Old-School Kicks

Sixty years after television made it obsolete, radio drama is going strong, surviving purely on the sheer nerdiness required to produce it. Its patron saint, This American Life host Ira Glass, has a voice so perfectly dorky that children get beat up just for listening to it — so of course fans of the show are hopeless addicts, satisfied by no other type of entertainment. The local purveyor of this peculiar mix of old-timey medium and modern comedy is former UM student Matt Gajewski, creator of the aptly named Pure Imagination.

Equal parts music and literature, a Pure Imagination episode is as likely to disturb the soul as it is to incite laughter, like a double-bill of Sufjan Stevens and David Sedaris. Saturday at 9, Gajewski's posse performs live at that other safe haven for the strange, Sweat Records, and local nerd children are sure to fall in love. As one of Gajewski's characters says, “Mothers, lock up your daughters. Then lock up yourselves.” The show is free. Visit www.vangloria.net/pureimagination or www.myspace.com/pureimaginationshow.
Sat., June 7, 2008