The George Lucas Museum Coming to Chicago

Nerd out moment!!! It was announced today, Tuesday June 24th, that Chicago will be the home to the George Lucas museum. The museum will be located in the south parking lot of Solider Field, and will be the home to Lucas' film, art, and movie memorabilia collection.

The Chicago Tribune has a great article explaining all of the details. I for one will love to be able to see all of the Star Wars models and puppets' collections. But for me, the big question is, will there be any Indiana Jones stuff at the museum? I'd love to see the hat!

This is so Cool

I just found this video. It's a guy wearing a suit of Mentos, and he is dunked into a vat of Diet Coke. This is a perfect example of the Internet being used for good.

Sherlock Holmes in the Public Domain

On Monday June 16th, 2014 an appellant court in Chicago ruled that the greatest fictional detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes and all of his stories published before 1923 were now in the public domain in the United States.  The Chicago Tribune covered the story. (I've included the link to the news story for two reasons. One it is very well written, and secondly because it does an excellent job explaining the legality of the situation.)

What I find so exciting however, is what this means for artists, story-tellers, and playwrights. These individuals no longer have to pay licensing fees to the Conan Doyle estate in order to use the character.

For someone like me, who oversees a college radio station, this is a tremendous opportunity because students or other aspiring individuals can now adapt one of the most famous literary characters of all time. The creative story-telling possibilities are endless. Of course there will probably be some poor adaptations of the character, but among all of these new adaptions, there could be a new interpretation that could totally reinvent the character.

Two Very Cool Things

This evening I discovered a very cool PBS digital short, and received a very cool promo for the radio station I over see.

1. PBS Digital Shorts posted a video entitled "The Abandoned Railway below Philadelphia". In their quest to create more green spaces in an urban center, a group of individuals look to parts of the abandoned Philadelphia railway system as possible spaces for plants, farming, and other green usage. I think this is so cool, and I would love to see if Chicago would do something similar with their abandoned areas.

I always thought it would be cool that if an abandoned building was destroyed, and no one was going to develop it, that we could plant a garden there. Help freshen neighborhoods up, and it wouldn't just be vacant spaces.


The Abandoned Railway below Philadelphia - UNUSUAL SPACES no. 2 from PBS Digital Studios on Vimeo.

2. On WXAV we air a program entitled "Planetary Radio". Bill Nye the Science Guy is a regular contributor to the program, and earlier tonight I received this promo for WXAV. It speaks for itself.