Stephen Berg

@stephenberg2.bsky.social

364 Followers 461 Following

Better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Lawrence O’Donnell sits behind a desk with a backdrop of Washington, D.C., buildings. A chryon reads “Everybody hates you”
TCM schedule showing A Woman Under the Influence followed by Stranger Than Paradise.
Black-and-white photo of Bowie (Farley Granger) and Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell) lying on a carpet in front of a working fireplace. She's lying flat. He's lying with his head propped up by one hand/arm. They both have dreamy looks on their faces.
A black leather sofa with a handwritten note attached reading FREE SOFA. BEWARE — IT IS CURSED
Poster for The Third Man.
The cover of Blonde on Blonde
A Bigger Splash Directed by Jack Hazan • 1973 • United Kingdom Starring David Hockney This intimate and innovative documentary about English-born, California-based artist David Hockney and his work honors its subject through creative risk-taking. Director Jack Hazan creates an improvisatory narrative-nonfiction hybrid featuring Hockney, a wary participant, as well as his circle of friends, capturing the agonized end of the lingering affair between Hockney and his muse, Peter Schlesinger. The result is at once a time capsule of hedonistic gay life in the 1970s, a tender depiction of gay romance that dispenses with the then-current narratives of self-hatred and self-pity, and a record of artistic creation that is itself a work of art.
Photo of Clyde Frazier.
Cat with its head balanced on the iPad used as a cash register; its eyes are slits and it looks suuuuuuuper high.
Grafitti in the subway station reading GO KNICKS in yellow chalk and FUCK TRUMP in white chalk on a black background where an advertising poster should be.
A map of midtown with the area from 5th Ave. to 8th Ave. and 30th to 35th streets shaded.
The Mekons
“Why love the boy in a March field with his kite braving the sky? Because our fingers burn with the hot string singeing our hands. Why love some girl viewed from a train bent to a country well? The tongue remembers iron water cool on some long lost noon. Why weep at strangers dead by the road? They resemble friends unseen in forty years. Why laugh when clowns are hit by pies? We taste custard - we taste life. Why love the woman who is your wife? Her nose breathes the air of a world that I know; therefore I love that nose. Her ears hear music I might sing half the night through; therefore I love her ears. Her eyes delight in seasons of the land; and so I love those eyes. Her tongue knows quince, peach, chokeberry, mint and lime; I love to hear it speaking. Because her flesh knows heat, cold, affliction, I know fire, snow, and pain. Shared and once again shared experience. Billions of prickling textures. Cut one sense away, cut part of life away. Cut two senses; life halves itself on the instant. We love what we know, we love what we are. Common cause, common cause, common cause of mouth, eye, ear, tongue, hand, nose, flesh, heart, and soul.” ― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
Karl-Anthony Towns being interviewed after tonight's game.
Four nuns wearing San Antonio Spurs jerseys at the game; they've been in the stands throughout the postseason.
Photo of Larry David saying "Fuck you and I'll see you tomorrow."
A black-and-white photo of Walt Whitman
A photo of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet with a medical mask over his nose and mouth so he can inhale whatever it is he inhales in the movie.
An empty front staircase and sidewalk on a street in Harlem.
Illustration of the New York Knicks, with an outsize Jalen Brunson above other members of the team.
An old postcard showing the Brooklyn Bridge with the word EXCELSIOR on it.
Message in chalk reading THANK YOU STEPHEN AND FUCK YOU CBS AND DONALD TRUMP.
Clyde Frazier in a suit, shirt and tie that looks like an explosion in a paint factory. But in a good way.
Esquire cover from April 1968 showing Muhammad Ali in white shorts, white socks and white sneakers, hands behind his back, pierced by arrows à la Saint Sebastian.
Photo of a Funko Pop Stephen Colbert. It's a small plastic figure of Colbert with an oversize head. He's holding a Late Night mug.
Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly lying on the floor together in Requiem for a Dream
A box of Glad trash bags -- Don't Get Mad, Get Glad -- with a photo of Oscar the Grouch in his trash can and the words "Don't get mad at busted trash bags."
A cartoon of a bunch of hangdog NY Mets sitting in the dugout. The one in the middle is saying "Maybe we weren't meant to express ourselves in this particular medium."
WEEDS The danger of memory is going to it for respite. Respite risks entrapment, which is never good. Don't debauch yourself by living in some former version of yourself that was more or less naked. Maybe it felt better then, but you were not better. You were smaller, as the rain gauge must fill to the brim with its full portion of suffering. What can memory be in these terrible times? Only instruction. Not a dwelling. Or if you must dwell: The sweet smell of warm weeds then. The sweet smell of warm weeds now. An endurance. A standoff. A rest.
