'my heart has outgrown, like magic, the clamour of painful things...'

horsemouth has transferred his reading affections from performance art (increasingly a book of lists) to the eve of fluxus - billie moves into george maciunas's commune slightly unaware that he is titular head of international art organisation fluxus. they become lovers. there is a fluxwedding (25th february 1978) where they swap the clothes of bride and groom - hollis melton documents it in an accordeon photobook black and white. three months later maciunas dies of cancer.

when maciunas dies (he's a much older man) she is unceremoniously ejected from the movement and the house (horsemouth had forgotten this).she moves penniless to lisbon to write poetry. it is 1979  she struggles with the language (and teaches english (badly) and gets fired), she 'pounds' away at the heavy old school electric typewriter she brought with her, writing a journal. she reads hannah arendt,  she likes patti smith and punk over ginsberg, the beats and the hippies.

'she's a poet' remark her few portuguese friends. she thinks that learning portuguese will rewire her brain.

at first she stays only two years. hollis and the lawyers sort out maciunas's will and billie gets some money. she moves back to the states to go to university and study portuguese. in 1988 she moves back able to speak and read properly, she translates symbolist poet florbela espanca'a desert in flower.

'my heart has outgrown, like magic, the clamour of painful things...'

it's a necessary corrective to the account of fluxus in performance art - the lists of fluxus members and expulsions (beuys, henry flynt, yoko ono).  

a friend is stuck doing some copyediting to survive. there is a question about the wisdom of georg lukacs. horsemouth cannot find his favourite lukacs quote (something hippie-ish about the days when your ways are strewn with stars etc.) but he takes the point that wisdom is ahistorical, a bit mythical.  

there's little doubt that lukacs sees marxism from within the cauldron of its philosophical making (not just hegel but also kierkegaard, fichte) but also of the early debates within it rosa luxemburg etc. he has that overview, and then he does not die he survives to tread carefully despite having authored the hegelo-marxist 'western' heresy. it's tempting to take him for a wise old man. 

lichtheim has little patience with the tap dancing lukacs had to do to stay alive - accusing him of writing as if he'd had a lobotomy. (darn it, it's in lichtheim's bluffer's guide to lukacs but it's not in horsemouth's reduced size book shelves with the other bluffer's guides). 

last night horsemouth was early to bed. today some walking around. maybe some babysitting. 

then back to the grind. a double booked wednesday that horsemouth will have to find a way around. possibly a bit to much face to face and there and back again  for his taste.