Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Saturday, October 21, 2017

Rockin' the Cosmos on SoundCloud

Just to see how it might work on a computer that's not signed in to my account, I looked up the blog The Vase and clicked on the Rockin' the Cosmos icon and listened to the first song Sensurround while reading the lyrics. It was all good, better than I thought it would be. And it sounded great. But then, like I knew would happen, some Hip Hop song followed, and I don't have a clue why that happens. But I clicked on the Rockin' the Cosmos playlist that was in the right margin on that page, and sure enough the songs in my playlist appeared, so I just clicked on Song #2 which is Green Lady and it came on with Lyrics and all.

It sounded great as well. At least, to me it did. I suppose I'm biased. All my songs sound great to me. And why wouldn't they. I wrote them and arranged them. I played and performed every instrument, and I even provided the vocals. It's not like I played the guitar and bass and drums and all that. I do play the piano and organ, though. So all the instruments are played on a keyboard/synthesizer. Yeah, it's a modern miracle how one instrument can synthesize all other instruments. Not to perfection, however, but still, it makes for a close replicate. And I hope to put up my Volume 13 one day soon, which is Rockin' the Afterlife. The lyrics are already up. Now that I know how to post them on SoundCloud, the songs will soon follow.

You know I composed, arranged, performed, and recorded all these songs more than ten years ago. Some of them twenty years ago, and only now am I posting them online. Well, it's only now I'm catching up to the 21st Century. In many ways, I'm still a 20th Century man. That's weird. That's a line from one of my books. The Vase has a line similar to that. Professor Weiss tells Captain Mathias something like that during one of their meetings.

Speaking of The Vase, I sure hope that Macmillan Australia accepts it for publication. That's my last and only hope to make it in the big time of publishing. That's not really true, but in some ways it is. Anything's possible, and who knows what the future holds. It's just that, for me, the future is getting slimmer and slimmer as the days go by. I guess that's true for everyone.

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