many standard-issue items are made for the giant spaces of new suburban homes and usually don't fit our old house. We've come here only now, because neither of us ever wants to go to The (dreaded) Container Store, but neither of us trusts the other's convenience/aesthetic/utilitarian taste to make the right choice, on his/her own, from among limited options.

This much-delayed trip is about three years in the making.

large_rick-astleyAnd while we're already having this otherworldly, elaborate conversation in the store aisle about our kitchen routines and what's easy to dust and what would look sort-of-tolerable-okay in our mismatched ancient kitchen -- and I'm all too acutely aware of how silly and suburban we sound and how T(d)CS staff must hear these same mundane conversations 100 times a day -- it is made much, much worse for me by a selection of Ace of Base, REO Speedwagon and Rick Astley on the in-house stereo.

It's already annoyingly silly yet necessary conversation in an annoying setting. But it's made more annoying by the realization that The (dreaded) Container Store -- which has thought so carefully about it's customer impression that even its bathrooms are filled with lots of "ooh, look what they thought of!" Container Store touches -- has decided that people who want to passively hear this music are its customer base.

As a kid and teenager, I had to hear my share of REO, Astley and Ace of Base-like nonsense thanks to the tyranny of Top 40 and the poor guidance of the girls I chased. [Now, they even resurrected Astley and his white-guy dance for this year's [corporate] holiday parade in New York (Why, God, why?!?).]

The beauty of adulthood and independence, I always thought, was finally getting away from these people. And here The (dreaded) Container Store is telling me that you can't get away from these people, they're all around you, and I'm one of them.

]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Death-by-1-000-Containers.htmDominikhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Death-by-1-000-Containers.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Death-by-1-000-Containers.htmSun, 04 Jan 2009 18:38:00 GMT2009-01-04T18:53:04Feels like I should be drinking cognacThis is the first year where the inclination to call my father at the stroke of midnight -- whether Czech time or my time -- has no physical human recipient. (Surely I've written about this tradition before, haven't I?...Ah yes, there it is. I knew there was a reason I kept this freaking journal/blog thing.)

I could consider it poignant that what I wrote a year ago no, it was TWO years ago(!) both commemorated this tradition and foreshadowed his death within a TWO year's time -- but in truth, he'd been foreshadowing his own death for the past decade. No Nostradamus points there. Seems that's how people by-and-large die once they reach a certain age and survive a certain number of medical setbacks.

Anyway, seems when he passed [Ed.: It's died! My mother hates euphemisms like "passed." Wait, wait, but I'm just picking a different word from the paragraph before! Ed.: Doesn't matter. Try again.] in October, this is one of the things that occurred to me: I'd need a new tradition, or a new lucky recipient for the midnight-ish call. There's too many candidates, though. (Half-tempted to prank call drunk dial a random Czech number instead.) And the advantage of having some one seven time zones away is either you or they are not otherwise detained at the stroke of midnight. When you only communicate with someone a handful of times per year, the most regular occasion comes to mind as they die.

So anyway, the "like, wow" not-very-profound thought for the moment is that around 5 p.m. (midnight Czech time) this time around, New Year's Eve 2008-09, I was indeed watching hockey, which is one of the few ways my father connected with me or anyone. And it was interesting to see the modern-day NHL figures and uniforms and contrast them with the bulkier jerseys and chalkier broadcasts that we watched together in the memory of my formative years. Further, this holiday I saw a reunion show of one of the local almost-made-it bands that the First Night sister mentioned in the above linked story introduced me to as the proverbial "she's the one who took me to my first all-ages show" sister.

Like I said, not very profound. But an instant-oatmeal way of igniting mixed reflections on the passing of 20 years, the "passing" of my father and a cherished-if-somewhat-superficial tradition, and the relationship between older siblings, pre-high-school music tastes and the uber-cool "I already know about them" hijinks of teenage music one-upmanship.

First Night sister introduced me to a few good local bands who are now doing annual holiday reunion shows to commemorate what-almost-was 20 years ago, before they had to pursue "real" careers (except for one of them -- there's always at least one who's still following the dream avenue, whether it be having to play for Guns N' Roses or just plain pimping solo albums).

