iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Introduction. “He was a man in his thirties, thin, fairly tall, very hunched when sitting though less so when standing, and dressed with a not entirely unselfconscious negligence.”

Envelope with Introduction printed on it. First page of notepaper which was inside the envelope and reads:

Bernardo Soares

Installed on the upper floors of certain respectable taverns in Lisbon can be found a small number of restaurants or eating places, which have the stolid, homely look of those restaurants you see in towns that lack even a train station. Amongst the clientele of such places, which are rarely busy except on Sundays, one is as likely to encounter the eccentric as the nondescript, to find people who are but a series of parentheses in the book of life.

There was a period in my life when a combination of economic necessity and a desire for peace and quiet led me to frequent just such a restaurant. I would dine at around seven each night and, as chance would have it, I was almost always there at the same time as one particular man. At first I took little notice of him but as time passed he came to interest me.

Second page of notepaper:

He was a man in his thirties, thin, fairly tall, very hunched when sitting though less so when standing, and dressed with a not entirely unselfconscious negligence. Not even the suffering apparent in his pale, unremarkable features added any interest to them nor was it easy to pinpoint the origin of that suffering. It could have been any number of things: hardship, grief or simply the suffering born of the indifference that comes from having suffered too much.

He always ate sparingly and afterwards would smoke a cigarette rolled from cheap tobacco. He would watch the other customers, not suspiciously, but as if genuinely interested in them. He did not scrutinize them as though wanting to fix their faces or any outward evidence of their personalities in his memory, rather he was simply intrigued by them. And it was this odd trait of his that first aroused my curiosity, I began to observe him more closely. I noticed that a certain hesitant intelligence illuminated his features, but his face was

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so often clouded by exhaustion, by the inertia of cold fear, that it was usually hard to see beyond this.

I learned from a waiter at the restaurant that he worked as a clerk in a company that had its office nearby.

One day there was a scuffle in the street immediately outside the restaurant - a fight between two men. The customers all rushed to the windows, as did I and the man I've been descri-bing. I made some banal comment to him and he replied in kind. His voice was dull and tremulous, the voice of one who hopes for nothing because all hope is vain. But perhaps it was foolish of me to attribute so much to my evening companion at the restaurant.

I don't quite know why but after that we always used to greet each other. And then one day, prompted perhaps by the foolish coincidence of us both turning up for supper later than usual, at half past nine, we struck up a casual conversation. At one point he asked me if I was a writer. I said I was. I mentioned the magazine "Orpheu', which had recently come

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out. To my surprise he praised it, indeed praised it highly.

When I voiced my surprise, saying that the art of those who wrote for 'Orpheu' tended to appeal only to a small minority, he replied that maybe he was one of that minority. Anyway, he added, he was not entirely unfamiliar with that art for, he remarked timidly, since he had nowhere to go and nothing to do, no friends to visit and no interest in reading books, after supper he usually returned to his rented room and passed the night writing.

- - Fernando Pessoa

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

381. “Down the steps of my dreams and my weariness, descend from your unreality, descend and be my substitute for the world.”

A strip of film negatives in a protective paper sleeve

The strip of film negatives held up to the light. They show a person standing, and in the last negative, two people standing

The protective sleeve of the film negatives, on which is printed the words

381. Down the steps of my dreams and my weariness, descend from your unreality, descend and be my substitute for the world.

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John Self @john-self.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

64. “Any change in one’s usual timetable fills the spirit with a cold novelty, a slightly discomforting pleasure.”

A Decca 45pm single sleeve which has been cut in two so only the top half remains

The back of this half-sleeve, on which is printed;

“64u

Any change in one's usual timetable fills the spirit with a cold novelty, a slightly discomforting pleasure.

Someone who normally leaves the office at six but one day happens to leave at five, immediately experiences a kind of mental holiday followed almost at once by a feeling bordering on distress because he does not quite know what to do with himself.

Yesterday because I had some business out of the office, I left at four o'clock and by five had completed my errand. I'm not used to being out in the streets at that time and so I found myself in a different city. The slow light on the familiar shopfronts had a sterile sweetness and the usual passers-by walked in a city parallel to mine, like sailors given shore leave the night before.

Since the office was still open at that hour, I hurried back there to the evident surprise of the other employees whom I had already said goodbye to for the day. Back already? Yes, back already. was free to feel again, alone, with those people who accompanied me in all but spirit... It was in a way like being at home, that is, in the one place where one does not have feelings.”

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