Fernando Pessoa: My Social Media

 

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 these voices as parts of an overall personality.

Pessoa continued: "There have always been people trying to psychoanalyse me and saying I have multiple personality disorder. Hey, wake up guys, I’m just self curating. It may be quite an extreme version but I was there first. But as the decades have gone on its become harder and harder. Now I find that I am being curated by the heteronyms." 

In other words, different aspects of the personality are promoting themselves and becoming increasingly competitive. 

One can appreciate this would be discombobulating. No wonder Pessoa is working his way through a number of strong looking espressos. 

Pessoa proceeded to give us some examples of how different characters want to use different media and that they always want to be in control. Too many of them are "bloody poets" he said. And you know how tiresome they can be when they don't feel appreciated. 

It’s very draining he said with that kind of fatalism which is so striking in Portuguese. The social media accounts need managing and he was constantly being asked for exclusivity. 

He was particularly concerned that given the silent nature of many of the heteronyms and their unwillingness to have any conversations other than internal ones, the apartment was becoming littered with slips of paper left surreptitiously asking him to change things to be benefit of one heteronym. Given his writing style this could have disastrous consequences and could make the task of future editors even more difficult. Not only would they be rooting around his apartment they would have to sort even more wheat and chaff. 

At this point Pessoa looked slightly nervous and asked us to make clear that the use of the word chaff was in no way a commentary on the poetic output of the Chevalier de Pas. These aristos were incredibly touchy. 

In response to what was intended to be a helpful suggestion he grudgingly accepted that Andre Breton and the surrealists might be prepared to step in to help if required given their expertise with collage. 

More generally, though, Pessoa contented himself by pointing out the irony that these adepts in social media felt the need to curry favour by aping his techniques. That seemed to be about the extent of what still passed for authorial control.

The conversation took a darker turn yet at the mere mention of passwords. Your interviewer became seriously concerned that the author looked sufficiently aghast that he might have felt the need to invent another persona on the spot to deal with the stress.

Then there was TikTok and Instagram Reels (ever the modernist, Pessoa is on trend). "The thing is the posts are there and then they’re gone. The heteronyms are asking me as the author what someone else has said and whether they need to comment on it. We've had the most terrible arguments over Instagram Stories. I had in the end I just had to ask everyone to make copious use of tagging."

Pessoa added that this led to some fairly acid asides that if he stopped inventing new characters it would be easier to keep up. New characters are clearly a safety valve of a kind but they do just store up more problems for the future. 

The intra-textual commentary by one heteronym on another is clearly particularly sensitive. After all part of the point of being a heteronym is that you can engage in a critique of your fellows. But there have to be some rules. Pessoa said that there had been some deeply unflattering photos on Instagram that had nearly led to voices actually being used. Thankfully it was mostly kept to paper. 

A more recent development was that some of the heteronyms were using auto translate. Previously Pessoa had been able to constrain them all to Portuguese but now he even had strange sounding Scots dialects cropping up. 

He added, looking momentarily as if he might again feel the need to break into an impromptu bout of fado, that auto translate tends to struggle when applied to a slight Glaswegian accent. He regretted that the engineer had taken that work experience abroad but he had been headstrong. Now he was unintelligible.

Pessoa said that he found himself retreating to the Cafe Brasiliera more and more and pretending that there was poor connectivity. When asked he said he was Anon, Charles Robert Anon (I envisaged him saying this in the style of James Bond). 

He still worked best with Bernardo Soares who was an accountant of sorts and approached these issues with a touch less emotion as long as he was allowed to wander around Lisbon and not do much work. The trouble now was that with images circulating everywhere even Soares was complaining the being a flaneur wasn't what it used to be. He might even need to spend more time in the office.

A more recent gambit to try to tamp down the competition was to put everyone on TV. There had been discussions about a version of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. "We thought about calling it (rather  grandiloquently in my opinion) "Promenading with Pessoa’s Personas" said Fernando. Sadly it came to nothing. 

"The producers felt there that there were just too many of us who were keen precisely on hiding our light under a bushel. But really the escalator pitch was the coup de grace. Frankly there were just too many of us trying to get onto the escalator and it become a physical challenge as much as anything else. I had to stop things before anyone was hurt. Physically. Psychologically though I think there was damage."

At this point he did indeed break out into fado. 

There is only so much saudade that anyone can take.  

The Big Reveal

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 ripe fruit. He wanted blue cheese. He wanted metal cutlery. But he knew he would have to wait. There was no-one to give them the third degree, but they were European - and no-one had to know. 

