Musings on Ice-Pick Joe
I'm not sure why no one is talking about Ice-Pick Joe's death scene, especially with rumors of the Ice-Pick Joe prequel circulating the internet.
The scene where Ice-Pick Joe walked by Sofia's window on his way to the fateful meeting with Katya, stopping to lean against the light post long enough to see two silhouettes come together. (I can't be the only one who was getting Blue Velvet vibes in that scene?) Why isn't anyone talking about his longing? The voyeurism? His fear of abandonment stemming from childhood trauma...after all, his mother picked him, of all his siblings, to leave at the orphanage! She left him with nothing but those appleseeds that he carried around in his pockets.
I'm absolutely sure that Sofia was the unnamed child in Joe's flashback (Jodie Foster was so good as the scrappy, androgynous best friend. She did have a limp in that scene when they were running from the cemetery. We don't actually know at what age Sofia lost her leg. And Donny Osmond was the perfect young Ice-Pick Joe!)
If you watch closely, she had the same birthmark on her shoulder in that first awkward kiss scene that Sofia had when she and Katya fought that night of her birthday, when she ripped her blouse and threw her glass of champagne at the wall.)
But back to Joe on the empty street, those shadows against the wall like shadow puppets, and the way the clock motif came back at that moment? Such haunting music, reprised again in the film score during Joe's death (I still cry when I hear "The Demise of Ice-Pick Joe". Linking to it here, because I played it on repeat when the movie was over. Brilliant and haunting.)
Remember how the flashbacks showed us that Ice-Pick Joe was really superstitious and believed that he had inherited his grandmother's gifts? If you watch the way Joe looks at the shadows and then down at his watch, you can see him hesitate before going to the docks. Was he hearing voices?
Most people agree that the shadows on the wall looked like a child, but I'm not sure that Ice-Pick Joe's hesitation to go to the dock was about his own son. I think the shadows looked more like that kiss flashback when he and Sofia were children. The frame and perspective are almost the same angle, as if they are being watched from below.
Either way, he is clearly making the choice to leave the past behind that brings him to his tragic and senseless death.
I would love to know what happened that took that gentle young Joe who loved to sing and turned him into the tortured stoic we meet in Goncharov, the only affection reserved for his cat, Mrs. Claws.
(I can't help but wonder if they meant for her to be an echo of Le Befana, the Italian winter witch-goddess who sometimes gets translated as Mrs. Claus? After all, his mama's last words to him when she kissed him goodbye were, "If you're a very good boy, maybe La Befana will bring you to a new home on Epiphany morning, a warm home full of food and presents." Poor Joe never finds that home.) You know, I think that was the first time I heard about Le Befana, and that was one of the inspirations that led me down the road to my own version of Mother Christmas.
Does anyone know if it's true that the Ice-Pick Joe prequel got permission to use "Hotel California" as its theme song? I wonder if we're going to get the story of his time as an unskilled laborer in the vineyards of Napa in the 60s? I was never clear about how he got to America and then back to Italy with a small fortune and hitman skills? They're saying it's like Better Call Saul meets the Sopranos meets Twin Peaks. I'm here for it, especially if they can get Cole Sprouse to play young Ice-Pick Joe.
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A Little Goncharov for Thanksgiving
I learned about Goncharov the way I learn about most memes and pop culture, from my teenagers. In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, we had a group chat spring up on Discord that included two family friends who were going to be joining us for the holiday from out of town. One of the topics of conversation turned to Goncharov, the imaginary film around which an active Tumblr fan community had sprung up, as if it had been a real, little-known cult classic from 1973 made by Martin Scorsese.
It became a fun creative exercise—in the middle of the day, one of the kids would send a question about Goncharov: “What do you think about the relationship between Katya and Sofia?” or “What did you make of the clock tower imagery?” or “Goncharov… iphone or android guy?” To which someone else would playfully answer.
This same kind of thing was happening on a massive scale on Tumblr, where artists created movie posters and promotional materials, composers posted songs and soundtracks, people posted deleted scenes and script fragments. There are reviews and academic papers, fictitious Wikipedia and IMDb listings, and A LOT of fan art.
