411: With This PBR, I Thee Wed

Celebrating the release of THE2NDHAND’s twenty-eighth broadsheet Thursday, Logan Square’s Ronny’s will host a theatrical reading of Lauren Pretnar’s “Small Country, ” a story of intoxicated soul-searching, at the only place that seems appropriate to do so—a wedding. Realizing the potential that this story brings to this quarter’s release party for THE2NDHAND, C.T. Ballentine, who will preside over the mock-ceremony alongside Pretnar and a selection of Chicago’s literary all-stars, plans on going all-out. “We’re interested in putting on a show…a little bit of a spectacle,” he says. As for the degree of the spectacle, details are as unpredictable as the encounters of Pretnar’s protagonist in her story. After collaborating with Pretnar about the possibility of recreating a wedding, Ballentine admits that they “just started to goof around.” In response to the rumors circulating about a champagne tower filled with PBR, Ballentine says, “We’ll see how that goes…though I don’t know how to make one.”