AC Fick 📚
LightNews LightNews
banner
acfick72.bsky.social
AC Fick 📚
@acfick72.bsky.social
1.4K followers 570 following 2.4K posts
Reader; Emperor of Solitude; self-ironising Don of #NorthJozi; Anarchosyndicalist Czar of All Tolstoyan Russian Multiverses; House Fuller-Hallim; Mr Havisham.
🤴🏽📚🤓📖📝☕️🌍
An isolate losing hearing and sight in the twilight of this incarnation. Embracing ennui.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
acfick72.bsky.social
AC Fick 📚 @acfick72.bsky.social · 10d
I am too old
to learn the names
of the new killers
This one here
looks tired and attractive
devoted, professorial
He looks a lot like me
when I was teaching
[…]
the hopelessly insane
▫️Leonard Cohen, 2006

Thus we begin November in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝🗝🚪🌳🌍
View into a room lined with books (volumes of fiction alphabetised by author surname, and the ones in frame are from Willa Cather through F. Scott Fitzgerald), a table with two fruit bowls, and a Calendario Romano in the foreground open to November, showing a man dressed as a priest reading a copy of El Pais as light streams in through a window behind him to his right. View into a room lined with books (shelves holding nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname, the volumes that can be seen from Teresa de Lauretis through Todd Gitlin), two cluttered desks, and in the foreground, a copy of the Calendario Romano open to November, showing a very young man dressed as a priest inside a tiled room with a sculpture in a recess in the wall next to a large wooden door behind him. View of two cluttered desks with laptop, typewriter, printer, dictionaries, and bibelots, surrounnded by bookcaaes of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from John Kenneth Galbraith and Eduardo Galeano through Pankaj Mishra and Franco Moretti. View of cluttered desk with dictionaries, CDs, DVDs, stationery, and bibelots, surrounded by bookcases (nonfiction shelved alphabetically by author or editor surname: on the left from Tillie Olsen to Bertrand Russell; in the middle from Theodore W. Allen through Gena Corea; and on the right from Richard Dawkins through Cécile Fabre).
acfick72.bsky.social
Historically, there were even fewer facts. The Previous had all died out in the Something that Happened, a great disaster brought upon themselves by a reckless level of individuality, lawlessness and greed.
▫️Jasper Fforde, 2024

📚💙 📚✒️ #BookSky
Extracts from RED SIDE STORY by Jasper Fforde (2024) 'Let's suppose the RISK map is a correct generalisation of the world's land masses, and the map we have extrapolated from Beck's is a good idea of the shape of our island. Ignore everything you've been taught and ask yourself this: which part of the map looks like a mirrored capital "L" with a bulge on its western side?' Once he said that, no one had any doubt of the most likely candidate, a small island in the centre of the map, dwarfed by everything else that surrounded it. There was an island to the left and a landmass to the right, as might have been observed from the chalk cliffs. 'Great Britain,' said Jane, reading the name written across the island. We stared silently at the map. We'd been told we were the biggest and most important island, but it now looked as though we were geographically . . . insignificant. 'That's a lot of Somewhere Else out there,' I murmured, 'and potentially populated by thousands of Someone Elses'. 'Millions', said Harry, in another huge leap of thought that left us all a little stunned. 'What would they all do?' asked Lucy, but no one had an answer
November 11, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
artsofexistence.bsky.social
“No one had taught us how to be free. We had only ever been taught how to die for freedom.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, "Secondhand Time: An Oral History of the Fall of the Soviet Union".
#BookSky #NobelPrize
November 11, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
agniesz.bsky.social
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
born on this day, 1922

