Update on the Thrower Music Archive and Some Other Developments

 You probably have noticed I have not been writing quite as much, but in reality, I actually have been. The writing endeavors I have been engaged in have not been on blog posts, but rather the publication of books.  As of this week, two of them have been published, bringing our total publishing output this year to six.  The two books are my fictional work, Appointed to Consecration, which is currently available on Amazon, as well as a semi-fictional romantic story called The Blue and the Bare.  Due to the heavy reliance on real-life events, I am not going to make the second volume available for purchase, and instead just have a print copy for my own records.  I was quite impressed with how the cover art on both of these came out, and I can share for both here:

This one is the cover art for The Blue and the Bare. I personally loved how this came out, and the picture is beautiful.  I created this picture from a painting I did some time back enhanced with AI to make it realistic, and the result was quite stunning.  

This is the second book, the one that is being mass-marketed.  I did the original cover art on this as well, as it was originally a sketch I did many years back and turned it into a photorealistic picture.  This is perhaps one of the best books I have published yet, as the formatting was actually much better and the page numbers actually match the contents!  I am in the process of doing a third book to publish now before year's end, this one being a manifesto book.  It will combine different areas of my interests (big bands, the Convergence Movement, Armenians and Assyrians, my cooking distinctives, etc.) and turn them into a more detailed text.  The first part of it is finished, and I will be working on the rest over the course of the remainder of the year as time allows.  This book will be sort of a definition of myself, and I will make that available for anyone who wants it. 

A large part of doing these writing projects has been introspection, and I have had a lot of time to work on that recently!  One area I wanted to talk about today is my record collection.  As you know, a couple of years ago at around this time I lost my house, and with it approximately 60% of my meticulously-acquired music collection.  The only reminder I have of that now is the catalog, which is packed away in a bin under my bed right now.  However, the music collection didn't die, and where a loss happens there often is a better replacement.  Over the past year and a half, I have managed to obtain almost my entire lost collection on digital format, meaning I could preserve them on flash drives.  I currently have perhaps thousands of recordings now in a small case behind me, and the collection it once took a coordinated logistics plan to move now fits into the palm of my hand.  I still have vinyl - I was able to rescue my boxed sets - and a smaller collection of CD recordings, but the paradigm shift now is to flash drives.  So, the music collection still goes on unhindered, and as long as I can do so, I will make sure it continues to as well. 

I currently face some major challenges - please keep me in your prayers for those, as I cannot get into them here.  In navigating the final frontier, I am now on a precipitous slope that I am wondering if I can survive - it has gotten very complicated.  I trust a resolution will come at some point, but it is a lot on me right now.  I have several things to figure out before year's end, and hopefully we can be in a better situation.  However, thankfully for my own writing endeavors and other pursuits, I am able to keep occupied and busy so as not to descend into any sort of panic mode.  Hopefully, by the time I come back here, I can have some positive news to report.

Any rate, this is a shorter discussion than I am sure you are used to, and will probably be my last one for the month of October. In November however, I want to tackle the Gamsakhurdia/Chavchavadze literature discussion, and that will probably be the last major thing I tackle this year before sending the articles compiled into my annual volume to press.  Thanks for sticking with me, and will see you soon.