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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾

@acfick72.bsky.social

1.4K followers 550 following 2.3K posts

Reader; Emperor of Solitude; self-ironising Don of #NorthJozi; Anarchosyndicalist Czar of All Tolstoyan Russian Multiverses; House Fuller-Hallim; Mr Havisham. 🤴🏽📚🤓📖📝☕️🏉🎾🎞 👨🏽‍🌾🌍 Inept food garden volunteer losing hearing and sight. No performative 'twarring'.

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 19d

Spring morning, October in #NorthJozi: jacarandas in bloom in the street below the garden of the #LateImperialLibrary.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖☕️👓🌳🍃🌍☀️

Jacaranda trees in bloom form the tree canopy in thr original northern suburbs of Johannesburg on a clear spring morning.

Bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname in room with a sofa and a plain pine table; a cup of coffee, a pair of spectacles, and Hilary Mantel's memoir can be seen on the table. The Calendario Romano hangs on the left of the frame showing a monochromatic photograph of a man in priest's garb wearing a cappello romano in Rome.

Photograph of the main study of the Late Imperial Library showing a very untidy and cluttered large desk, shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname, a portable typewriter, and the Calendario Romano open to October showing an attractkge your man in a priest's garb in front of Roman stonework.

Shelves of fiction alphabetised by author surname in the Late Imperial Library, with volumes by Paul Monette, L. M. Montgomery, and Toni Morrison in the foreground, and against the far wall, works by John Updike and Gore Vidal (among others) through the oeuvres of Edmund White, Patrick White, and Colson Whitehead.

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 3h

"Fenton!!!" 😂

a man is running in a grassy field with cars in the background

Alt: GIF of the man running after his dog wildly pursuing red deer fleeing before him in Richmond Park as cars pass on the road in the background. In the original video the man is calling after his dog: "Fenton! Fenton! Jesus Christ!"

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾

Democracy Now! @democracynow.org · 21h

Hurricanes Should Be Named After Fossil Fuel Firms: Mikaela Loach, Jamaican British Climate Activist

Climate Activist Mikaela Loach: Name Hurricanes After Fossil Fuel Firms

Jamaica remains in a state of emergency after being battered by Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest Atlantic cyclones in history. The Category 5 storm slammed into Jamaica on Tuesday with 185-mile-per-hour winds, and the extent of the damage is not ...

www.democracynow.org

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 4h

On the slope of the crest of the Witwatersrand just south of the Westcliff: a beautiful spring day with birdsong and the buzz of insects in #NorthJozi.

🌳🪻🐦‍⬛🐝🐛🐜🐞🌍🌥

Jacaranda trees in bloom among other trees in Johannesburg's massive urban forest north of the ridge of the Witwatersrand—just north of the city centre, the old mining magnate estates turned into suburbs—against a blue sky dappled with cirrus clouds.

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 16h

Opinions do not require understanding, or even research, and are certainly not equivalent to knowledge based on critical study and reflection. To Baudrillard's warning about the terror of more and more information and less and less meaning, add misinformation and disinformation, for worse opining.

Extract from NICE RACISM: HOW PROGRESSIVE WHITE PEOPLE PERPETUATE RACIAL HARM by Robin DiAngelo (2021)

Critical thinking goes beyond simply having a different opinion; critical thinking is the result of gaining a more informed perspective by engaging with evidence, study, practice, and multiple layers of complexity. Having an opinion is not predicated on any of this: we are not
required to have an actual understanding of an issue before forming an opinion. That does not mean that superficial opinions do not have strong emotions associated with them; indeed many are held and expressed quite passionately. Unfortunately, this passion often grants
uninformed opinions more legitimacy by those who are also uninformed on the issue, and cows those who are informed into silence, wanting to avoid conflict and endless debate.

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 22h

Tremens factus sum ego et timeo,
dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira.

Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra.

Dies irae, dies illa, calamitatis et miseriae,
dies magna et amara valde.

[…]

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna
in die illa tremenda.
▫️Giuseppi Verdi, 1874

a man with a beard and a gray shirt is standing in a dark room .