The broad on the sat nav said: turn right, drive 250 miles. 

She sounded reassuring. He wasn’t buying it. 

They drove without ceasing. The mountains came closer, rising above them as the car bounced around the bends of the foothills. They were bunnies in a can. 

That afternoon, they arrived at the trail head. They felt they had just escaped stir. There was no action. The few vehicles scattered around the lot looked moribund. That was all. They quickly gathered their rags and the sacs and took a bunk through the trees.

The ground rose quickly. The maps said the path was short. They didn’t say it was steep, rocky, full of tree roots and fallen timber and skittering backwards and forwards across the side of the hill.

The ground rose even quicker. They had a mighty sweat now. There were old mine workings on the side of the valley. Who would work up here? The place seemed godforsaken. 

The ground rose vertically. They were going straight up the side of the mountain. The breathing came in gasps now like those proper lungers in the hospital, the heart pounded, the body ached. If they didn’t reach better ground soon, they would lose the light and then themselves in the block field that loomed above them.

Finally, he didn’t know how or when, it levelled off a bit. They just wanted to lie down. Any flophouse would do. 

Now there was a lake with a fringe of trees. The ground was hardly good. But it was good enough.

 

They broke out the tent and the stove and cooked up a meal. It was dusk and the lake looked cold and hostile. The peaks were jagged. They looked like they’d cut you as soon as look at you. 

As the temperature fell, they shivered in their sleeping bags but the tiredness was overwhelming. The head doctors would have had something to say about their situation but they were too jingle-brained to care.

They were behind the eight ball and no mistake.

What would the morning bring?

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DDT and coffee. That’s what the morning brought.

At least the coffee tasted better out of the jerry can than it had in Vegas. The midges were hovering over the lake but only a dope would trust them. No one wanted to be the fall guy for the mosquitos and the deet was a lollipop; you’d trust it in the jungle to stop you going off your nut.

The next question was breakfast. There were no eggs. Hard boiled or otherwise. It was porridge or muesli. There was only milk powder and to his mind that meant muesli. For once it was safe. They were away from prying eyes. They could eat the muesli without putting a curse on themselves. In Vegas it would have been a different story. Chin music would have been certain. Likely the furniture would have been busted up. The yanks didn’t appreciate the muesli eaters. 

They brought out the maps. Now the sun was coming up. They needed to set off soon so they could rest up later. 

They found where they were. Shaver Lake. It felt an appropriate name for what had happened the day before. Now the sun was out. The tent was drying the place looked almost friendly. But they needed to work out how to get from the P.C.T to the J.M.T. If they didn’t make it then they would be bedding down in Palookaville and all the acronyms and abbreviations in the world wouldn’t help them.

There was only one problem. The maps didn’t match. He’d thought this in Vegas but then they’d had more on their minds then than some charts. The fancy pants view was that it couldn’t be far. The flat truth was they didn’t know. They decided to keep it buttoned and hope that they didn’t end in a jam. King’s Canyon was where the water was; and they needed that water. 

The path was good for once. The air was cool and they even managed some wisecracks about the hop heads who couldn’t even bring the right maps. They remembered the story of the wise guys found half dead on a mountain who claimed that they had a map. It turned out to be of Birmingham. England not Alabama.

They were off the map and off the grid. There was no need to get gummed up. Just put one foot in front of another. These were the smooth angles of the walking business. 

Behind them the mountains rose like the Alps. In fact, they were the Alps. They remembered the journey from the Dolomites and how they had become separated from their colleagues. At Verona they had taken the Birmingham plane. Just Alabama not England. 

Had it been rigged? Who knew. They’d find out when they reached Bishop. If they reached Bishop. And that assumed that they found their way from the P.C.T to the J.M.T and then to the B.P.T. Abbreviations made him nervous.

The day spread out before them. There were meadows now they were out of the trees. It must have been 9,000 feet. 

The land started to fall away; gently at first and then steeply. They had been walking for hours. They stopped for some cheese with no taste and some hard fruit. Even up here there was no point taking a chance with the stash of camembert. If someone got wind of that the best they could hope for would be to be taken for being French. 

By the late afternoon they were out on their feet. Getting back on the map should have meant the day was taped but after the third Cliff Bar they were pie eyed and that wasn’t to do with the booze. Finally round a bend and up a rise the river opened out. They were at King’s Canyon. 

