this week i

visited church of my parents' marriage before moon landing, tatiana saw us pulling against locked door, offered us a private tour.  my mom platinum blonde that day, but way back interwar, assunta wore a smart black dress to speak her vows with antonio.  her bedroom had three framed photographs, her husband, her son, me, lined up on her dresser.  "funny looking, good looking, funny looking," my father pointed his finger at each, one by one.  "good looking.  good looking.  good looking," assunta replied, sweeping her index finger behind his.  antonio decorated his nativity scene with lion and tiger figurines, sent emigration money to oskar's father (oskar the painter of the clown) but they stayed too long so became canadian a generation later.  ellis island would've rejected josephine, burnt sister, she cooked in a nunnery.  rosemarie likes neil diamond the most, cracklin' rosie especially.  she recalls after antonio died, my father enrolled at the boarding school and visited rosemarie and assunta at 1608 reed street on weekends and holidays but always slept at uncle rocco and aunt vincenzina's house at 1411 reed street till his teenage years when in 1956 joe and rosemarie married and 1608 reed street had a new older brother in law in the house as well.  rock and v were not pleased.  small dogs are muppets



 

wrapped momos with rupak.  i wondered will a candy-filled one steam sorta the same?  i didn't say anything out loud, skittle dumpling a decent secret service codename.  anyway good momos.  riya enjoyed a five dollar glass of water at john pierpont morgan's library's cafe (john travolta'd say that's not even milk and ice cream) but columbia credentials had admitted us free and we saw bull men contesting with lions mesopotamia, akkadian period (ca. 2334-2154 b.c.); marble inscription removed in antiquity, a couple rembrandts, a gutenberg bible, a snail jockey, so a good value overall

 







 

sold the last roccomobile after crossing the susquehanna one more time, learned about cross-dominance (kicking stronger with his left) and forehead palm vs facepalm and one sunny side up egg on top of other things.  another thought kept to self: connecticut looks like upside down gas canister

 

 

skimmed philadelphia: portrait of an american city by edwin wolf 2nd





watched i, claudius

 

now you may kiss me and take your leave.  remember my prophetic chickens and have patience, hmm?

livia?
mm.
they say a snake bit her once, and died

 at official banquets we were seated on the third couch

let the jackals howl

they say the men there are so savage that the women live in perpetual ecstasy

 


read the poverty line by stephen chow and huiyi lin

 

corn porridge is called ugali in kenya and tanzania, ogi in nigeria, mealie pap in south africa, polenta in italy and grits in the united states

per capita consumption is highest in korea, with an average of 75 servings eaten per person per year.  the leading manufacturer of instant noodles worldwide is the indonesian company indofood, which had a 15% market share in 2014.  indofood has 16 factories with a total annual production capacity of 16 billion packets, and sells to 50 countries.  besides the open market, instant noodles have also become a prison currency in the us, replacing cigarettes as the most traded item

a famous british example of an inquiry into dockworkers' pay in the 1920s, when "the union leader appeared in court with a plate bearing a few scraps of bacon, fish, and bread and asked the statistician (sir anthony bowley) whether this was sufficient breakfast"

for every urban poor person in india and china, there are four rural poor people

the different levels of inequality are recorded according to world regions.  in europe, the most egalitarian region in the world, the richest 10% receive about 35% of the total income today.  this is in stark contrast to the middle east, the least egalitarian region of the world, where the richest 10% receive 61% of the total income.  in china, the figure is 41%, while in north america, it is 47%, and in india it is 55%..in brazil and in sub-saharan africa, the top decile receives about 55% of the total income


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