Absinthe and Pessoa

I grew up thinking a couple of maladies were expected of a writer - TB and absinthe.
I seem to have skipped the TB. Absinthe was passing me by but I don't think it ever became illegal in Portugal. We tried ordering before dinner in Lisbon's 'Restaurante Martinho da Arcada'. The waiter advised waiting to have it as a digestiv instead, or else be slaughtered. It's 70% proof, down from the 90% of yore (still available in the Netherlands, according to the waiter). He reckoned that the 90% accounted for the odd mental condition of Pessoa, seen in pictures on the walls.
Pessoa was a poet, but beyond that he is an icon in the city. See his table in the picture, preserved as a shrine under his photo, where he came nightly after his day job as a translator, to drink his absinthe and write. In his trilby and his round spectacles, his image is all over the city - stencilled as graffiti, in paintings in Sintra library, as statues, as tile decoration.
We shared that dinner with the Pessoa Society, who meet and eat and drink in the restaurant once a month. It was a good mix of ages, all standing and drinking and applauding the memory of the man after hearing readings and speeches. It's touching to see writers remembered so thoroughly and clearly.
And the absinthe? Boy. No wonder Pessoa only published one book in his lifetime. The rest were composed throiugh different voices and alter egos and found in a trunk under his bed when he died. The throat disappears as you swallow, and the green stuff vaporizes the brain.