Museum Hours

  We caught up with the famously reclusive author  in his favourite cafe in Lisboa to discuss just how disquieting he is finding it to have his heteronyms speaking simultaneously on different parts of social media.  Readers will be aware that Pessoa has so far  created about seventy five characters who speak for themselves in different styles. Some could be said to represent different aspects of an overall personality. He has dubbed them heteronyms.  We met in Cafe Brasiliera where he has now had a statue put up outside to allow his fans to take their selfies without bothering him unduly.  "In the past it was so much easier. Pen and ink on some scraps of paper.  I never used to publish anything, just throw it in a cupboard. Now there is stuff out there before I even know." In some respects Pessoa should be comfortable with the idea of self curation. He's been doing it for decades speaking with different voices at different times. Crucially though he has always considered

Vegas. It wasn’t his town. It wasn’t anyone’s town.  That old Italian guy had it right with his rings around hell. This was nothing but a clip-joint full of booze hounds and grifters.  They’d flown in from Phoenix and put up in a two-bit motel on the outskirts, but they needed wheels before they took the run out past Death Valley. So there they were in the diner watching the ball game and listening to the clients bump gums. They put the maps on the bar counter. Three hundred miles before they hit the mountains. They needed a clean sneak the next morning. No clues about where they were going. They hardly knew themselves.  And what if the maps didn’t seem to match up. That was one for the wise heads.  Saturday early they pinned on their diapers and headed down for breakfast. It was quiet as a morgue. Nothing out of place. Plastic. No taste to the food. No smell to the coffee. It looked like a set up. It looked alien. But they had miles to go yet before they reached Area 51.  He wanted ri