And while that's only superficially "fitting" in a forced TV drama kind of way, it's nonetheless one of the elements that's entering my mixed head on this, the first New Year's Eve where my father literally isn't alive to pick up the phone at the other end of the undersea cable. Apropos of nothing, this is also the first New Year's in 15 years where First Night sister -- who moved from town this year -- won't be around.

Ah well. A pour of damned-good cognac and a raised toast to the confusing departed father and to everyone else I hold more understandably dear. Cheers.


]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Feels-like-I-should-be-drinking.htmDominikfatherNew Year'shttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Feels-like-I-should-be-drinking.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Feels-like-I-should-be-drinking.htmThu, 01 Jan 2009 02:44:00 GMT2009-01-04T18:02:29We just wanted the sex"The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay.

... I should point out that just because more young people seem to be hooking up instead of dating doesn’t mean that they’re having more sex (they’ve been having less, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) or having sex with strangers (they’re more likely to hook up with a friend, according to a 2006 paper in the Journal of Adolescent Research)."

--Charles M. Blow, New York Times Op/Ed, Dec. 13, 2007

Aww, man! Tsk tsk, born too late.

See, B.H. and I would sometimes have this conversation about sex, I forget how it started (our conversations originate from some pre-Big Bang primordial soup of whim), where we each had a wish for how things really ought to be. I'm pretty sure it started because we each just wanted the sex, but we observed all kinds of annoying, unnecessary inefficiencies that complicated matters, so we used all of our philosophic powers to fix them.

The Solution
[Note: the following theories are not necessarily endorsed by Mrs. Fall of Because, nor would she necessarily associate closely at all with anyone tool who had the courage brazen will, much less chance in hell to practice them.]

B.H. said sex should be as casual as a handshake or trying on clothing --  an activity you could do with whomever you pleased ("Hmm, let me try this in red, medium."), with no disrespect -- no relation, even -- to existing long-term relationships.

To distort his words: "I'd like to have sex with anyone I want without it being a sign I somehow love a girlfriend any less." I think he wanted to be a swinger for life, and he wanted a "single" partner who saw casual partners as nothing more than food preferences.

[Mind you, this is the man who hilariously called ME an "emotional autistic" when my dad died -- as in, "This must be very hard, even for an emotional autistic..." I was walking through New York City when I read that text from him, and it made my day, sent me cackling down the sidewalk.]

But back to the sex relations theory. B.H.'s "handshake" is a bit extreme -- I've been forced by custom to shake so many unwanted hands. But my wish was that sex were divorced from the expectation and pursuit of a long-term mate. I was fine with monogamy once you, you know, vowed it -- but before then "hooking up" itself should be taboo-free. (If there must be a bad rep for breaking the taboo, one should earn it by the quality, not the quantity, of one's handshake partners.)

My reasoning was that everyone wants to have sex, and guys will generally do and say a lot of things they don't mean just to land it. Girls, meanwhile, also want to have sex but will, generally speaking (their motives are mysterious and confusing), want to see some kind of expression of earnest from the guy in order to release it.

Which results in the following timeless phenomenon: Guys lying about their intentions (and acting against their own long-term wishes) to get sex; girls forcing guys to lie to them, causing these girls to unlock sex for people whose intentions they thought they knew but did not actually know, with consequences they would not understand.

The resulting dishonesty and mistrust is a disservice and inefficiency to both parties: Each is trying to acquire a long-term goal (men: lotsa unattached sex; women: partnership) by using short-term means that undermine that goal (men: having to pretend to want partnership afterward; women: providing sex to someone who, it turns out, does not meet their standard for membership in the club).

Take my brilliant suggestion to remove the bond between sex and commitment, though, and it does two things: First, it frees up both genders to have all the short-term sex to their hearts' content. (Excellent!) Second, it clears the clutter from the pursuit of the long-term relationship and thus makes it more efficient: By allowing girls (alright, and guys) to narrow the pool of long-term mates to only the truly earnest, they don't have to waste time -- and years of "I can fix him" training -- with those who are just saying the right things to get into their pants, again, while kicking and screaming through the rest of the game.

