There’s enough hype and opinion about Dom and Di Fara floating around to fill a book, but if you don’t know about him, suffice to say he’s among the most legendary living pizzaiolos in America today.

Here’s a photo of Dom from a trip I took to Di Fara in April that matches Polan’s sketch perfectly (minus the scally cap):

Regardless of what you think about the pizza at Di Fara, it’s hard not to love the perseverance of the man behind the counter.

My friend Jessica Hische runs a site called The Daily Drop Cap, where she designs an ornamental letter every work day to be used for decorative initials (I wrote more about the topic previously, elsewhere). Last night she was one of the attendants at a big typography nerd get-together I organized at Lombardi's Pizza in Manhattan (if you don't know about it already, Google it). While scarfing on pizza, we joked about how she should make a pizza-themed initial, but I didn't think she'd actually do it.

Speaking of Lombardi's-inspired lettering art done by friends (I couldn't think of a more obscure topic) I ran in to the artist and legendary NYC skateboarder Harry Jumanji during a trip to Lombardi's last year. He was so psyched on the pizza that he broke out his markers and did a mini piece on the back of a postcard for the manager (or at least I think he was the manager):

I got one too (though it was skate-themed, rather than pizza):

For what it's worth, the first time I ever went to Lombardi's I was similarly compelled to make this drawing in my sketchbook (the disgruntled guy on the right is totally unrelated):

I guess all the pizza art makes sense with the huge Mona Lisa on the outside wall -- they say "the debate over her smile is over".

Since I'm on the subject, Lombardi's also is relevant to another obscure design-related fascination of mine, which is the pointing-finger symbol known as the "manicule". For whatever reason, I collect photos of the symbol in use and, coincidentally, they're used heavily for signage at Lombardi's -- including a sizable example on the exterior of the building (just above the Mona Lisa):

In closing, a gratuitous photo of the source material:

Today on Vice magazine’s blog, Viceland, they quoted an awesome excerpt from the new Ozzy biography, I Am Ozzy:

I thought America was fabulous. Take pizza for example. For years I’d been thinking, I wish someone would invent a new kind of food. In England it was always egg and chips, sausage and chips, pie and chips… anything and chips. After a while it just got boring, y’know? But you couldn’t exactly order a shaved Parmesan and rocket salad in Birmingham in the early 70s. If it didn’t come out of a deep-fat fryer, no one knew what the fuck it was. But then, in New York, I discovered pizza. It blew my mind wide fucking open. I would buy ten or twenty slices a day. And then, when I realized you could buy a great big pizza all for yourself, I started ordering them wherever we went. I couldn’t wait to get back home and tell all my mates: ‘There’s this incredible new thing. It’s American and it’s called pizza. It’s like bread, but it’s better than any bread you’ve tasted in your life.’ I even tried to recreate a New York pizza for Thelma once. I made some dough, then I got all these cans of beans and pilchards and olives and shit and put them on top-it must have been about 15 quid’s worth of gear-but after ten minutes it just came dribbling out of the oven. It was like someone had been sick in there. Thelma just looked at it and went, ‘I don’t think I like pizza, John.’ She never called me Ozzy, my first wife.

Kinda makes you wonder if Sweet Leaf is actually about basil.

Thanks to Jeff for the link.

Somehow, ironic t-shirt companies get me every time with their pizza-themed designs. Much like the previously-noted Pizza is the Best shirt, the Direct Line t-shirt design from Glennz Tees (pictured above) exploits my love of pizza enough to distract me from all the other pop-culture dependent stuff on their site.

“A composite image made from 121 pizzas”, by Jim Bumgardner on Flickr.

PeopleInPizzaSliceCostumesBecomingPizzas.com

Earlier this year the dudes at Liberated Images / Shirts & Destroy released a limited edition 5-color gross-out pizza shirt that comes in a specially printed pizza box. From their description:

A pizza to end all pizzas. Served piping hot with everything you could want on it. Nails, screws, an eyeball, pocket change, a severed finger, cigarette butts, pepperoni, a razor blade, a dead fish, mushrooms and a bunch of other gnarly shit.

Gnarly shit, indeed.

The graphic was done by Billy from Tall Boy Illustration. Get yours here.

I completed my third annual Pizza Month yesterday at Stone Hearth Pizza in Cambridge, MA. As with the past two years, I ate pizza every day for the entire month of April. Similar to last year, I managed to do so without getting pizza from the same pizzeria twice.

Since I’m currently in vagabond travel mode, I got a lot more variety this year, geographically, than in past years. New York got some heavy representation early on, followed by a string of various Massachusetts pizza.

Billy (who participated in Pizza Month with me the previous two years) folded only 3 or 4 days into the month after forgetting to eat a slice, so I did this one solo.

• Best pizza all month: Not as easy to say this year as it was last year; it’s a toss-up between Motorino in Brooklyn, and my childhood neighborhood favorite, New England Pizza House #1, on Cape Cod.
• Worst pizza all month: Arizona Pizza Company in Hadley, MA. Better Fella’s (formerly Vinny Vella’s) in Brooklyn was a close runner up in this category too.
• Most interesting pizza experience: Definitely my trip to DiFara’s

I must say I was really surprised at how easy it was to complete Pizza Month this time around. I’m starting to think about stepping it up somehow next time (Pizza Season???)

I’ll let you know.

I always hated the annoying ads I see all over the internet for Busted Tees and their ironic t-shirts, but I have to give some credit for this one.

I’ve got some other pizza shirts I’ve been meaning to post about too. Soon.