Women & Children First 5233 N. Clark Runner-Up The Book Cellar

You don’t really have a problem if it morphs into a funny story, right? Sean Flannery has long been the local comic embodiment of Alcoholics Anonymous, spewing forth enough anecdotes about his booze-soaked pratfalls to deter even the most red-nosed drinker from ordering another. He’s the creator and host of The Blackout Diaries, a Saturday-night showcase of stand-up and storytelling in which he enlists both fellow comics and everyman guests to reminisce about, say, drunkenly tackling a 30-feet-tall Christmas tree in an apartment-building lobby....

312-298-9325 briandonovanfitness.com Runner-Up Michelle Blakely

Never ask a Bulgarian, “How are you?” He’ll wince at the question, his mouth will turn down at the corners, and he’ll begin to catalogue his ailments, his misfortunes, and the infuriating things his neighbor’s done. A finalist for both the Strega Europeo and Gregor von Rezzori awards, in addition to being a critical and commercial success in its native country, The Physics of Sorrow sees Gospodinov taking a deconstructed approach to narrative and underscoring the absurdity of life in general by jumping across time and space to craft a story of brief, evocative episodes that mostly take place in “the saddest place on earth,” as the Economist called Bulgaria in 2010....

In a recently released video interview, local rapper JDott Trife recalls his high school principal’s good-bye the day JDott was kicked out of school. As the MC tells it, his principal said, “Oh, don’t worry about him, by the time he’s 21 he’ll be dead or in jail.” But JDott was determined to prove him wrong. “It was, like, wow, if that’s what you expect from me is to be dead or in jail,” he says....

With news that Mayor Emanuel has given police a new contract, I had to ask some cops I know: Are you going to vote for Rahm? Pensions matter a lot to police because, like teachers and other public-sector workers, they’re not eligible for social security. Plus, they have to retire by law at age 63, so they can’t work on and on until they drop. Which isn’t far from Bruce Rauner’s attitude toward public pensions....

The final play in August Wilson’s “Century Cycle,” Radio Golf, set in the 1990s, is a story about a little guy trying to survive the American political machine without having his morals ground to a pulp. Allen Gillmore expertly heads up Court Theatre’s five-person powerhouse ensemble as Harmond Wilks, an optimistic real estate developer running to become Pittsburgh’s first black mayor. Director Ron OJ Parson sets this examination of black upward mobility and class against a toe-tapping soundtrack that evokes the feeling of a classic sitcom with unusual gravitas....

Joshua Black Wilkins Jenny Scheinman This summer’s Downtown Sound series comes to a close this evening, with local postrock trio Russian Circles gracing the stage of Pritzker Pavilion. There’s more free music tonight at Empty Bottle, Walking Bicycles headline with support from Toupee and Unmanned Ship. Excellent local noise-pop band Melkbelly plays at Township on Tuesday, while rapper Kevin Gates is at Reggie’s. And on Wednesday, a duo of Leroy Bach and Tortoise’s Dan Bitney play a free show at the Bedford....

In the Reader‘s coverage of this weekend’s Chicago Jazz Festival, John Corbett wrote a wonderful profile of trailblazing South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo, a founding member of the Blue Notes and the kind of versatile, curious percussionist that only comes along once or twice in a generation. His performance on Sunday with 5 Blokes is one of the festival sets I’m most excited about—not just because he’s talented and historically important, but also because every member of his band is terrific....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. Fashion writer Lauren Fern was flitting around during a release party for Giorgio Armani’s new self-titled autobiography in the designer’s Oak Street store. Fern stood out, largely due to her knit dress by Gudrun & Gudrun, a brand based in the Faroe Islands whose collections are handmade by women in Jordan and Peru as part of the company’s women’s empowerment projects....

Michael Gebert Paté en croute with heritage pork, wild boar, and foie gras Many of the restaurants that have popped up in the Randolph Street meatpacking district seek to create a little oasis of glamour in the midst of food-industry grittiness. Tete Charcuterie wants you to remember where you are and what they do for a living here. For now the patés and fresh sausages are made in-house, while the salumi is mostly coming from West Loop Salumi across the street....

Like The Hunger Games, Divergent is adapted from a young-adult novel (the first in a trilogy, naturally) and speaks to the postapocalyptic survivalist in every 15-year-old girl. A century after some vaguely referenced world war, all of human society has divided itself into five tribes based on people’s personality type—the smart, the brave, the honest, the selfless, the pacifist—and teenagers choose their affiliation in a public coming-of-age ritual. Young Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) throws in with the brave, or “Dauntless,” much to the consternation of her selfless parents (Ashley Judd, Tony Goldwin)....

We tend to think about culture in America these days as consumable products or ticketed events, and so the “cultural coverage” most media outlets offer is reduced to binary reviews: should one or should one not pay hard-earned money for the product or event in question? (“When I hear the word ‘culture’ I take out my checkbook,” visual artist Barbara Kruger posed in the 1980s.) Yet actual culture today—the musical, gustatory, aesthetic, movement-based, and intellectual pursuits of humans—is in greater flux than even the stock market....

Q: I’m a 31-year-old gay male. I’ve been with my fiance for three years, and we are getting married in the fall. I’ve got a question about initiating sex in my sleep—I read somewhere that “sexsomnia” is the medical term, but maybe the Internet invented that? According to my fiance, I have initiated or performed some kind of sex act in the middle of the night and then gone right back to sleep....

El Milagro Tortillas www.el-milagro.com Runner-Up Hoosier Mama Pie Company

Tord Gustavsen Quartet As the weather starts to warm up, more bands are hitting the road. This is the busiest show weekend of the year thus far, so there’s a whole lot going on if you’re trying to catch some live music. Tonight’s Stephen Malkmus and tomorrow’s Skinny Puppy shows are already sold out, but there’s plenty more to choose from. Bluesman Eric Bibb, a 90s acoustic revivalist, comes to City Winery tonight with Ruthie Foster....

Midtown Athletic Club 2444 N. Elston 773-235-2300 midtown.com/chicago @Midtown_Chi

A black hexagonal table sits on a raised platform in the middle of the Logan Square Auditorium‘s cavernous ballroom, illuminated by a spotlight. A gangly referee in aviator sunglasses and tight spandex shorts checks to make sure the handrails at the table’s edge and the elbow pads at its center are fully secured. Next to him stands “Rockke L. Squelch,” mistress of ceremonies. In a white dress that leaves almost nothing to the imagination, her brown hair curled and piled high on her head, Squelch sashays across the stage and belts out a blunt command in a mild eastern European accent: “Let’s get this motherfucker started!...