Heck, it would've even freed up more time for interesting conversation, allowing one to skip the hot specimen who only talked about her/his wardrobe/car/like-wow-isn't-that-weird-man?. (Oh, the hours I foolishly flushed away in vacuous conversation).

See, it's all about creating market efficiencies, honest.

Like I said, we were young. And we wanted the sex.


]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/We-just-wanted-the-sex.htmDominikSexhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/We-just-wanted-the-sex.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/We-just-wanted-the-sex.htmWed, 17 Dec 2008 22:39:00 GMT2008-12-18T00:33:54Great moments in employee relations"A KFC manager said the young woman who quit expressed an interest in taking a bath in the sink, but the manager told her not to do it."

I got nothing.

I mean, it kinda reminds me of when I asked my boss if I could work naked -- but I was coming in at 2:30 a.m., when no one else was around. Totally different. Incidentally, our working relationship was never the same.

Meanwhile, you just know somewhere a PR junkie is saving this for her next PowerPoint presentation about "brand identity."

[Update: Oh, DO click on the images with the story. I've always wondered if all kids have to learn the hard lesson of posting images of their tomfoolery on Facebook, or if the workplace will eventually change to a resigned norm of, "Meh, who didn't photograph themself bathing in the KFC sink?"]

]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Great-moments-in-employee-relati.htmDominikbrandingHuman relationsHumorhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Great-moments-in-employee-relati.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Great-moments-in-employee-relati.htmThu, 11 Dec 2008 20:43:00 GMT2008-12-11T20:48:09Who said it?The (Illinois governor) Blagojevich story is entertaining (and foul, so foul) on so many levels. The unbelievably deranged balls of that guy. Illinois is on a two-governor imprisonment streak.

A sweet primer is at the Daily Beast, in the form of "Who Said It?" A 10-question game where you have to guess whether the quote is (allegedly) Blagoyovich's, or Tony Soprano's. I did not perform well.

]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Who-said-it.htmDominikhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Who-said-it.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Who-said-it.htmWed, 10 Dec 2008 16:25:37 GMT2008-12-10T16:25:45Look who's back, back again ...Four weddings, two sinus infections, one graduate class and zero Trans-Siberian concerts later...

It's fairly ironic - not in an Alanis way - that I started this blog in part as a way to force me to write regularly, yet at the times I most need it such regularity fails me.

As a consequence of my never have adapted a Fall of Becausing schedule, when things get really busy (often with other pay writing, at least), the bloggy ideas just pile up in my head into a verbal crash at the front of my cranium. So I end up not writing them at all -- because "oh, there's no time to flesh that idea out," and then I pick through the pieces of the accident later to see if anything's identifiable.

Which is a way of saying I don't have a specific idea right now (yet will once I step away from the PC), but I do know from old writing tricks that I'll never get there unless I jot something -- anything -- down. And the "last post XX weeks ago" was staring at me accusingly like the priest's "And when was your last confession?" question.

[Note: When a Catholic goes to confession, he -- wait! They allow SHE's to confess, too! -- the sinner (we are ALL sinners) is supposed to state, when asked, that "it has been XX days/weeks/months since my last confession."

This question paralyzed me as a child. It sounded like a test, but I never knew what the standard for confessional regularity was. Two weeks? A month? A school year? Maybe it depends on the number of unforgiven sins you've piled up? Is this why I delay oil changes today?

Meanwhile, I was undergoing what may be called "a crisis of faith." More precisely, the salespeople who were shilling this organized religion thing to me did not, in my estimation, embody the values they preached.

So: Do I answer "how long since your last confession?" based on what the Priest and Guilt-Wielding Authority Figure wants to hear? Or do I answer honestly in the (unlikely) event there exists a God who gives a shit about such details, then suffer the Earthly consequences of disappointing the priest?

Reasoning that something was amiss -- God would not choose such rotten ambassadors, would (s)he? -- I went for the Earthly ease of telling the priest what he wanted to hear. Plus, "I cursed twice ... I lied to my sister ... and I took The Lord's Name in vain." And voila! My soul was cleared.

It still is...