Now they had the lowdown on how these maps worked. They were where the P.C.T met the J.M.T. Tomorrow they would head off up higher boosted by the new acronym. But for tonight they would park their bodies, eat their fill and watch the sunset go down in the best flophouse in the world.

 

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Blue. The sky not the mood. 

Although it was bright enough to make your head hurt. 

They might be entering bear country, but they had no kick with the rules here. Any wrecking crew would have their work cut out in this territory so they should have a clear run up to the pass over the next few days. Quite how anyone would bring any wheels up here was a mystery for greater minds than theirs.

They stowed the tent and set off through the trees. Redwoods towering above, cool in the shade. A few miles on the trail took a turn. And so did they. 

The river was wide even if the flow was slow, but you’d be sitting on dynamite if you lost your footing and took a tumble downstream. Probably just a dunking but even so. 

It didn’t help that there were some dames on the other side dangling their getaway sticks in the water. No one wanted to look like they were having a wing ding whilst going base over apex in the stream with them looking on. 

It was hard to walk over those mossy stones without seeming pie-eyed. This was one for slow freight. There was no point giving anyone an easy laugh or throwing confetti around like it mattered. 

On the other side they were on the up and up. Literally. The path, such as it was, just went up and up. 

The temperature rose through the day to the high 30s and in the afternoon and they were up around 10,500 feet gradually coming out of the trees onto the open rock. 

The landscape was huge but it didn’t matter how much lacquer you put on it, this was tough going. It would be just swell when it stopped.

But they didn’t know just how swell. 

 

However licked you were, this place could bring you back to life. It took all the tricks.

They cooked up a stew and waited for the sun to go down. As the light dropped and the temperature fell the mountains started to turn colour like the blush on an orange. They hollered and their squawks echoed around the valley. As the shadows increased, they were drunk as lords with no sign of a speakeasy. 

They were out on the roof of the world in the magic hour.

 

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Cerulean. That was the fancy pants word for the colour of the sky.

It was a good day to take a flutter at the pass. Calm and cloudless. It would be hotter than hell but if they made monkeys of themselves, they would just have to take a good long stare in the mirror. 

They relaxed into their muesli but as they put the gear into the packs the nickel finally dropped. They had too much food. That would spring the trap, goons or no goons. Only English people carried too much stuff. They’d need to palm some of it off onto the spreadsheet guys. Those were the types who calculated the weight they carried down to the last gram and ended up looking like bronzed beanpoles on pipe stems. The ones who cycled half-way across California and then ran around the P.C.T for a relax. 

The pass would be a good place to spot them. Shades, baseball caps, vests - and ridiculously small packs. They were always hungry though. That was their weak spot.

They crossed the water on the boulders. Even someone out of their noddle could manage that kind of duck soup.

The way sloped upwards to the lip of the next valley. It was greener and the ground started to flatten out. Something big was coming.

It turned out that this was the real harvest time. The doozy. The acme.

This was time to grab a little air and take it all in. Meadow and mountain in perfect combination set against that deep California blue and with more to come. 

They carried on, breathing easily now. The head doctors should send their patients up here. It could calm down a dervish doing figure eights.

The valley bent round to the right up towards the next level.

The old Italian guy had written about Paradise too. Maybe they were looking at it now. 

Hell might be in Vegas. Paradise in turned out was just half-way up to heaven.

 

They could see the pass too. More miles than it looked but what could stop them now? Even the cheese tasted better.

They’d had the Big Reveal. Now they could even face the Big Sleep if that’s what it came to.

As they left the meadows they were back on the rock. It started to look like a moon scape. Or what they thought a moon would look like. Either way it was scree and block fields. The air was thinner. 

Then they were at Wanda Lake. The water was freezing but the bugs were swarming. They drifted with the tide past that one.

Steps became slower and breathing deeper. Then John Muir Pass at 12,500 feet. The J.M.T and the P.C.T. reunited.

Sure enough, there were some spreadsheet guys up there. Sure enough, they looked ready to eat the food straight out of the packet. 

This was some kick. A Cliff Bar to celebrate then it was downhill for the rest of the day. 

Walking into the California blue with a campfire song in the heart. 

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Only a sourpuss could fail to appreciate that it was better to be going downhill than uphill in the heat of the afternoon. 

Careening down the trail could make any punk feel like a real high roller. Not that they were always careening. Sometimes they were just sitting, shooting the breeze in whatever shelter could be found on the hill. 

There was no point burning the road, particularly around the switchbacks which could make the legs go one way and the noddle the other and leave you wandering about like you were still searching for your sea legs on an ocean liner.