#BookSky
#KurtVonnegut
November 11, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
muzhunter.bsky.social
This @groundup.org.za editorial does a fine job of articulating just how outrageous the gag order against @opensecrets.org.za is. We don't know who gagged them, on what grounds, in which court, or by which judge's ruling. groundup.org.za/article/anon...
Unknown judge in unknown court gags Open Secrets from saying …
This appears to be the most draconian prepublication interdict we have come across
groundup.org.za
November 11, 2025 at 6:36 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
In the law faculty (formerly the education building) of the university where I did my first degree 36 years ago, in a "quad" named for a former chief justice, on a screen advertising the university to itself, I saw a student I taught at a university 900km away selling cars to undergraduates. 😶
a man wearing glasses and a suit is sitting in front of a blue wall
Alt: GIF of Giancarlo Esposito wearing glasses and a brown suit, sitting on a predominantly blue set, pursing hisnkips, blinking alowly, and turning to his right, his expression seeming indicating a combination of ennui and Weltschmerz.
media.tenor.com
November 11, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
openculture.bsky.social
How to Make Roman Concrete, One of Human Civilization’s Longest-Lasting Building Materials
How to Make Roman Concrete, One of Human Civilization’s Longest-Lasting Building Materials
More than a millennium and a half after its fall, we still look back with wonder on the accomplishments of the ancient Roman Empire. Few elements of its legacy impress us as much as its built environm...
www.openculture.com
November 9, 2025 at 7:24 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
What TV show grabbed your attention from episode one?
November 9, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
agniesz.bsky.social
Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
...
But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.

- Anne Sexton, Words
born on this day, 1928

#BookSky
#AnneSexton
November 9, 2025 at 5:08 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
Huriǂoaxa; though some people saw, and others still see, a table . . .

An uncomfortably humid day in the provinces at the southern end of the continent.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝🧊🥃🌳🌍☀️
Photograph of "Table Mountain" taken from one of Cape Town's southern reaches.
November 9, 2025 at 10:48 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
Juggling schedules and managing the imperial diary to conduct 4 interviews each day next week . . . One is depleted. Time to unplug the computer and restore one's spirit to the usual imperiousness with some reading in the #LateImperialLibrary in rainy and stormy #NorthJozi . . .

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝☕️🗝🚪🌳🪻🌍⛈️
Upright student desk with Yugoslav made Olivetti typewriter (1989), bibelots, prints, photographs, and shelves of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname, from Edward Gibbon through Nadine Gordimer, and from Elizabeth Grosz through Eric Hobsbawm. Antares typewriter, mini zen garden, potted plants and toy brick mugs holding stationery on a handmade 1952 geained wood table, backed by a white brick wall and the bottom of windows showing trees at the bottom of the garden. Cluttered main desk with bibelots, stationery, photographs, mobiles, printer, and dictionaries and thesauruses; laptops have been removed and put away. Shelves of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Stephen Donaldson and Fyodor Dostoyevsky through Nadine Gordimer and Günther Grass.
November 7, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
agniesz.bsky.social
The tragedy is not that we are alone, but that we cannot be. At times I would give anything in the world to no longer be connected by anything to this universe of men.

Albert Camus, Notebooks,
born on this day, 1913

#BookSky
#AlbertCamus
November 7, 2025 at 7:02 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
Cold snap in #NorthJozi with jacarandas at the end of their bloom signalling the shift into summer; preparing for a last tour of the provinces; noblesse oblige, and coffee.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝☕️🗝🚪🌳🪻🌍☁️
View of the swimming pool on a cold morning, 14 ⁰C, surrounded by trees. Chillies ripening in a potted bush on the balcony. View of the trees at the bottom of the garden, the jacarndas shedding their purple blooms, with empty bottles of a variety of colours in the foreground. Grey clouds over the north of Johannesburg.
November 7, 2025 at 6:41 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
Mood.
Film still of Frances McDormand from OLIVE KITTERIDGE (2014), saying, “I read your son’s paper. It is lazy, slapdash crap.”
November 6, 2025 at 7:40 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
If you see this, post an egg . . . 🥚
November 6, 2025 at 3:25 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
Full moon over #NorthJozi, 22h00 . . .

