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Steve Berlin

@ethicssteve.bsky.social
376 followers 278 following 613 posts

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

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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
They are soooo sweet and delightful—the juices dribbling down my chin …
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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
Such is life. It’s but the bottom 5.
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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
1-0 Cincy now.
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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 · 04/07/2026
🇺🇸🦅 250!
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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Ugh. Stay cool. We’ve got another 2 days of this. But: it’s a far cry from July 1995, when this heat killed 800 unfortunate souls here in Chicago. Thank the universe for a/c, here in the USA.
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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
My favorite recording—one of my favorite recordings, period—Seiji Ozawa conducting the Chicago Symphony, 1969, from the Medinah Temple.
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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 · 23/06/2026
Very cool photo.
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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
I see Agam as a descendent of Rothko—but with a more mosaic, kaleidoscopic treatment of reality. Truly geniuses. Both.
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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
RIP, Yaacov Agam. There was for a while a large installation at the corner of Michigan and Randolph Streets here in Chicago, 151 N Michigan. www.timesofisrael.com/yaacov-agam-...
timesofisrael.com
Yaacov Agam, pioneering Israeli kinetic artist and Israel Prize laureate, dies at 98
Sculptor celebrated for his vibrant geometric shapes and interactive works created the iconic Fire and Water Fountain in Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Square, among numerous other pieces
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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 · 14/06/2026
I love MMT as well!
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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
I will never cease to be fascinated by Roman engineering. 🏛️https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/fact/ancient-roman-concrete/
historyfacts.com
Ancient Romans used concrete more durable than modern concrete.
The ancient Romans are known for many innovations that were ahead of their time, including running water and a rotating dining room. But some of the civilization’s construction work seems ahead of eve...
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Steve Berlin @ethicssteve.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
My favorite Beatles album is the one I happen to be listening to. There are no less than 7 masterworks in the Beatles album oeuvre.
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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
They’ve flashed the ‘83 lineup. True story: my law school roommate and I were at Comiskey on 9/25/83 when the Sox clinched a post-season berth, v. Seattle. The Sox then promptly lost to Baltimore. Tony La Russa, Harold Baines, Carlton Fisk, etc. ⚾️😌 Like yesterday. As they say.
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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
Ha! Sadly, Gregory, many people do not recognize sarcasm. 🙃
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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
Mesmerizing video.
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