iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Autumnal colors ablaze—Washington Square Park/Bughouse Square, Chicago.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

One of those rare human creations that reaches perfection.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This isafter all, myfavoriteEaglessong. Lyin’ Eyes.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Chicago, 9/21/26, under the old Montgomery Wards Building, just S of Chicago Ave, along the river’s East Bank.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Kinzie and Clinton Sts., Chicago, 9/11/26. There is still beauty in this world, sometimes in surprising places.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Me and my Közmatık, from Türkiye. Roasting Anaheim/New Mexico/Hatch chiles. One of life’s simple joys.🌶️

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Today at the post office, the courteous, professional clerk picked out these stamps for me. When I got to her counter, I told her I wanted to buy stamps. She asked whether I had any particular stamps in mind to buy, but I told her I’d like her to pick her favorites for me.☺️💟

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Per Carl Grapentine on WFMT, it’s Stan Freberg’s 100th bday today. I think SNL stole the famous “more cowbell” skit from this novelty song. (Except for Christopher Walken—can’t steal him 🤣.)

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

For reasons inexplicable, I am deeply missing Maurizio Pollini rightly now. Especially his later late LvB.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

I will forever love Trader Joe’s for many things — this luscious bag of the sweetest most perfect nectarines I have ever had being premiere among such things.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

One pleasure of adulthood is appreciating humor that went way over one’s head as a kid. WFMT is airing a Covent Garden production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Gudenov (with Bryn Terfel). Cheers to the late Jay Ward for this brilliance. Slava!

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

My late dad (then 12) and late uncle, (then 16), were at the 1947 All-Star game, in the Wrigley Field bleachers. My dad loved to talk about Johnny Mize’s homer, which landed ~20’ from them. A cherished memory for him—and for me.⚾️💕 www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/01/m...

chicagotribune.com

A look back at when Chicago ballparks have hosted All-Star Games as Wrigley Field prepares for 2027

Chicago hosted MLB’s first All-Star Game in 1933 — and six more have followed since then. Here’s a look back at each of them.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Quattorze de Juillet! 🇫🇷🥖👨‍🎨 Bourges, September 2024.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

What a gorgeous rendition of Brahms’s most wistful short piano piece. Perfect for a warm, Sunny Chicago afternoon. From the late Radu Lupu. I was privileged to see him many times—here in Chicago, as recitalist and soloist with the CSO. He sure “got” Brahms.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

So the Cubs + Reds are tied, scoreless, top 5. ⚾️Damn good game. And I hereby praise The Great American Ballpark. Cincinnati 8/17/21.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

There is nary a morning that goes by where I do not thank the universe for coffee.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

July 4, 2026, Chicago, Kinzie + Clinton. Perhaps my favorite spot for photography and reflection. And, right next door to the erstwhile Blommer Chocolate Factory. 🍫 Ah, memory. Ah, Chicago. Ah, aging infrastructure. Ah, liminal space.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Happy birthday to Leoš Janáček. This Angel LP is my favorite LP ever. Recorded in Chicago’s Medinah Temple. That CSO brass, 1970.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

What wondrous Mid-Summer music, Glenn Gould playing late LvB in his inimitable way. Here the op. 126 bagatelles. His #4 in b minor is too percussive for my ear, but the rest is poetry: the melding of two musical geniuses.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I both love and detest the apparent need for secrecy here. But I accept that it’s necessary. Cf. Get Smart, The Cone of Silence.⚾️🙃

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

The more I listen to Chopin’s mazurkas, the more I am impressed at our beleaguered species’s ability to recognize and cope with our beleagueredness.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

LvB’s op. 126 bagatelles are near and dear to my heart. Glenn Gould’s quirky interpretations I appreciate. One quirky genius interpreting another.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Michigan asparagus. Der Spargel (green). Roasted with lemon, salt, pepper, chile, and olive oil. A cure for whatever ails you. Like Mozart.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

A classic, endlessly irresolvable question. And ultimately pointless: what is your favorite Beatles album? Right now it’s Sgt. Pepper.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

As I age, I see this very late LvB gem as more and more relevant. Certainly one of the most taut, terse, laconic, economical, efficient movements in all of his work.🎻

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Happy bday to Richard Strauss. As I age, I appreciate his wistful, wise genius more and more. And so damn romantic. Like no one else.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Happy bday to Richard Strauss. As I age, I appreciate his wistful, wise genius more and more. And so damn romantic. Like no one else.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

This is so good. I saw a fine play a few weeks ago about Harry Blackmun and Warren Burger, in St. Paul—Courting Harry, by Lee Blessing. ⚾️⚖️🎭

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I’ve got to hand it to CHSN: they’re bringing me back to 1983. I was in law school, 3L, here at Northwestern. The White Sox made the post-season that year. First time a Chicago baseball team had made the post season since 1959, the year I was born. This team — the Chicago White Sox— is dear to me.⚾️

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Happy bday to Robert Schumann. This is my favorite piece of chamber music ever, the Eb piano quintet. And this recording—wow. As to would-be lawyer composers, Schumann stands alone. Poor, tortured genius.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Happy 100 to Klaus Tennstedt, one of the great Mahler conductors. Pure, complex, shifting gold, these LP’s 1986 and 1980, respectively.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

In my next life I would graciously accept returning as a Chicago water fowl.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Per Spotify, my “Fast” playlist. I am ok with this.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

When I taught ethics, for the fjnal exam, I’d ask students to explain in an essay what they thought of this passage.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

David Byrne’s Rei Momo (1989) is a work of genius.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

A few days ago I saw Martin Helmchen deliver a sublime Brahms 1st piano concerto. A mesmerizing performance. The Chicago Symphony program book points out that this magnificent work’s first Ravinia performance was 7/31/1945. Leon Fleisher, and Leonard Bernstein. Imagine that.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Happy bday to old Sir Edward Elgar. I adore his cello concerto, Enigma Variations, and all 5 Pomp + Circumstance marches. But his Dream of Gerontius still eludes me.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Yes, the Sox still trail 5-3, but I got this cool shot on TV from Target Field! Benintendi!

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Views from my walk in Chicago today. There is an artist who embeds tiles into busy city streets.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Speaking specially—Szell’s/CO Smetana simply smashes.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Still mourning Sonny Rollins. This a favorite jazz track. 🎷

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

No easy question: what’s your favorite first symphonic movement? For me it’s Mahler or LvB 5, or Brahms 4. And LvB3.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

The Devil’s Dictionary is just so droll. These definitions in succession.m—Ambrose Bierce—a peculiar kind of genius. I bought this Dover Ed. for $1.00 plus tax in the 1970’s.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

A Memorial Day weekend occurrence: this 1942 Denver Mint penny was handed to me as change this Memorial Day weekend at one of my favorite breakfast places (The Little Oven, in St. Paul, near I-94). Now I wonder about its history, especially 1942-45, when one could actually buy something for a penny.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

A lovely album. John Adams at his best.

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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Life’s small pleasures: breakfast at a Twin cities favorite, The Little Oven in St. Paul, then a partly drizzly/most sunny Saturday drive home on I-94—avoiding construction! Listened to Puccini’s Turandot in full, on Wisconsin Public Radio, then WFMT. Our Interstates are gems. 🛣️🚙📻🎭🎼

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