Lynda Carter posted a photo on her Tumblr with Henry Winkler that she captioned, “Me and ‘The Fonz’ at the premiere of Goncharov (1973) at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.”
Discussions popped up about the characters and who would play them in the reboot. Posts were shared hundreds, then thousands of times. A Goncharov (1973) Lore Google Doc and Discord server were created to help keep the content organized.
Our family’s fan-favorite character was Ice-Pick Joe, so I wrote “Musings on Ice-Pick Joe” in between chopping veggies for stuffing and waiting for the sweet potatoes to roast, complete with some AI-generated art. That was four days ago, and the post has been liked and shared more than I anticipated, and I keep thinking about why that is.
Conversations around Goncharov have continued, and I find myself wondering what it is about this moment in time and this type of activity that continues to capture so many people’s imagination and engagement?
Tumblr is a hub for public fandom culture and community in a way that the other social media platforms are not. It’s where you can find discourse and fanfiction/fanart for almost anything.
Still, this is a little different and on a much larger scale. At a time when people are looking for Twitter alternatives, with the stress and joy of holidays approaching, what is drawing so many people in?
We talked about this over Thanksgiving: the way Goncharov allowed people low-stakes permission to create, to play to their particular strengths, to connect with other people, to escape reality for a moment, to build a new community. We talked about the shortcomings and challenges we saw: power dynamics, issues of race, etc.
It’s an evolving experiment, and as such, it has been shaped by the many variables involved and course-corrected each time someone notices a gap or opportunity: What would a musical look like? What if some of the actors had gone on Sesame Street or the Muppet Show? What if Gonzo played Goncharov and Miss Piggy played Katya? What would the remake look like set in 1980s NYC? What recipes might be created for the Goncharov cookbook? (I remember how much fun we had making the Forking Good cookbook.) There really is no end to what people can come up with. I’m waiting to see if Goncharov gets a Tom Gauld comic or a mention on Saturday Night Live.
It seems relevant that role-playing games, both online and tabletop, have recently increased in popularity. Dungeons and Dragons was the cornerstone of Stranger Things, and 50,000 people attended Gen Con (tabletop game convention) in 2022. It’s not my world, although I’ve watched the joy my kids take in it. My energy goes into writing, but I can absolutely appreciate the fun of playing together.
As a writer, I walk around with worlds in my head, but I don’t get to share them until they get published. Something like Goncharov, which was not an intellectual property “owned” by anyone, gives people permission to imagine and play.
I think it speaks to a need we have an human beings to experience connection, joy, wonder, and hope. We've always had those needs. People have been gathering around fires or tables, telling stories, for thousands of years.
Today, the hearth may be a computer or a phone, but the desire is not that different. My November began with the publication of Mother Christmas, my graphic novel, the secret origin of the Santa Claus story which is rooted in the ancient Muses, whose gifts inspire humanity. One of the questions my story attempts to answer is: Where does inspiration come from?
If we look at Goncharov we can see that inspiration comes from so many places. So much is possible when people given themselves permission to play, to shrug off the inner critics and outer trolls, and to imagine for a moment a different world that they have a part in creating. That is such a powerful and compelling idea.
Stories remind us that we are not alone, that we share struggles, and that we can overcome obstacles. There are so many challenges in the world right now.
Maybe Goncharov is a lens through which people are seeing themselves and each other, reminding us how much fun it is to make-believe and how powerful it can be to have a shared image of the world.
The first step in creation is imagining. Exercising that muscle, allowing ourselves to play and tell stories and make art is a worthwhile one, and I think it's one that we need to survive. The Goncharov phenomenon gives me hope, because if we can have this many people put their energy into creating a whole world around Goncharov, just imagine what else is possible?
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the two sides of the internet i'm on at all (tumblr and tiktok) are absolutely fuckin wild right now.
because on one side, we have an entire website writing and contributing to a completely fictional martin scorcese movie that came from a goddamn shoe
and on the other side, we currently have the world's largest game of pretend going on, featuring dabloon commerce and various other shenanigans conducted strictly by cats
maybe the internet is okay sometimes
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