Managing a frontispiece website

With my blogs sorted for the moment, and at least the possibility of a tweet in the future, it behoves me to pay attention to my non-blogging websites. For this I have two (related) domains. One is essentially just a personal site for my friends and family. The content is variable, highly particular, and not really interesting to anyone for whom it was not intended. Unless you really, really want to know how to bake the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, ever 🙂

The other domain, which I mentioned in my previous post on this subject, is a frontispiece for a sole-proprietor consultancy business I set up some years ago. Almost any work I do these days is some form of consultancy, so it seemed appropriate. But it isn’t something that I intend to build into a vast business empire. So I want to keep that site mostly empty other than for contact details. People find out about me when they meet me in person, or, as per the norm, Google me, and if interested we take it from there. That’s enough for me. I’ve got other irons in the fire that need tending. Still, it would be nice to do something a bit more useful with this site. For example, I would like to write an article on my explorations of Drupal (ongoing) and host it there. That might lead to other articles, maybe even one on thinking through your PIO. So that site might grow. Managing content there might then become an issue.

You do not need to take on a full-blown web-hosting package in order to maintain a small frontispiece web presence. There are numerous no-cost options available. Two that I have looked at are Drupal Gardens and Google Sites. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Drupal Gardens is very enticing for anyone who has played with Drupal, is shamefully inept at backend systems administration (as I am), and who longs for the eye-catching goodness of the soon-to-be-released Drupal 7. Of course my claim that one doesn’t need to fully grok the Drupal backend is somewhat misleading. Once you get past the incredibly simple steps necessary to create a site, the user still finds himself or herself with a vast array of choices and decisions. Hard decisions. Despite being far more intuitive than the Drupal 6 interface, I think the user here will still want to go through some serious Drupal study and thinking. As per usual, Drupal 7 has almost limitless possibilities, but that may be too much for the simple frontispiece website. Nevertheless I’m going to keep exploring it in hopes that the veil will lift from before my eyes. It really is what I’d prefer to use.

Google Sites is equally easy to use in order to create a simple, or even a modestly complex, website. It is easy to enable co-operative website management. And there is plenty of room for growth beyond the 100MB of webspace a user is provided initially by moving up to the Premier Edition of Google Apps as and when it becomes appropriate. Indeed, if you are really just starting out, I think it would be best to simply start with the standard Google Apps package, which gives you Google Sites as well. The downside, at least for me, with Google Sites is the lack of rigour in its widgets. Whereas Google does a great job with the various widgets in Blogger.com, the comparable widgets in Google Sites are often just not up to the job. At least I’ve found many that didn’t really work. Maybe it is different in the Google Apps version, I just don’t know. Nevertheless, if all you really want is a simple frontispiece site, then Google Sites is fully able to provide that.

That brings me back to my thinking about my PIO. Do I really want or need a website that is substantially more than a frontispiece? That, as they say, is the real question.

Afterthoughts

I’ve been thinking about the discussion of Alison Pick’s Far To Go last night at the book club I frequent. I’m in the process of revising my interpretation of the principal narrator, Marta. Opinions about the book differed, but with reasons as all differences of opinion worth pursuing do. Some had high praise for the novel, especially its careful imagery and beautiful prose. I was in that camp, but I also had a few reservations. (None, however, that would prevent me heading out as soon as possible to read the author’s previous novel, The Sweet Edge, or whatever novel comes next for that matter.) I want to concentrate on just one of these because my afterthoughts have me rethinking what I said.

It struck me as odd, even jarring, that the Bauer family had a “governess” such as Marta. In the first half of the book this is the most typical term used to describe her role. Latterly, the narrator uses “nanny” frequently and then predominantly. What troubled me was that the Bauer family that employs Marta are supposed to be wealthy industrialists and socialites. They speak multiple languages. Their young son, Pepik, is 5 as the novel begins and turns 6 before he leaves on the Kindertransport. Marta is an uneducated, unworldly young woman, the child of farm labourers. Why would wealthy, worldly, sophisticated industrialists hire this woman as a “governess”?

Is Marta even literate? Yes, I think so. But it is clear that at 5 Pepik cannot read. And he still cannot read at 6. Just what kind of governess is Marta?

So that was bothering me, the decision to describe Marta as a governess. But now I think it might be more complicated.

Toward the end of the novel we learn that the story and its narrative frame are due to a female academic living in Montreal named Anneliese. This Anneliese is the daughter of Marta and her employer, Pavel. She is named after Pavel’s wife. (Pavel and his wife both die in the concentration camps.) Most important, however, is that this Anneliese is only 6 or 7 when her mother, the Marta of the story, dies. We learn that the entire book is supposed to be Anneliese’s imaginative exploration of her mother and father’s lives. This needs to be contrasted sharply with the letters and other documents that Anneliese has unearthed in archives from the time period.