As the afternoon drew on, they were back down at the tree line and could look for a place to put up for the night just short of where the B.P.T junction with the P.C.T would likely be. That was a powerful combination of acronyms and they needed to be rested up for the B.P.T that would take them to the highest point of the trail and then down the pass towards Bishop.

The woods offered a range of accommodation and they chose a place close to the stream. That campfire sure seemed alluring now, so they set to work building it with a lattice of brushwood inside a ring of rocks. It took immediately. There were some fallen tree trunks to sit on and some gourmet packet food on the plates. The Baden Powell version of the high life. 

The local wildlife seemed interested in joining in too. Some deer nearby in the meadow clearly had their number and were happy to ham it up looking too cute for their own good. They knew venison wasn’t on tonight’s menu.

Finally, they turned in at the end of a big day in the big country and left the deer to their own devices. Tomorrow would take them back up to the land of the moon. For now though they could just sleep beneath it and the myriad stars that dotted a sky that had the dark sheen of fresh indigo. 

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Azure. That was another fancy pants word for the colour of the sky. At dawn, with the tree canopy, the effect was like a giant aquamarine peacock bestriding the world.  

They were going to need to strut their stuff like a peacock today too and high tail it up to the top of the pass and then all the way down as far as it went. There would be plenty of time for preening once the ascent was over. 

They blew their cover early and headed off down the hill towards the B.P.T. junction. This was a walk in the woods, but it would be over all too soon. As they turned left at fork it would be up for the rest of the morning. 

After a couple of hours climbing, they were beside a waterfall. 

 

Maybe there would be a meadow of sorts where the ground evened out above the cascade. As it turned out this was no coffee and doughnut meadow. This was a real fine joint spreading right out between the serrated peaks with the stream that fed the waterfall running through the middle and the whole thing lousy with small flowers in a rainbow array.

 

The view deserved a Cliff Bar. These would be the last green things they saw this side of Bishop Pass. 

Leaving the meadow, they moved off up to the left and could see the land becoming harsher and bleaker with the bare white rock the colour of a bleacher in some dead end resort at the close of summer. 

Now they were back on the moon. They could give it the up and down but there was no escaping the fact that this would be a slog all the way to the top. The air was thinning out once again. They sounded like someone who was on forty gaspers a day. 

The hill was playing with them. Tricking them constantly into thinking that they were nearly finished when there was just more rock ahead with that pure blue sky and the occasional stretch of water to fool them like some desperate crusader at Hattin searching for lake Tiberias.

They arrived at the pass at 13,000 feet with hardly a fanfare. There was a small sign which looked as wind-blown as they felt. And that was it. The way down looked steep at the top but would soon level out past a run of lakes. 

Any of those lakes would have had them hopping back in Europe. Here they populated the valley in all their fineness and serenity. They were quite the sight. 

The afternoon heat was high. They passed a few walkers starting out on their way up and smiled to think what lay ahead for those boys. But they didn’t show their hand, just smiled encouragement and carried on down the trail towards the way out. 

By now they were desperate for petrol fumes. Not like some hop head but to know that the trail head was near and that the packs could be dropped. 

They’d have to tighten the screws a little on some drivers to hitch a lift into town. This might be the moment to bring out the English accents which had a most unusual effect, particularly on dames. It seemed that even without the floppy hair, or indeed any hair, that accent just had some people weaker at the knees than an entire bottle of hooch or six days in the Sierra. 

The ride safely arranged they sat back and breathed in the sirocco of hot air that blew in through the open windows and could dry the throat quicker than a skinful of bourbon. 

When they tipped out in Bishop the sidewalk was hotter than a griddle-pan just off the stove. They still needed a final ride to the trail head to pick up the car and the rest of the gear. 

Time for those accents again. And fancy meeting someone who had been to college in England too.

She has a good hard laugh when she heard where they’d started out. Only the real crazies go straight up the mountain to Shaver Lake. Little wonder they hadn’t seen anyone else.

When they were back in Bishop there was just time to line up the hotel and head for the burger bar which seemed to be the high class joint in town.

They were so desperate they ordered a root beer. That didn’t taste so good. But the cans of Sierra Nevada were on the way too for which they would happily have paid twenty large. Each.

Finally then, they sat on a bench on the outskirts of town as the sun went down behind the hills they had walked for the past week and chewed on their burgers, washed down with the very finest, coldest, beers in the history of the whole wide world.