It is an uneventful Friday evening so far in the emergency room at the UW Hospital. Aside from the electronic beeps from scattered heart monitors and hushed conversations between unit clerks, the room is relatively quiet. Dr. Mike Abernethy knows, however, that this scene can change in a matter of minutes.

“You don’t know, that’s the nature of this business,” he says. “Things can change dramatically.”

Abernethy, entering his 20th year as an emergency medicine specialist, has encountered a wide variety of cases. With extensive knowledge in the field, the doctor has overcome most feelings of anxiety with his job.

“You train to do this,” he says. “If I wasn’t trained in emergency medicine, you bet this would be very stressful.”

The trauma unit is constantly in “disaster mode,” as Abernethy describes it. The ward is filled with skilled staff members dedicated to the traumatized patients in the sometimes exhausting 12-hour shifts.

Yet, Abernethy realizes he is not alone, and owes much of the emergency room’s success to the team surrounding him: nurses, medical technicians, and even those who clean the rooms in between patients. Emergency medicine, Abernethy declares, is “the pinnacle of teamwork.”

‘If one [group of people] fails, it affects us all,” he says. “We all respect each other and we work well together.”

– Michael Schuerman

Here are several observations from an evening jog at Brittingham Park:

• A jogger stops to get water at a drinking fountain; his beige wool socks and neon green running shoe combo is both strange and somehow fitting for this time of day.
• A girl wearing a maroon zip-up and accompanied by two chocolate lab puppies struggles to keep the dogs walking in the same direction. Is it me or is dusk like the perfect dog-walking hour?
• Lake Monona is a frozen gray blushed pearly pink by the setting sun.
• Father and son play football in the dewy grass — can I join you?
• (And speaking of wet grass, when did mud start smelling like childhood?)
• The silver sun-streak blazing across the water makes the sky look like it’s leaking, but not in a bad way.
• West Shore Drive: a refreshing dose of actual families, front-porch suburbia, and silence.
• Is it getting darker?
• Orange leaves highlight the tips of trees like brown hair sun-dyed blond.
• The lake breeze: brisk.
• It is getting darker.
• Home.

– Samuel Eichner

Close the front door.

A sighing hush, plus footsteps and Duke Ellington. Tally up the sales. Settle the credit card machine-thingamajig. Staple the receipts. Empty the cash register, and save the music for last.

Walk a narrow path towards the back of the store, between bookshelves and book-smells: a comforting claustrophobia. Like a tight-knit wool sweater for the soul.

Turn off the fans. Lock the back door. Go downstairs. Empty the humidifier water into the bucket. Water the tree outside. Don’t forget to lock the quarter rack.

Go back inside.

The faint sound of the piano, fading. A jazzy voice, crooning from the void. Nostalgia is the record’s skips and scratches, the floor’s creaks, the pages accruing valuable dust, the oriental rugs, the cassette player, the nooks and crannies and the clippings adorning the shelves, like accidental collages.

Turn off some lights. Leave others on.

Walk outside. Emerge, as if from a closet. The cool just-night air is a splash ofcold water to the face, or an alarm, buzzing. Flip the sign from “Open” to “Closed.”

And please, don’t forget to lock the door.

– Samuel Eichner

You would think that performing the live score for a 96-minute silent Japanese film might require lots of preparation and planning. But pianist David Drazin admits he mostly wings it. While he plays the jazz song “I Cover the Waterfront” during some of the performance at UW-Madison’s Cinematheque, Drazin says: “I’m an improv guy.”

Drazin likes it because it is apparently the only gunshot fired in any of Ozu’s gangster movies. He loves Ozu because he took the American gangster film conventions and made them uniquely Japanese. “What’s neat about it is finally the director quit copying American films.”

Listen to a portion of Drazin’s performance: [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/60720598″ iframe=”true” /]

The crowd seems enthralled by the performance and the film. And although Drazin has performed the film score before, he says he never plays it the same way twice. “It changes because it has to.”

– Joe Tarr

On average, the Kollege Klub (KK), located on Lake Street between State and Langdon streets, makes over 120 grilled cheeses every Friday afternoon between 4 and 6 pm.

Students of all ages race to the KK’s Friday After Class (FAC) for the $1 grilled cheeses and country music soundtrack. One UW student says she can’t get enough.

“I’m here almost every week, whether it’s with old friends, or I’m meeting new ones,” she says.

Bartender Hannah Blake says it hard for anyone to stay away with FAC’s two-for-one drink specials, perfect for any college student’s budget.

FAC also cater to students’ class schedules by opening the KK’s doors at 2:30 p.m. Starting the end-of-week celebration earlier draws in a diverse crowd, says Blake, who admits she’s often attending FAC when she’s not working.

UW senior Lindsay proudly said she’s never missed a FAC.

“Even when I’m sick I’m at the KK every Friday,” she says, “The grilled cheeses and cheap deals are too hard to pass up.”

Whether you’re there for the grilled cheese or cheap drinks, Friday After Class at the Kollege Klub is a great way to unwind after a long week of class.

– Rachel Bozich