Review of Best Behavior

Review

My Identity and leaving Youngstown

If I leave Youngstown, what will happen to my identity?

Will I start reading Edward Abbey and Cormac McCarthy?

Does anyone have Cormac McCarthy's address? I guess he lives in Santa Fe. I want to go over his house and eat lunch.

*

Watched this video about Edward Abbey. John Depuy says that Abbey and Robert Creeley hung out there for awhile.

There is also someone named Witter Bynner who according to wikipedia, "had numerous parties at their house, hosting many notable writers, actors, and artists, which guests included Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Igor Stravinsky, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Clara Bow, Errol Flynn, Rita Hayworth, Christopher Isherwood, Carl Van Vechten, Martha Graham, Georgia O'Keeffe and Thornton Wilder."

I want to find a place where Errol Flynn had sex and have kinky sex with my girlfriend on that very spot.

Done reading the bible and working at red lobster

I'm done reading the bible, it got too boring.

I read the gospels a lot when I was young and know those well, so I'm just going to deal with Saint Augustine and as he quotes things, I'll look it up.

Last day at Red Lobster, it is over. They got me a cake, and everyone said goodbye and good luck. It'll was nice.

I didn't expect a cake.

They gave me a donation of 30 dollars.

I don't leave for three weeks, my plan is to tan and read, read and tan.

I read Tacitus' Agricola and Germania today, I liked it a lot. It had one really good line, "You create desolation and call it peace."

That was said by a Brit concerning the Romans.

I don't know if I am going to write the political philosophy book yet. I think I might write a book called "A Metaphysics."

I need three books to write that book.

Can someone give me the names of books that concern the Big Bang theory, the many worlds theory and evolution, like modern up to date books about it?

Reading the bible day 4

I read the Joseph part in the bible and then read the Joseph part in the Koran.

The Koran just seems, like it rewrote it, and then wrote that everyone was a Muslim and not a Hebrew in it.

King David seems like a lousy person, he murdered Uriah

for what?

Why?

King David also murdered the person that told him Saul was dead, for what?

I guess King David is important because he established a system of public administration for the Jews. He is like George Washington or Julius Caesar.

I have heard people say on television in person and in some books, that everything Jesus said was contained in the Old Testament.

Where?

Jesus was about poor people, social safety nets, debasing oneself, humiliation, that there was no king, everyone should be poor and full of love, and there should be no king.

I couldn't find that in the Old Testament.

The story of Job starts off with him having nothing, but then Job gets things because he behaves.

The God of Abraham grants earthly gifts, the New Testament does not.

Those aren't the same Gods.

I don't know.

reading the bible day 3

when i said, "God is like red lobster"

i did not in anyway mean disrespect to the God character contained in the Torah.

After reading the Five Books of Moses, the character of God teaches an important lesson.

When you enter into a situation involving other humans, a deal arises.

A deal always arises.

The deal can be translated as covenant, contract, agreement, etc.

When a person enters into a situation involving other humans or even nature, codes of conduct must be followed.

The codes of conduct if they are followed will be rewarded.

I think life is really about codes of conduct.

Money does make the world go around.

But codes of conduct.

The question is, what codes of conduct do people have to perform to gain money or resources for survival?

I think this is basically the same lesson taught in Erving Goffman's Presentation of of Self in Everyday Life. He basically outlines how people must behave certain ways in certain circumstances all day long.

The story of Joseph is amazing, how he ends up in Egypt, and then the Hebrews end up being enslaved because of it. What a strange plot twist. It really doesn't seem logical. Seems like it was edited in by a third party to make sense.

What is strange to me is the phrase "God Remembered"

Here is what I found in a bible search:

Genesis 8:1
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
Genesis 8:1-3 (in Context) Genesis 8 (Whole Chapter)

Genesis 19:29
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Genesis 30:22
Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive.

Exodus 2:24
God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.