A supermarket meat case with a sign offering $6.99 a lb. ground beef that is "93% Fat, 7% Lean."
Package of the Noir cookies in my original post, with one sleeve of cookies removed and torn open.
An eagle under five starts. It's clutching arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other. Beneath it is text reading NICE. NATIONAL IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT.
A Playbill for "Liberation."
Playbill for "What We Did Before Our Moth Days," program for the National Theater's production of Hamlet at BAM and card for "The Fever," written and performed by Wallace Shawn.
A black-and-white photo of the Empire State Building.
Coffee mug reading WE ALMOST ALWAYS ALMOST WIN. NEW YORK METS.
Photo of Shake Shack's new McRib knockoff, the BBQ Boneless Baby Back Rib Sandwich, on its seasonal menu, with the text: SHAKE SHACK TAKES ON MCDONALD'S MCRIB WITH LAUCH OF NEW SANDWICH. BOLD BBQ FLAVOR. CRUNCHY SLAW. ZESTY PICKLES. MADE TO STAND OUT.
Daniel Murphy is not that bright and he's super Christian. He also makes for a shitty Mets announcer, and we're in for lots more of him this season, unfortunately.
Black-and-white photo of Carolyn Jones with bangs and a black beret, sitting in a backward chair, with one arm draped along the head of the chair and the other alongside her face with her hand on her head.
A black-and-white picture of Kim Gordon, looking more her age yet still sexy rather than one of those photos of her really young and still sexy.
Sticker on a lamppost reading LOU REED CAN ALWAYS HELP YOU
A newspaper correction reading: A correction was made on April 21, 2026: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated which day the New York Mets suffered their 11th straight loss. It was on Sunday, not Monday. Even the Mets cannot lose on an off day.
Picture a Western Union telegram reading: PLEASE WIRE ME ONLY WHEN METS WIIN. - JOAN PAYSON
A picture showing Spike Lee from behind. He’s wearing a Knicks jersey with No. 14 and POPE LEO on it.
A picture showing Spike Lee from behind. He’s wearing a Knicks jersey with No. 14 a nd POPE LEO on it.
A close-up of David Wojnarowicz's head. He's buried in dirt with portions of his face and eyes poking up through the gravelly ground.
Cover of the NY Post with the famous HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR headline.
micron970 • 11h ago This is so true. If you want to learn to hate the hobby or interest you have, come to Reddit.
This groundbreaking anthology offers a broad and representative introduction to some of the most exciting, fresh voices on the contemporary poetry landscape by gathering together generous selections from the work of 85 younger American poets. The poets selected were born after 1960, published their first book within the last 10 years, and have no more than three books published. Some are the recipients of numerous awards, while others, who are making their first appearance, are quickly making significant contributions to twenty-first-century poetry. The poets include Rick Barot, Joshua Beckman, David Berman, Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, James Kimbrell, D.A. Powell, Spencer Reece, Matthew Rohrer, Rebecca Wolff, Kevin Young, Matthew Zapruder, Andrew Zawacki, and many others
Picture of supermarket shelves full of yellow-capped two-liter bottles of Coke.
Metropolitans is for Mets fans, New York partisans, and everyone interested in the Mobius strip dynamic of sports and politics, the history of the national game, or the beautiful contradiction of baseball itself: a middle-class game owned by billionaires, in which the players—like the spectators—look to traverse the diamond and ultimately safely escape its many dangers. Along the way, A.M. Gittlitz re-introduces us to an eccentric cast of Metsian characters: Joan Payson, the first woman to buy a Major League Baseball team; a young Tom Seaver with an interest in progressive politics; and the contentious but beloved Mike Piazza. Gittlitz leads us through baseball’s amateur beginnings to the Mets’ first heady World Series on the heels of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements that many Mets players participated in. He guides us to the bad boy years, the exploitative development of farm academies in developing nations, and their inglorious purchase by a new breed of capitalist—even after which they remained lovable losers. Metropolitans brilliantly shows us that sports have long been a site of political struggle, rousing class consciousness, and animating fights for racial equality. From purportedly calming riots in ’69 to producing some of the greatest chokes in sporting history, from integration to desperate labor struggle against franchise owners, Metropolitans makes a deeply humane and convincing argument for the fascinating singularity of the New York Mets—and why they are not just the team of the counterculture, the freaks, and the losers, but the beloved team of anyone with a beating heart.
A package of The Matzo Project and Fatty Sundays' milk chocolate dipped matzo chips with crispity bits of buttercrunch. "Limited edition, Bubbaleh." And a drawing of a grandmother saying "I'd share...if you EVER CAME OVER."