Sign in

Steve Berlin

@ethicssteve.bsky.social
376 followers 278 following 616 posts

Attorney/ethicist/Formerly Exec Dir ChicagoEthicsBd/dad/mugwump/music/photography/baseball/Flâneur/film+pinot noiriste. Opinions mine unless noted.

PostsRepliesMedia
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 2h
MLB’s Gameday bot is understated and robotic. There is just no substitute for live human play by play—this was a bobbled ball made good— truly professional defense. (Still, I like this app for many reasons.)
000
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 4h
Some of Chicago’s river bridges’ undersides. Beauty hidden in plain sight. Marathon Day 2026. (And La vie en rosé.)
110
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Autumnal colors ablaze—Washington Square Park/Bughouse Square, Chicago.
092
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
One of those rare human creations that reaches perfection.
010
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This isafter all, myfavoriteEaglessong. Lyin’ Eyes.
010
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.
021
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.
094
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.🌶️
120
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.☺️💟
041
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 🤣.)
010
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
For reasons inexplicable, I am deeply missing Maurizio Pollini rightly now. Especially his later late LvB.
000
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.
120
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!
010
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Quattorze de Juillet! 🇫🇷🥖👨‍🎨 Bourges, September 2024.
010
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.
000
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.
110
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.
010
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.
030
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
🇺🇸🦅 250!
010
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.
000
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.
000
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.⚾️🙃
000
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.
000
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.
000
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.
120
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.
200
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.🎻
000
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.
010
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.
000
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. ⚾️⚖️🎭
000
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.⚾️
110
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.
020
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.
010
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
In my next life I would graciously accept returning as a Chicago water fowl.
000
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Per Spotify, my “Fast” playlist. I am ok with this.
000
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.
200
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
David Byrne’s Rei Momo (1989) is a work of genius.
000
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.
010
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.
010
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!
000
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.
041
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Here is the write-up from the current AIA Guide to Chicago (4th Ed., 2022). It’s a whimsical building, especially for a large public library.
110
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Speaking specially—Szell’s/CO Smetana simply smashes.
110
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Still mourning Sonny Rollins. This a favorite jazz track. 🎷
010
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.
341
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.
000
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.
010
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
A lovely album. John Adams at his best.
000
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. 🛣️🚙📻🎭🎼
110
Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
The Cubs are losing 3-0 with Cabrera pitching. Ouch. Yet Wrigley Field is a gem. G-d I love this gorgeous sport.
110