For a comedian who essentially exists in character, Judah Friedlander has had a decently varied film career—we’re already quite aware of his TV role as Frank Rossitano on 30 Rock. He was a coal-mining brother of a male model in Zoolander. For a brief, wonderful moment he appeared as Molly Shannon’s sport-coat-wearing jerk ex-husband Ronald von Kleinenstein in Wet Hot American Summer. And, in his first real star turn, he played genuine nerd and gourmet jelly-bean lover Toby Radloff opposite Paul Giamatti’s Harvey Pekar in American Splendor....

Last year the excellent local jazz reissue label International Phonograph reissued the 1969 album Flight for Four by the John Carter & Bobby Bradford Quartet, a crucial document of the LA avant-garde jazz scene. Carter and Bradford were fellow travelers of Ornette Coleman’s musical revolution—they were also Texans who’d migrated to the west coast, and they began working together at his suggestion. I first heard most of that album as part of a 1991 CD called West Coast Hot, which combined it with another 1969 album made for the Flying Dutchman label, The Giant Is Awakened by the Horace Tapscott Quintet....

How does one cook a four-course dinner for 35 people in a bike shop with no kitchen? To be honest, I don’t really know—but I do know that on Sunday night at Let’s Roast Cycles, chef Won Kim pulled it off admirably. Course after course made its way from the back of the shop, where paper-covered worktables were being used for plating dishes and mixing cocktails, to the front, where diners sat at folding tables tucked between rows of bikes that had been draped with strings of lights....

Columbia College Chicago fitness studio, 731 S. Plymouth, 312-369-6920 (classes September-December and February-May); Core Power Yoga, 4428 N. Broadway, 773-271-9642, corepoweryoga.com Last summer I thought sinking my toes into the soft sand during down dog as the wind off Lake Michigan played with my hair was equivalent to nirvana. But my worries never have been melted away as sublimely as they were by the voice of Dana Fares. Her instruction is silky, melodic, and delicately persuasive....

The Chicago punk scene wasn’t very kind to Donté Oxun after the 29-year-old moved here from Washington, D.C., in 2007. “These punk dudes gave me the name ‘the faggot’ or ‘culero,’ meaning ass fucker or ass man,” Oxun says. “There was a lot of machismo, antiblack sentiment, sexist and homophobic sentiment, and lots of side comments and treatment like that.” Oxun, who moved from Chicago to New Orleans last year, went to Georgetown University in D....

On March 18, Merge Records will reissue Bloomed, the 1994 debut album of Richard Buckner, appended with a bonus disc containing various live recordings and studio rarities made around the time of its initial release. The record remains one of my all-time favorites, and while I’ve always admired the artistic restlessness that’s driven Buckner to constantly tweak his sound and aesthetic, for me this will always hold a special place in my heart....

There’s not much depth in the output from Flesh Wounds, the young Carrboro, North Carolina, trio that’s two guitars and one drum kit, but there is a hefty amount of sweat and snot in today’s 12 O’Clock Track, “Bitter Boy.” Released in mid-May by Merge—the Durham-based mega indie label that obviously heard the local hype—the single is a ringing, high-treble thrasher of a rock ‘n’ roll song. Not even a two-minute party....

Michael Gebert Doug Sohn with a bumper sticker I made, 2006 By now there’s been enough written about Hot Doug’s (which closes today for good) that people who got in line at 2 AM could have still been reading tributes to it by the time they got to the front of the line. Does anybody need more from one more hot dog-lovin’ writer? The deepest things I had to say were probably a few years ago when Chicago magazine published a list of Chicago’s most important restaurants ever (Alinea, Trotter, Frontera....

My dog is the best dog. He’s well trained, and he likes to cuddle, but there’s other things, too. Like the other day, I took him for a walk, and some asshole called me something he shouldn’t have. My dog killed the man by breathing a thick stream of blue fire. He didn’t even bark. When he was done, he tugged at the leash because he wanted to smell some other dog’s pee....

2537 N. Kedzie 773-489-9554 lulacafe.com Runner-Up Chicago Diner

Chandler West/Sun-Times Media Congressman Mike Quigley: Other than Republicans controlling the House and the Cubs being the Cubs, things are going just fine. Mike Quigley doesn’t think it was anything he said. There are all sorts of theories about why Cantor lost and what’s going to happen next. The House is sitting on an immigration measure already passed in the Senate that would allow some undocumented immigrants to achieve citizenship....

Fall, it would appear, is falling short. CPS students began the semester this week in a school district lacking the funds necessary to make it through the year. That deficit is due, in large part, to the Rauner v. Madigan political battle in Springfield that has not wanted for hostility. Meanwhile, over in sports, the Bears are struggling with a shortfall of their own: a distinct absence of talent (or perhaps heart) that’s putting the team near the bottom fourth of NFL power rankings as the season begins Sunday against the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. See more Chicago fashion in the Chicago Looks blog.

Revolution Brewing 2323 N. Milwaukee Runner-Up Forbidden Root Restaurant & Brewery

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • Cass Sunstein on the economists George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller’s new book Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, which argues that the free market and competition produce systemic harm? —Kate Schmidt • About the genius of The Great British Bake Off, currently the most popular TV show in Great Britain? —Aimee Levitt

Michael Gebert Uplands farm, near Dodgeville, Wisconsin Rush Creek Reserve, one of the most acclaimed artisanal cheeses in America, will not be made this year—and possibly never again. The reason is that new regulations from Washington appear to be poised to destroy much of the existing artisanal cheese movement. Yesterday I ran the first part of an interview with Andy Hatch of Uplands Cheese Co. in Wisconsin, who last week canceled production of Rush Creek Reserve, a soft French-style cheese made from raw milk and aged 60 days....

Jerry’s Auto Repair 3250 N. Sheffield

Batter & Berries 2748 N. Lincoln Runner-Up Bite Cafe

Strike rumors have been swirling around Columbia College for months now. The school’s famously scrappy part-time faculty union—recently re-branded as CFAC (Columbia Faculty Union)—has been working without a contract since the last one expired in August 2017. On October 23 CFAC member and part-time administrative employee Gita Kapila sent an email to the entire membership with this attention-getting subject line: “Full disclosure: the union is broke.” Within a few weeks, Kapila and two other union members, Michele Hoffman and Carey Friedman, received Integrity Committee notices informing them that they’d been charged with causing harm to the union and summoning them to hearings....