]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Look-who-s-back-back-again.htmDominikBlogchildhoodReligionhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Look-who-s-back-back-again.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Look-who-s-back-back-again.htmTue, 09 Dec 2008 22:44:00 GMT2008-12-09T22:45:50Congregations of 1000 different deities
From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country out there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth — call it America — where such a thing happens...
             --New York Times, Nov. 5, 2008

For the purpose of clarity and reigned-in expectations -- and to curtail sudden outbursts of tears -- I've tried not to think about this much until now. But the outside-the-issues symbolism and significance of Obama's victory are of an earth-shaking nature whose possibility I dismissed just four -- even two -- years ago. The irony that it took Bushian debauchery to open the door tempers my shock and satisfaction only slightly. If Bush wasted our precious time in climate and energy advances, the least he could do was inadvertently accelerate the healing of an awful scar from our history.

As a young kid I naively assumed racism and homophobia would be obsolete like Xerox by the time I was an adult. "All these people will soon be old, and the evidence in front of their face will change them," I thought. Alas, adulthood arrived with bad news. Silly kid. Hadn't realized as a child how views are passed on. Hadn't understood how limited exposure --> limited understanding --> unlimited fear.

"Rosa sat, so Martin could walk
Martin walked, so Obama could run
Obama ran, so our children could fly"
                                            --Heard all around us

Racism will still fester, hate will still find fuel. But new recruits will require even greater cognitive dissonance to sign on when every day an object of their superficial hate shows competence and compassion in the White House. Ignorance always "ain't never seen that before" -- until it has.

So waking up today to see a big chunk chopped off this Original Sin gave me a feeling of unburdened weightlessness. OMG, indeed!
OMG I
To see the looks in people's eyes at the polls yesterday -- black people in particular -- as they tasted that the unimaginable could happen. To see others participating for the first time, after years of resignation to the notion that there is no place for them in this fixed process. (On that note: the margin between McCain and Obama in Missouri at this moment is about a third of the number of Missouri votes given to Nader. Who says their vote doesn't matter?)

"...The world’s view of an Obama presidency presents a paradox. His election embodies what many consider unique about the United States — yet America’s sense of its own specialness, of its destiny and mission, has driven it astray, they say. They want Mr. Obama, the beneficiary and exemplar of American exceptionalism, to act like everyone else, only better, to shift American policy and somehow to project both humility and leadership..."


To see reactions around the world and know that the U.S. will once again hold both sides of its mythical role as inspirational example and empire of unreachable expectations.

But back to the symbolism: Obama's heritage and path is the logical landing point of the "American dream."

Not a dream of WASPs, connected bankers, and "keep the pot with the privileged" set, but of a globalized gene pool stirred by whoever dreams of making it here.

Not a dream that anybody who just wants it really really hard can be a millionaire and not pay taxes because, of course, taxes destroy the American dream, but rather a dream that cognitively understands how reaping the benefits of residence within a society necessitates shared sacrifice and responsibility to keep that very society afloat.

Not a dream that any old "Joe Sixpack" can become President by sweatin' and shootin' and talkin' football under a POW flag, but the dream that any old smart, thoughtful-yet-engaging human can reason his way to the role of inspirational President and policy mover, regardless of what he or she (still working on "she") looks like, regardless of what category and stereotypes we assign to that look.

On the relevance of ill-defined, touchy-feely "inspiration:" There is something to it, oh yes there is. Humans are often stupid, we know this. Yet we love them (Us!) still. So there are two possible responses to our "condition": Resignation to its inevitable futility is one. Trying to nudge the needle for good is the other. So when an Obama comes along and inspires people who had given up, it matters. When it's someone like that making a gesture so small (yet so big) as telling parents it's up to you to be there for your kids, to take them away from the TV -- to give the seed a bit of water so that the education system that later receives them has a fighting chance to help them grow ... THAT is nudging the needle.

If parenting, poverty, education and greed are at the root of what ails us, simply letting these rot will do no one service. Small gestures in transformational packages will matter.

"... There is another paradox about the world’s view of the election of Mr. Obama: many who are quick to condemn the United States for its racist past and now congratulate it for a milestone fail to acknowledge the same problem in their own societies, and so do not see how this election could offer them any lessons about themselves..."

