It is possible!

It’s Halloween this weekend. I did a quick Google search for “karlheinz stockhausen mask” and nothing came up, so I made one. (Click to enlarge.)


While enjoying your resultant candy haul (which, if you want to be clever, you can separate into seven different categories and then eat by following the score to Plus-Minus), fire up the video-on-demand and take in The Mephisto Waltz, a 1971 bit of devilish goofiness (from the director of Gidget!) featuring Curt Jürgens as a dying concert pianist who becomes very interested in Alan Alda’s hands.



(The score is by Jerry Goldsmith, getting a nice avant-garde warm-up for his music for The Omen series.)

3 comments

  1. The Stockhausen mask looks like one of those “Village of the Damned” kids who grew up rather than got blown up by George Sanders. And though I adore Jerry Goldsmith, his “Omen” soundtrack gives me the “Carmina Burana” giggles.

  2. Dan: Oddly effective, which is, of course, the best kind of effective.

    sfmike: Actually, it's the third “Omen” movie, by far the worst one, that I think has the best score. Goldsmith was one of those composers who seemingly had a sixth sense for knowing when a film was in so much trouble that the producers would simply not have time to notice that the score was an under-the-radar avant-garde provocation. (See also: Escape From the Planet of the Apes.)

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