Recently in Pizza-related stuff Category

As a counterpoint to Jessica’s lovely and fancy letter V slice initial letter, I present to you this pizza-face monster letter A by Elli Egilsson (AC BANANAS on Flickr):

And mocked up here on a t-shirt:

See also: Shirts & Destroy’s gross-out pizza shirt/box package

One of my favorite new blogs lately is Every Person In New York, where artist Jason Polan has set out to draw every person in New York. Naturally I was excited to see that his most recent batch of drawings included a sketch of “The Man”, Dom DeMarco of Di Fara Pizzeria fame.

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.

The angry Hitler YouTube meme was bound to involve pizza sooner or later.

ery rarely, my passions for pizza and lettering cross paths, but the decorative pizza letter V used for this post is an awesome case in which I can dork out on both things at once.

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.

Detailed instructions here.

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.

In the video below, John Joseph — singer for the legendary 1980s NYC hardcore punk band, the Cro-Mags — talks about his favorite veg spots in NYC, including Viva Herbal Pizzeria. It’s all framed around Joseph’s new book Meat Is For Pussies.

The blog software I use to run Pizza Rules! has been super slow and sometimes even completely broken lately, which is why I haven’t posted much. I have a whole folder of stuff to share once I get some time to fix everything, but in the mean time, here’s a quick pizza-related lolcat for you.

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.

New pizza shirt on Threadless:

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

I don’t know anything about this song or group, but I kinda like it that way. The mystery makes it that much better:

Best part: “I like pizza with tomato…” followed by an awkward lack of lyrics.

Thanks to Dean for the link.

Arnold’s Pizza Shop:

As though Shepard Fairey wasn’t getting enough press already from his work for Obama, I’m gonna mention him here on pizza-related business.

OMG Posters reports that Fairey just put up an installation at Nice Slice in Providence, not far from where he went to school at RISD.

I’m hoping to make it to Providence in the not-too-distant future. If I do, I’ll get some more shots (including some of the pizza).

The Mets’ new mark to celebrate their upcoming first season at Citi Field is making the team look a bit more like Domino’s Pizza delivery drivers…

My friend Jesse sent me this link about putting Domino’s online pizza ordering options to the test.

I’ve never ordered online from Domino’s, and in fact have consciously avoided ordering from Domino’s at all since about 10 years ago, but I am glad that someone out there is putting their system to the test.

It’s great how he tests them on whether it’s the right or left side of his pie that gets pepperoni, but the best part about the experiment was ordering an individual pizza with nothing on it (not even sauce) except beef on the left-hand side:

Hilarious.

Serbian Ljubomir Erovic just released a cookbook dedicated to recipes that include testicles. Pizza is one of them.

Do not want.