Numbers 10:9
When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the LORD your God and rescued from your enemies.

Psalm 98:3
He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Revelation 18:5
for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.
Revelation 18:4-6 (in Context) Revelation 18 (Whole Chapter)

Like God forgot them.

The sentence, "God remembered" implies that God has the ability to forget.

If you wrote the sentence, "Bob left the house and then remembered his lunch, and then went back to the house to get it."

The word "remembered" implies the ability to forget.

Which is strange.

The ancient jews must have thought about their God as something different then we think about God.

Like their God was actually somewhere, doing things, living out his God life, and could be really busy, and just forget something.

Besides the one time in Revelations, the phrase "god remembered" is never written in the new testament.

It isn't really written after the Five Books of Moses.

I googled searched two different translations of the Koran and found no phrase resembling "God remembered" or "allah remembered."

why am i reading the bible?

I have a reading list, Saint Augustine, Maimonides and Saint Thomas Aquinas is on it so I want to know what they are talking about.

Trying to read the whole bible seems impossible though: there is so much shit in it, so many pages of laws concerning animals.

I feel nothing religious when I read it.

I feel nothing when I read religious texts, it doesn't matter if it Buddhism or Islam, nothing arises in my soul.

I mean the story of Samson is entertaining in a way.

But God?

God does what?

Seriously?

I approach everything with the attitude of "seriously?"

I read Kant and Nietzsche, and also think, "Seriously?"

day 2 of reading the bible

The Ten Commandments states exodus 20:2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

then God gives the commandments.

These commandments seem like a deal.

Like since I brought you out of slavery, you have to behave a certain way.

God seems to want payment in terms of behavior and animal sacrifices.

That is kind of like working at red lobster, I get paid to pretend I care about Red Lobster. Good deal.

God is like Red Lobster?

Then comes Samson and David

They are like super heroes.

Samson kills like thousands of people by himself.

It is pretty amazing.

The heroes of the Old Testament seem really ambitious, Moses, Samson, and David are really pumped up. Everyone wants lots of male children and to have their children become kings.

It is really just a history of kings.

People keep talking to and seeing God.

Like God appears.

But there is no description of what God looks like.

God seems to love property.

The thing that is unique to me, or weird

The thing that I wonder about are the writers' intention.

Like they would be completely surprised that their writings were still around be sold 2500 years later. Were they thinking, "This will be good for the people of the village, they will like these stories."

I doubt they were thinking, "People will be reading this for 2600 years."

Day 1 of reading the Bible

I have decided to read the bible. Here it goes.
At least want to read the give books of Moses, Isaiah, Job, and the New Testament.

READ: Genesis 1 to Genesis 28.6

Thoughts:

God created the universe.

Seems strange that someone or something would create a universe.

There is no backstory on God.

God is the image of people? I guess that means he walks and has hands.

That is all the description we get.

Gods back in the day usually had character development.

The ancient Jews said, "What about a God with no character development."

This was a good idea, then no one could talk shit about that god, because that God wasn't anything.

So the universe was created by something that wasn't anything.

There doesn't seem to be any mention of an afterlife.

God makes constant binding contracts that if you behave, you will have lots of male children that will become nations.

God is a disembodied voice that speaks to people all the time.

He says, behave and you will get children.

Another bibilical note:

saw a book today in Wal-Mart titled Love you Life, it is a book by a Christian for Christians.

John 12:25
"The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

It is bad, really bad when a Christian titles their book a direct contradiction of what Jesus said.

Victoria Osteen either doesn't read the bible or figures that her audience doesn't.

Interview at Matador

here is the interview, David Miller is a really nice guy.

My Grandpa Died

I hadn't googled myself in like 3 months and I'm up alone, feeling sad, so I googled myself and found this.

My name is in the thing. I'm the only person not married. The one that says christie was married, she might not be now.

I feel like all of his grandkids are married and have babies.

I feel alienated.

