GRGR (8) 154.12-155.3

[Michael D. Workman]

Let's grab this Bull by the horns...(All apologies, TRP. But you've earned
it!) We will try not to be too hard on you. I will be providing a summary,
line-by-line dissemination and general vicissitude shall reign. It's
Workman's Wake, baby, and P-Land looms large on the field. Here are my
problems and solutions:

154.12 "In the Studentenheim there's no heat..." They are in a "student's
hostel."

154.13-15 "A smell of cabbage, old second Reich, grandmothers' cabbage, a
lard smoke has been found, over the years, some détente with the air that
seeks to break it down..."

He boil my first cabbage, make it awfully hot,
But when he put in the bacon, oooh, you know it overflow the pot.
--Bessie Smith, "Empty Bed Blues"

154.19 "In a damp nest of Die Faust Hoch,"  German: "The Raised Fist"
(GRC): "A fictional leftist magazine (named, perhaps, for the raised-fist
salute of American radicals-and especially dissident blacks-of the
sixties). There is an echo here of _Die Fahne Hoch_, the tune that became
known in Nazi Germany as the Horst Wessel Song." See:
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/gallery/pg18/pg7/pg18754.html

154.20-21 "Her eyelashes make enormous shadows on the upper curves of her
cheeks." This is a caricature and a clearly cinematized viewpoint, a
dramatic angle wherein she (or her eyelashes) appear giant. Her present
stature is increased and is perhaps, in a way, terrible.

154.24-26 "Does he know what it means for a woman born under the Crab, a
mother, to have all her home in a valise? She has a few marks with her,
Franz has toy rockets to the moon." (GRC): "Leni was born under the
astrological influence of Cancer (the Crab: June 21-July 22). Like her
husband, Franz, who is a Pisces, Leni is also a "water person." And it is a
desire for all-inclusiveness symbolized in the water sign that stands
behind her uncertainty over "the nasty earth sign belligerence" of her
lover, Peter Sachsa, for earth-sign persons are supposed to be known as
"the most critical or exacting" of the four types." Among the water signs,
Cancer are supposed to have a strong sense of possession, and this is why
Leni's deserting Franz with just "one valise" seems out of character.
Cancer is also a very maternal sign-on the body it rules the breast-so it
underscores leni's concerns for her daughter." Ah, yes. The Crab. Tom
Cruise. My dad. It is better to have Uranus in Cancer than to have Cancer
in Uranus.

CANCER (June 21 - July 22)
You are sympathetic and understanding of other people's problems. They
think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why
you'll never make anything of yourself.  Most welfare recipients are Cancer
people.

154.30-31 "some nasty earth-sign belligerence that will rise up in Peter
now and then..." See above.

154.34-36 "tranquil evenings of her Piscean husband, swimming his seas of
fantasy, death-wish, rocket-mysticism-Franz is just the type they want."
(GRC): "A winter sign (February 19-March 20), Pisces or the Fishes is a
sign of death and endings, the twelfth and last house of the astrological
year. Pisces individuals are thought to yearn for a dissolution of self and
a movement toward wholeness in the abstract."

155.3 "another Ufa masterpiece, token La Bohéme student" Not enough can be
said about Ufa. But here's a snippet from their website at
http://www.ufa.de: "Turn on the television in Germany, and the first
program you watch is likely to have been created by the UFA Film & TV
Production. Nearly every channel, public and private, is broadcasting UFA
productions, whether they be TV movies, soap operas, series, documentaries
or feature-length movies, making UFA an undisputed leader in German
television. This growing success follows only 80 years of cinematic
tradition, at the beginning of which the old Universum Film-AG established
a European film tradition with names like Fritz Lang,  Billy Wilder and
Marlene Dietrich and a long list of film classics, including _The Blue
Angel_, _Münchhausen_, _Metropolis_ and others."

"Reminiscent of this tradition, in 1964, the Bertelsmann Group purchased
the UFA name and created the production group which operates today under
the UFA label. Since January 1997, the holding of the UFA Film & TV
Production is the CLT-UFA in Luxemburg, a joint venture of Bertelsmann and
Audiofina. Today CLT-UFA is one of the most important media companies in
Europe."

"UFA Film & TV Production The UFA Film & TV Production with the affiliates
UFA Fernsehproduktion, UFA Film Production, Westdeutsche Universum-Film in
Cologne, UFA Film Munich, Grundy UFA, UFA International and UFA
Entertainment are well known for their know how in producing popular series
and high quality TV movies since 30 years." 

"In 1996 and 1997 UFA productions won in summary 25 awards such as
Adolf-Grimme awards  (best in German television), _Goldener Löwe_, (golden
lion), _Telestar_ (given from ZDF and ARD) or _Blauer Panther_, the
Bavarian Television award."

"Creating three of the country's four daily soaps, the UFA company Grundy
UFA is the leading european producer in this field. _Good Times - Bad
Times_, Gemany's very first soap opera which dominates the market with up
to 6 million viewers for RTL, for whom the UFA also produces _Indoors_
which, likewise, has become a daily success."

"Grundy UFA is continuing to expand the genre with_Forbidden Love_ on ARD,
which holds the highest market shares of all soaps, and the new weekly
_Behind Bars_ ( RTL)."

"International activities: UFA is proud to have completed a $90 million
cooperation agreement with Paramount and Procter & Gamble. Working with a
Hollywood studio in the production of made-for-television films gives the
German film and TV industry a boost while creating an opportunity for UFA
to create products that are for broadcast on both sides of the Atlantic. On
the European side, UFA benefits from the strength of its holding, the
CLT-UFA. UFA produces between two or three international coproductions a
year. The last important deals were _Hostile Waters_, a submarine thriller
that was coproduced with HBO and the BBC in 1996 and _Disaster at the
mall_, the first coproduction with Warner, produced in December 1997, both
productions were made in Babelsberg."

"UFA in Babelsberg: The headquarter of UFA in Babelsberg is part of a media
focal point where a number of firms, several of which exist in partnership
with UFA, can benefit from one another's services and ideas. UFA's
international coproductions include _Catherine the Great_, _Ice Princess_
and _Star Command_, which were all produced in Babelsberg."


Cheers,

Michael Workman, Proprietor
Underworld Used Books
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