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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 1, 1992                   TAG: 9112310330
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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NAMES IN '91

Chris Muse is taking the imagination he used to create the trendy Blue Muse restaurant and turning it toward futuristic sci-fi.

The 25-year-old brains behind the now-defunct brewpub on Marketplace Center downtown, Muse has been working on a cyberpunk novel ever since the restaurant closed in late September. The work involves artificial-intelligence figures who rage war on each other and humanity.

The Blue Muse had opened just last March, adding funkiness and vigor to the downtown nightclub scene. Muse's parents, Leonard and Betty Carr Muse, decided to quit financing the restaurant, citing a lack of business. With a five-year lease on the location, the Muses are still trying to find a new tenant for the space, their son said.

"My only regret is having ideas that were too far into the future for what Roanoke wanted," he said. That was certainly true for patrons who wanted beer the day they went in, not sometime in the future when, they were told, brewing problems would be solved.

"I was better at the creative aspect of things rather than the running of the restaurant," Muse admits.

Maybe he has found his niche now after all.

Keywords:
YEAR 1991

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