Jordan Castro writes about LA

Here is the story.

That is what exactly happened.

Funny.

Coming to Terms with Being alive

in 2006 I was standing in a dishtank.

I quit football, I quit college, I quit Melinda, I quit Bernice, I quit every job. I moved out west twice, once to San Diego and failed, because i spent all my money on meth in Mexico. The other time in Oregon where I didn't try to get a full time job.

My best friends Ricky and Nick were gone, one to Columbus, one Santa Fe.

Melinda had a baby.

Bernice had a boyfriend.

I had no friends, except for ones on the Internet.

I decided to not quit anymore.

I made a bucket list in my head.

Realizing I had to do it without parental support. I no longer spoke to my parents, there would be no money from them, there would be no congratulations from them.

It had to be done with no help from them.

I would have to work every week and go to school five days a week full time.

I would have to rebuild myself from scratch.

I could no longer live with my prior instincts.

Sartre told me that existence precedes essence.

I believed him.

I could change as a human if I willed it.

1. My loans were defaulted, so I had to pay them off for nine months in a row before any college in America would allow me to enter it.

2. Go to college and finish it.

3. After college move out west.

4. Get published my a mainstream publisher.

I realize now these are very personal goals. That I am trying to prove something to myself. The thing about proving something to oneself is that other are concerned with you trying to prove things to yourself. They like or dislike for different reasons. Some people might like because you are a quitter.

The second day after I graduated high school I drove to the Grand Canyon to live for the summer, the next sumer I drove to Oregon. One trip my friend Nicky and I drove to Maine and the middle of the night, we were driving, and felt like do something cool, so we drove to Quebec in the middle of the night, not caring about anything in a 1979 Ford Fairlain.

I wonder where that Ford Fairlain is?

I was not afraid of risk.

But after my brother died I became afraid of risk.

I wanted comfort.

I wanted peace.

The anxiety of risk was too much.

But I no longer feel that need for peace.

Several people told me lately, that they could help me get a job in the Cleveland area, and I have given in to weakness, thinking, sounds good.

But I must remain on track.

The course must be followed.

I started working on this four years ago.

Why should I stop now?

a strange review of Best Best Behavior

here is a strange review but fun review of Best Behavior.

Reading the Koran

I started reading the Koran last night and read some more today.

I feel that

I might not care about God at all.

Like the word God causes no emotion.

A lot of it is saying the same thing over and over and over again.

There have been cool lines throughout it though:

It reads like an experimental novel.

Like the first chapter is called "The Cow"

I'm not sure what a cow has to do with the first chapter. But I think that is cool. Somebody was like, "I'm gonna write a religious text, and I'm going to write the word 'The Cow' for the first chapter."

I can see why Islam was needed though:

Large scale institutional religion i.e. Christianity started taking over Europe, Turkey and Egypt which is to the north of Arabia and to the east of Arabia there was Hinduism and Buddhism. And there was also Judaism.

The Arabs saw a function in that decided to create a religion of their own.

This all took place in the 700 and 800s.

It is true that Christianity stated in the 100s, but it didn't take over on a super large scale until the 700s.

But Christianity and Islam were not the same thing.

Christianity was a coping mechanism to deal with the collapse of the Roman Empire. Which had a dead man as their leader who was obsessed with poverty and had no real interest in knowledge.

While Islam did not have a poverty stricken dead man, but a God who demanded a set of specific behaviors but did not mind wealth as long as they gave alms to the poor. And you could still seek knowledge along as you practiced those designated set of behaviors.

The difference being:

Christianity has a dead man OBSESSED, and to be a Christian one be obsessed with poverty and think it is good. That to suffer and be wretched contains a certain amount of beauty. I would say Bukowski best exemplifies that. Bukowski characters are Christ like sufferers seeking redemption in a fucked world. But they don't change because they are consumed with the beauty of their own suffering.