Alt: GIF from KALEIDOSCOPE (2023) showing a grey-haired and -bearded Giancarlo Esposito as Leo Pap, wearing a grey top walking in slow-motion towards the observer.

media.tenor.com

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 1d

¡Verdad!

Film still from Pedro Almodóvar's MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS (1988), showing Carmen Maura as Pepa Marcos appearing on a television set in an advertisement for a laundry detergent (Pepa is watching the television waiting for the news when the advertisement show), and her tagline for the product is '"Ecce Omo". It's unbelievable' (because she has just laundered the bloody sheets left by her serial killer son and there is no trace of blood or viscera, as two policemen have just told her).

Fotograma de película de MUJERES AL BORDE DE UN ATAQUE DE NERVIOS (1988) de Pedro Almodóvar, que muestra a Carmen Maura como Pepa Marcos apareciendo en un plató de televisión en un anuncio de un detergente para la ropa (Pepa está viendo la televisión esperando las noticias cuando aparece el anuncio), y su lema para el producto es "Ecce Omo". Es increíble' (porque acaba de lavar las sábanas ensangrentadas dejadas por su hijo asesino en serie y no hay rastro de sangre ni vísceras, como le acaban de decir dos policías).

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 1d

Mood.

Film still from Patricia Rozema's 1999 film adaptation of Jane Austen's MANSFIELD PARK (1814), showing Nobel laureate Harold Pinter as Sir Thomas Bertram and Sheila Gish as Mrs Norris meeting young Fanny Price for the first time. Sir Thomas says, "We must prepare ourselves for gross ignorance".

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 1d

When rain clouds gather: strong gusts but no cloudburst over #NorthJozi.

🌡🌬🌫🌍

Thunder clouds rolling in from the south over Johannesburg's old northern suburbs.

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Reposted by AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾

Elizabeth Scupham @allchannels.bsky.social · 2d

“He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 1d

Indeed. One no longer writes anything valuable on the laptop; it is written longhand with a pen, corrected and revised with a differently coloured pen, then typed, then revised in pencil, then retyped. One lives like one did in 1989. Fuck copiloting and "assisting": one is literate, one writes.
🫅🏾📝

Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 2d

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 1d

Went to market in #NorthJozi to get bananas; got these and crisps and tofu instead . . .

Reposted by AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾

Oliver @oliver48.bsky.social · 2d

"Some absolutely outstanding work by activists to sneak these wraparounds onto copies of the Daily Mail in shops."
via Ian Almond

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Reposted by AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾

Story Group @storygroup.bsky.social · 2d

Fran Lebowitz at "The Debt" New York screening (with Toni Morrison) - BOTD
💙📚 #LiteratureSky

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 3d

Mood.

a man with glasses and a beard is smiling in front of a hbo max sign

Alt: GIF of grey-haired Mark Ruffalo, wearing a checked shirt, with glasses and a beard, shaking his head and moving his hand to scratch the back of his head.

media.tenor.com

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 3d

Sunday afternoon tea in the #LateImperialLibrary listening to Yo-Yo Ma as rain clouds gather over #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖🫖☕️🗝🚪🌳🪻🌍☁️

Grey clouds to the north in Johannesburg just north of the crest of the geological Witwatersrand; bottles on a window sill.

A wall of bookcases with fiction alphabetised by author surname from Margaret Atwood through Aldo Busi.

Bookcases along left and right walls, and two bookcases in the middle of the room, all packed with fiction alphabetised by author surname; on the right from Pat Barker through André Brink; in the centre from A.S. Byatt througg Willa Cather; on the left Daša Drndić through Tariq Goddard.

Bookcases along a wall with fiction alphabetised by author surname, from Rachel Cusk through George Gissing.

Reposted by AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾

Oliver @oliver48.bsky.social · 4d

"Denmark is making history ... to protect human identity in the age of AI. The new copyright law would grant every citizen full ownership of their likeness — including their face, voice, and body data — ensuring that no AI system or company can replicate or use these without consent."
via Tech Times

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 4d

News reduced to gossip? 🫠

a woman in a fur coat says you all are never gonna believe what i just heard .

