Well, it's official -- a few days ago I signed the contract for renting out Chicago's Stage 773 theatre space, in order to host CCLaP's latest live event, a long-form interview and Q&A session with Nathan Rabin, head writer of the AV Club; and I also handed over a check for the rental fee, equal to about half of all the revenue the organization has made in its entire three-year existence now. And that of course has been the whole point of the ebook donation buttons and things like that, to slowly raise the revenue needed for the center's first bigger event; but of course that still doesn't stop you from feeling a little nervous about handing over a big check like that, and wondering whether the gamble you're taking will end up paying off by the end.

Ah, but why am I worried? After all, the AV Club is one of the smartest and most cultishly popular things on the web right now, which if you're not regularly reading yet, you should start doing as soon as possible; because much like CCLaP, it's dedicated to intelligent, funny, and challenging critical looks at the culture going on around us these days, not just the usual reviews of books, movies, television and music, but also more general and explanatory series like Gateway to Geekery, in which they select fascinating random subjects from the arts and give you a primer of sorts for why it's considered so important in the first place. Rabin recently finished up one of these specialty series -- "My Year of Flops," in which he deliberately watched bad movies for a year and wrote surprisingly sophisticated essays about their eventual cultural influence -- and that just recently came out in book form, which is what has Rabin out doing events right now in the first place, which is why it was fairly easy to get him to agree to this show as well. I have to say, for an event series that I hope eventually acquires the reputation of "like 'Charlie Rose' but with more cursing and liquor," I think Rabin is an excellent person to lead things off, and I believe will set the bar high for future "An Evening With..." events in 2011 and beyond.

Anyway, it all takes place on Monday, November 29th, from 7 to 9 pm (or maybe up to 10 pm, depending on how long the signing afterwards takes), at 1225 West Belmont, just a five-minute walk from the Belmont el stop; tickets are $6 and can be purchased that night at the door, and in a few days will also be available for advanced purchase at the Stage 773 website. You can always stop the center's events page for more, and there is also a Facebook page and ICS download link for it, for those who would like to add it to their electronic calendars those ways. I hope you'll get a chance to attend, or at least listen to the free podcast episode of it a few weeks later, for those who live outside the Chicago area.

And don't forget, by the way, opening for Rabin that night will be our old buddy Ben Tanzer, reading a brand-new 15-minute piece on the subject of bad movies himself. And ooh, has there been a lot of people recently saying some really nice things about Ben's latest book, the running/writing essay collection 99 Problems put out by CCLaP a few months ago; the accolades include ones from Baby Got Books, Self Employment for Bohemians, Desert Book Chick, Y42K, PANK, and the Chicago Tribune. (And by the way, the adorable picture above of Ben in fighting stance comes from his recent profile in issue #50 of Another Chicago Magazine. Ladies, he's single! And by "single," I mean "married with three children!") I'm sure that it was because of such recommendations that 99 Problems has now twice broken the top 20,000 national bestseller list at the Amazon Kindle store, and several times now the top 100 list there specifically on the subject of "sports memoirs," and I'm grateful to hear of so many people responding to it as passionately as I did when Ben first sent it my way earlier this year. I think it's a great book, and I'm glad to see it getting all the attention it has been.