🏰☁️🌍🌕
Full moon in a slightly cloudy sky in Johannesburg.
November 5, 2025 at 8:13 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
When one is now so old that the little boy one saw running around the hall at his professor father's inaugural lecture at the end of a continent in one hemisphere (and who asked why his father was dressed as Batman) is now the mayor of Gotham in another hemisphere. Life is deliciously . . .
a man with a beard says " unbelievable " in a hbo max ad
Alt: GIF of Mark Ruffalo with grey hair and a grey beard saying, "Unbelievable".
media.tenor.com
November 5, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
trudolem.bsky.social
“Bioethicists owe a debt to historians who excavated the research scandals of the past,…[but] you can see them at medical institutions everywhere, including your own….you may be repelled by what you see.” @carlelliott.bsky.social www.thehastingscenter.org/what-researc...
What Research Scandals? Welcome to the Bioethics Memory Hole : The Hastings Center for Bioethics
It is striking how many notorious cases of abuses of human research subjects go almost entirely unmentioned in the bioethics literature.
www.thehastingscenter.org
November 4, 2025 at 3:59 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
"But baby, it's [not even going to be] cold outside" (pace Frank Loesser, 1944); so, noblesse oblige, one shall go abroad to smile at babies and ask complete acquaintances, "So what is it you do?"

Morning in the #LateImperialLibrary in #NorthJozi before a day of duty.

🫅🏾📚🤓📖📝☕️🌳🪻🌍☀️
Portable typewriter, mini zen garden, toy brick mugs holding stationery, a reading stand, and potted plants on a table handmade by my father in 1952, and a view into the garden showing trees through windows above a brick wall painted white. Simple pine table in front of bookcases of fiction alphabetised by author surname from Willa Cather through Ernest Gaines. Bowls of fruit, a straw hat, and a pair of spectacles can be seen on the table; also in frame, a handwoven basket from eSwatini, and on the far side, a sofa at the windows blocked by navy curtains. Work desk with laptop, printer, dictionaries, stationery, CDs, DVDs, bibelots, surrounded by bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from Tim Dolin and Jonathan Dollimore through Josephus and James Joyce. Back of the workdesk from the previous photograph surrounded by bookcases of nonfiction alphabetised by author or editor surname from Jonathan Lethem and Gideon Levy through Bertrand Russell and Richard Russo.
November 5, 2025 at 4:23 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
Further mood.
Film still from the original television serial, DALLAS (1978-1991), showing Linda Gray as Sue Ellen Ewing, sitting on a yellow lounger poolside, reading a copy of “Texas Homes”, saying, “Appearances can very often be deceiving.”
November 4, 2025 at 1:20 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
Mood.
Film from Patricia Rozema's 1999 film adaptation of Jane Austen's MANSFIELD PARK (1814), showing Embeth Davidtz as Mary Crawford, in the titular property's parlour, telling Fanny Price, in front of the gathered Bertrams, "I understand your bitterness, but do not direct at me."
November 4, 2025 at 9:38 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
A movie you’ve seen more than 7 times with a gif

🎬💙
November 3, 2025 at 8:23 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
Volver
Con la frente marchita
La nieve del tiempo
Platearon mi sien
Sentir
Que e' un soplo la vida
Que veinte años no es nada
Que febril la mirada y errante la sombra
Te busca y te nombra, vivir
Con el alma aferrada
A un dulce recuerdo
Que lloro otra vez
▫️ Carlos Gardel & Alfredo Le Pera, 1934
a man with a beard wearing a yellow shirt
Alt: GIF from Pedro Almodóvar's DOLOR Y GLORIA (2019), showing Antonio Banderas as the protagonist, bearded and greying, wearing an orange jumper, blowing dust (drugs) off a surface towards the viewer.
media.tenor.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:11 PM
acfick72.bsky.social
Mood.
a woman is talking to another woman in a black and white photo and says `` you don 't ? no . ''
Alt: Monochromatic GIF of Maria Callas in an interview saying, "I forgive, sometimes, but I never forget." The interviewer asks, "You don't?" Callas responds, "No."
media.tenor.com
November 3, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by AC Fick 📚
dancoopcoop.bsky.social
"The US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate."

Not doing very well, America. If having lots of billionaires doesn't improve your country, what's the point?
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Top 10 US billionaires’ collective wealth grew by $698bn in past year – report
Oxfam warns Trump policies risk driving inequality to new heights – but Democrats have also exacerbated wealth gap
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:10 AM
acfick72.bsky.social
A movie you’ve seen more than 7 times with a GIF
November 2, 2025 at 10:13 PM