Foreigners so often expect more from the U.S. than they do from their own insular societies precisely because the U.S. is supposed to be the land of openness and equal opportunity. It's a shame that other nations too often don't expect the same from their own cultures, but there's no harm in expecting the U.S. to strive to be better. It's better for us and, ultimately, better for them. Expectation comes with being the state in the captain's chair.

Now, we are life forms after all, so conflict and weakness will happen. But study of history, collection of data, and the practice of thought and earnestness can reduce the frequency of our follies. All our issues will not be resolved in my lifetime, but somehow a lifetime feels better spent when we're inching toward the goal.

Denominations of a thousand different deities
Congregations, endless carnivals of gaiety
Why should I fear? Why should I cling on to anything?
It's not how long long I live but how beautiful it is

And I saw crying, there was turmoil in the marketplace
I saw economies perpetuate the next arms race
And I felt helpless: there was nothing I could do or say
And then I noticed there's a change that's coming over me:
Tapping into the aeon
Tapping into the aeon

Myriad experiences of billions of humans
Recorded in the memory the compassion of their gods
Beauty defined by disfigurement and symmetry
Re-evaluate their history, reassess their symbols

 And I saw crying, there was turmoil in the marketplace
I saw economies perpetuate the next arms race
And I felt helpless: there was nothing I could do or say
And then I noticed there's a change that's coming over me:
Tapping into the aeon
Tapping into the aeon

Balance of the ecosystem, self-reliance beckons us
Windmills and waterfalls, strawberries and lily ponds
When skyscrapers no longer block the Sun's meridian
When we awake to the whisper of the voice

Tapping into the aeon

--"Aeon," Killing Joke

]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Congregations-of-1000-different.htmDominikEducationPoliticshttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Congregations-of-1000-different.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Congregations-of-1000-different.htmWed, 05 Nov 2008 23:31:00 GMT2008-11-05T23:37:18Back to square one, another empire -- backfireWalked down to my polling place today. The line snaked outside the building even more than it did for Bush v. Gore (and I think Clinton v. Dole, but that was when they were rehabbing the church basement and we were rerouted through the kitchen). Fifty-60 deep outside, then nearly the same snaked once you got inside the door. Took me about 90 minutes to get through.

It was early in the morning, but I was still struck by how quiet the line was. No one spoke. Definitely got the sense people were being respectful (we really CAN all behave like grownups ... away from the Internet and cable news). Also got the sense people were on a mission. Saw laborers looking at their watches, hipsters interacting with their iGadgets -- but sensed a common determination of "I'm here, it's taking a looong time, I'm late but I'm voting, dammit."

Killing Joke: Empire SongI love these settings where I can observe and take in people from all walks of life. Common, cohesive threads (even if only marginally so) are nice to find.

When I hit the polls, once I get inside the 25-foot green zone Radiohead's "Electioneering" always comes into my head (There's a sign announcing 1-year imprisonment and/or $2500 penalty for electioneering within). But today, reflecting on the last eight years -- and then about the last 28 -- Killing Joke's "Empire Song" came into my head.

More so for the art on the single than for the melody or lyrics. Although it is all part of the same coin, capturing the same regretful tone.

]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Back-to-square-one-another-empir.htmDominikPoliticsvotinghttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Back-to-square-one-another-empir.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Back-to-square-one-another-empir.htmTue, 04 Nov 2008 19:46:00 GMT2008-11-04T19:48:41Blog incontinence
But first I selected the "upgrade" that Sampa is pushing through all of its sites, so at the moment, everything is a bit jumbled as I try to figure out what this upgrade has done, and how to manage things within. (Although I think this change shouldn't affect the blog -- just the rest of the site's hanging fruit.)

I apologize for the wacky format of things. Do bear with us while we conduct this government-mandated test...

]]>http://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Blog-incontinence.htmDominikBloghttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Blog-incontinence.htmhttp://FallOfBecause.brainuse.com/fall-of-because/blog/Blog-incontinence.htmTue, 28 Oct 2008 20:09:57 GMT