Islam and Judaism are not obsessed with poverty. Judaism because of circumstances is mainly concerned with survival, the survival of their people and they themselves not getting killed. Because of this they give positive reinforcement to hard work and being functional. What I mean by functional, is attaining positions in society that the leaders of that society that are not Jewish need to main their infrastructure. Portnoy's Complaint shows this, the lead character has anxiety over sex, but it isnt the act of sex he has anxiety about, but the result of sex, which is procreation. He is afraid that he might accidently get a gentile pregnant and reduce the numbers of the Jewish people. I just read Max Demint's God, Jews and History, in it he shows how the Jews in Europe and in Arabia were under constant pressure to concede their religion for Christainity or Islam. That it was legal for a Jew to marry one of them and become them, but not the other way around. Just looking at wiki bios of Karl Marx, Karl Popper, Wittgenstein and Proust a person can easily see how the Jews intermixed to get better positions in society. So when I try to imagine a Jew of today, a person whose family who has never conceded to mixing with the gentiles, then that person must feel a heavy weight.

Islam isn't an obsession, it is worship. They worship their God and constantly give thanks. The Five Pillers of Islam is a list of behaviors, behaviors that lead to the idea of worship. If men do this and women do this, if they pray five times a day, go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, if they give alms, if they stay from certain drinks and foods, then through that they will worship their God.

Christianity and Islam are not to concerned with being functional.

To them, heaven is right after death. All they have to do is survive until they die and they go to heaven.

What needs to be noticed is the three emotions or ways of thinkings of the different religions.

Judiasm: Survival.

Christainanity: Obsession

Islam: Worship.

while watering my plants

I went and got a bucket from the inside of the house.

Grandma came over and said, "Did it frost last night?"

"No, but it hasn't rained and the zucchini aren't doing good."

I went outside carrying my bucket by its handle, right when I got the garden, the handle broke and the water landed on the ground and no plants.

Had to walk back to the house and get another.

Walked back to the garden, with a little plastic bowl I scooped water out of the bucket and watered the plants.

The sky was clear, blue, the sun was there.

I heard a voice, it sang the song of the broad axe

Muscle and pluck forever!
What invigorates life, invigorates death,
And the dead advance as much as the living advance,
And the future is no more uncertain than the present,
And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as much as the delicatesse of the earth and of man,
And nothing endures but personal qualities.
What do you think endures? 100
Do you think the great city endures?
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best-built steamships?
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any chef-d’oeuvres of engineering, forts, armaments?

Away! These are not to be cherish’d for themselves;
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play for them;
The show passes, all does well enough of course,
All does very well till one flash of defiance.

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman;
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.

I listend, finished watering the plants and took the bucket back in the house.

a 14 year old boy asked me

Two men, one 14 and one 30 are standing in a garden on a sunny day. The boy holds a hoe and the man holds a shovel.

14 year old boy: What are you gonna do now that you've graduated?

Me: I'm gonna be a poet.

14 year old boy: That's not a job.

Me: No matter what job I'll have, I'll be a poet. 15 years ago I was a caddy and a poet, 10 years I had no job and was a poet, five years ago I was a pizza boy and a poet, right now, as I stand here in this garden holding a shovel, still poet, ten years from now, still poet, on my death bed, poet.

14 year old boy: Noah, you're crazy.

Me: It is perfectly acceptable to be a crazy, when I applied to be a poet when I was 15 I wrote "mental ward experience" and was hired instantly.

Will give you a free copy of Best Behavior for

I will give you a free copy of Best Behavior

if you give me one of these books:

A history of japan
A history of India
A history of Australia

or

any book of history involving a generalized history of a country if the country be Suriname or Ghana.

I do not want

Any main European histories i.e. France, Germany, England.

But countries like Slovenia, Poland or Norway would be cool.

or
histories of specific events or bios of historical figures.

Except for maybe Deng Xiaoping

email me at noah.cicero@gmail.com