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.




Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Resinging Songs

Since I'm not a singer, (but I sing my songs anyway,) I have found that treating my songs the same way I treat my manuscripts, (novels) is the best way to go. That means, yes, I am revising them.  

The good thing about Soundcloud is that you can replace any file without interrupting the song's playlist or any of the stats each song or playlist has compiled. (For me, a "playlist" is the same thing as an album.) But it's not the same thing to Soundcloud. Albums to Soundcloud are real albums produced by a real recording label and released or "dropped" by those same producers.

I'm just a loner doing everything myself. But so what, I'm getting it done. Surely not with the same production values as a real recording studio, but hey, I'm not a real singer and as far as I'm concerned, the music is sounding great anyway.

Well, they're my songs, so they better sound great. And they do. I actually have 45 followers now. I know it's a far cry from 45,000 followers. In case you don't know, a "follower" is someone who has heard a song or two and decided he or she likes it enough to follow the artist to hear more of his or her songs later. And yes, some people are actually "liking" some of my songs.

One of the good things about Soundcloud is that it compiles the number of times each song has been played by someone other than me. Some of my songs are in the triple digits now. I don't know how anyone knows about my songs. I suppose people surf through the Soundcloud "line up" and choose songs at random in the genre of the music they prefer. And they can click on the heart icon which means they like the song. Some people are doing that too, even people who are not followers.

Sure, artists want people to like his or her works, and that goes for any kind of art. Whether it's fine art like drawings, paintings, or sculpture, or a performing art like music, it doesn't matter. But the bottom line is that I like my music, and that's good enough for me. 

So if anyone who's reading this happens to listen to a song or two of mine, I can only hope you will like it too. Just click any of the "album" covers in the right margin of the blog. Just be forewarned. I won't sound like Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. But I will sound like me.

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