Alt: GIF of Delta Burke as Suzanne Sugarbaker in DESIGNING WOMEN (1986-1993), wearing a fur-collared coat over a pink dress, saying "You all are never gonna believe what I just heard".

media.tenor.com

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 4d

On the balcony of the #LateImperialLibrary, having the second Sunday morning coffee—espresso by the mug—digging further into Hesse, enjoying the birdsong and the warm breeze ahead of the thunderstorms forecast for #NorthJozi for the week.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖☕️🗝🚪🌳🌲🪻🌍☀️

A handmade 1950s table serving as a desk, with Hermann Hesse's DEMIAN (1919), a mug of espresso, a portable typewriter, some potted plants, a reading stand, a mini zen garden, and two red plastic toy brick mugs holding stationery. Jacarandas in bloom at the bottom of the garden can be seen through the north-facing windows.

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 4d

I find it so telling that clothing items I bought 25-30 years ago last, still, while items bought in the last 5 years are all already coming apart at the seams (collars, waistbands, sleeve ends, cuffs of trousers). As for shoes . . . 🏚

a man in a plaid shirt is making a yep gesture

Alt: GIF of grey haired and grey-bearded Mark Ruffalo, wearing a checked shirt, looking up, saying, "Yep".

media.tenor.com

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 4d

Drop something 80’s 🖤

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 4d

Nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to follow the path that leads to himself.
▫️Hermann Hesse, 1919

📚💙 #BookSky 📚🖋

Extract from DEMIAN by Hermann Hesse (1919; translated by W.J. Strachan from the German, 1958)

[E]ach one of us must discover for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden as far as he himself is concerned. It is possible never to do a "forbidden" thing and yet be a real villain. And conversely. Fundamentally it is merely a question of complacency! Whoever is too complacent to think for himself and be his own judge manages to accommodate himself to the "shalt nots" as they exist at the present time. It is easy for him. But there are others who are conscious of the commandments in themselves; things are forbidden to them which every man does every day of his life, and other things are permitted to them which are otherwise prohibited. Every man must stand alone.

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 5d

Afternoon tea and cataloguing in the #LateImperialLibrary on a sunny day in #NorthJozi (29 ⁰C; contemplating an Edwardian bathe in the pool later on).

🫅🏾📚🤓💻🗃☕️🗝🚪🌳🪻🌍☀️

Laptop on a cluttered desk, two mugs of tea, a printer, and through the door onto the balcony, bright sunlight onto potted chilli plants.

AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 5d

Not in the way you suggest: one copy is for the Heiress Apparent. 🤣

a man with glasses and a beard has the word yes on his face

Alt: GIF of Mark Ruffalo sporting curly grey hair and a beard, wearing spectacles, saying "Yes".

media.tenor.com

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 5d

One went to buy food in #NorthJozi, but then the people from the pop-up bookshop were back, as one had hoped they would be, and one found these (the Leonard Cohen in the young adult section) new inductees into the #LateImperialLibrary . . .

🫅🏾🛒🛍🥬🫚📚💸🌳🌍☀️

P.G. Wodehouse's BLANDINGS CASTLE AND ELSEWHERE, two copies of Ama Ata Aidoo's OUR SISTER KILLJOY, Slavoj Žižek's TOO LATE TO AWAKEN, Simone de Beauvoir's THE PRIME OF LIFE, and Leonard Cohen's BOOK OF LONGING.

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AC Fick 📚🏉🎾🎞👨🏾‍🏫👨🏾‍🌾 @acfick72.bsky.social · 5d

Indeed. And not just insightful about material wealth (the preoccupation with and lust for it) and its corruption back then and in apartheid South Africa, but also now and in so many other places.

Extract from THE LATE BOURGEOIS WORLD by Nadine Gordimer (1966)

"There's a whole world outside this [...] Shut outside. Kept out. Shutting this in . . . Don't stay inside and let your arteries harden, like theirs [...] What I'm asking you to look out for is—is moral sclerosis. Moral sclerosis. Hardening of the heart, narrowing of the mind; while the dividends go up. The thing that makes them distribute free blankets in the location in winter, while refusing to pay wages people could live on. Smugness. Among us, you can't be too young to pick it up. It sets in pretty quick. More widespread than bilharzia in the rivers, and a damned sight harder to cure."