Mamma Mia!

More musings and cultural observations from Jason:

One thing we noticed right away in the girls’ school was the gender count. There are 19 kids in Jenica and Jocelyn’s class, with 12 boys and 7 girls. Maisy’s class also has almost a 2:1 boy to girl ratio. Most of the boys come from French families and the girls more from the other countries, which raised the question: “Do people here put a higher emphasis on educating their sons at private schools rather than their daughters?” It sure seems that way, and there is no hiding the fact that a woman is praised here more for her looks and style than probably any other quality.


Then this weekend, we decided to try out a local pizza joint near our house called Riviera Pizza. It’s got a wood-fired pizza oven, which means that it opens for dinner around 6PM, but the oven doesn’t get hot enough to cook pizzas until around 7PM. The prices are reasonable, and the pizzas are made in the traditional Italian style: thin crust, only enough sauce to moisten the crust, and then authentic Italian toppings and spices. Good stuff.

Except for one little thing—the ridiculous pizza box artwork. Most of it is in black-and-white, except for the whole middle area which is in color. Furthermore, the pizza shown on the box is pretty small and seemingly disproportionately sized if the intent was to put the focus on the pizza part of the box’s function. Here’s a picture of the pizza box in question:

As my girls carried the box into the house, the conversation went like this:

Jason: “Girls, what do you think the name of this pizza lady is?”

Jenica: “My guess is Mrs. Pizza!”

Jocelyn: “My guess is Big Boobies!”

Maisy: “My guess is Mrs. Party!”

Jason (to himself): “I don’t see the difference between the last 2 responses.”

Jason: “Why is she holding the pizza like that?”

Jenica: “To make it look fancy.”

Jocelyn: “She has to hold very still because she has a chicken on her head.”

Maisy: “Chicken-head! Bock bock bock.”

Jason: “What are these other guys doing in the picture?”

Jenica: “This guy in the corner is stretching, but he’s hungry.”

Jocelyn: “These guys are playing instruments in a band.”

Maisy: “They are eating candy and stealing the pizza.”

This is not a custom-ordered box just for Riviera Pizza; but rather, a generic box that goes to many pizza joints around the area. With that many boxes in public circulation, many troubling questions remain in my mind:

1. How is she holding a hot pizza with her bare hands? Why isn’t there there a box on the box, or would that be too much?

2. What exactly IS she selling? A slice of what?

3. How is it that those 3 guys on the left are more interested in their lame, barefoot jam session than in good food and good company? I have my theories, but one of them has a telling East Village moustache that could explain much.

4. The Venetian mask and veil on her head is also unsettling—is she just making a pizza delivery for fun in between festivities? I suspect that there must be a pizza pimp somewhere in the vicinity.

5. The location and size of the pizza on this box sure makes it look secondary to everything else going on here. Even though it’s clearly identifiable as a pizza, how much was this artist paid for this piece? He obviously felt proud enough of the work to add his signature on the bottom right someday for the museum exhibition.

And finally, I now feel compelled to order bread sticks and other menu items just to examine and report on the box artwork. Stay tuned…