What does this information tell us as readers? That’s what I’ve been thinking about. The purported “author” of the imaginative rendering is an “interested” party. She is the daughter of the main character and, so far as we know, has very little if any first-hand knowledge of her mother’s actions. Now I begin to think that maybe this narrator isn’t quite as trustworthy as she initially appears. Maybe she has coloured Marta’s tale, at least at first, to put her in as good of a light as possible. Hence the references to Marta as Pepik’s governess. Later in the tale it becomes less and less plausible to refer to Marta as a governess and so she takes on her more appropriate title as nanny to Pepik. A confusion which is taken further when Pepik, after a delirious transport to Scotland, associates the new English word “mother” for Marta when she is pointed at in a photo which he bears.

Now this, to my mind, makes the novel more interesting. Also more challenging than it first appears. It also washes away a number of other minor concerns I had. But is it the right reading? Is it even a better reading, at least better than I had before? Perhaps.

One thing is certain. I now look forward with special keenness to Alison Pick’s visit to Waterloo on 11 November. Maybe she will resolve some of these things I have been wondering about. Even better if she prompts new ones.

Reading again

One of my guilty pleasures is re-reading. There are tens of thousands of novels published worldwide each year of which there might be (I’m just guessing) maybe a thousand that, given sufficient time, I might find worth reading. On my current pace, I will be lucky to get through 60 novels this year. And those are not restricted solely to recent publications. So any way you slice it, there are going to be a rather large number of novels I do not read in my lifetime. Reading a novel a second or third or tenth time seems like an extravagance, a dereliction of duty somehow, almost selfish. Yet I do so enjoy returning to a novel that has given me pleasure in the past hoping, perhaps, to rekindle my admiration for the author, or revise it, as may be the case. And sometimes I thinking reading again is my favourite form of reading.

That may be one reason that I find talking to other readers about a recent read we’ve shared to be so much fun. It forces me to go back over the novel in my mind and attempt to articulate what I like or didn’t like about it, what I thought was clever or dull, where the author surprised me or disappointed me, how a phrase or image or paragraph leapt off the page for me. It isn’t re-reading itself, but it is part of that process. And the more input I get from others, especially careful and sensitive readers, the more likely I am to enjoy my experience of reading the novel again.

For the first time the book club I frequent has given me the perfect excuse for reading a novel again. A little more than a year ago, I read Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist, a book I thoroughly enjoyed. It reminded me what an exquisite craftsman Baker can be. A marvel. It triggered a bit of a Baker-fest in my reading schedule. So it was a great delight to discover The Anthologist on the list of books to be read in the book club this year. Now I have to re-read it. And I get the added bonus of anticipating a hearty discussion of same.

Will my fellow readers be as taken with Nicholson’s prose as I was? I have no idea. Will I be as admiring on a second read? I certainly hope so. In any case I expect to find a great deal more in the novel this time than I did the first time. Who knows, it may even prompt another plunge into Baker’s back catalogue. I can hardly wait.

Hard choices – book club or public reading?

It’s a scheduling nightmare! The book club that I frequent is meeting at the same time this week as a free public reading by three well-regarded authors. How to decide?

The book in question is Alison Pick’s Far to Go, which I have very much enjoyed reading despite the heart-wrenching subject matter. I am keen to hear what the other readers in the club think about this book, not least a certain “discerning and widely read guy”. No doubt lively repartee shall ensue (I hope). The public reading involves Sandra Birdsell, Annabel Lyon, and Alissa York. I could learn more than a thing or two about writing from any one of these authors.

If only there were two of me. Not much chance of that. But I do have a secret plan. My secret plan is that I will go the book club and my partner will go to the public reading. Almost the best of both worlds.

Almost…

Municipal elections

Tomorrow is polling day for our city and region. I am fairly certain that nearly everyone I intend to vote for (for city council, mayor, regional council, and regional chair) will not in fact get elected. I still intend to cast my ballot. I think that’s important.

It has been enlightening going through this election. After 3 years back in Canada, I sometimes forget that there are still many differences between here and the UK on which I have not yet had a chance to refresh myself. For example, municipal and regional politics here is not party political. In my ward, there are a large number of candidates for a single council seat. All I have to go on is what the candidates have said in their election materials or at the various of organised debates which have been well-reported in the local media.

There are also a couple of local plebiscites that will be on this ballot, both of which have been divisive in the campaign.

However, without party allegiances to fall back on I have found myself casting about in my own pool of thoughts, principles, and preferences.  That has been useful because it has given me a useful matrix against which to test the opinions of those who would seek my support. Some things stand out for me. It turns out I don’t really mind paying taxes, or even more taxes, so long as those funds are going to develop and enhance my community. So if your whole reason for being in politics is to ensure that I have an extra 50 cents in my pocket at the end of the year, you really need to look elsewhere. If the first thing you want to do once you get in office is to remove a piece of anodyne public site art, then look elsewhere. If you sign up to an aggressive campaign of fear-mongering pseudo-science, I’m sorry you’ll have to look elsewhere. If you confuse public health issues with personal rights issues, again elsewhere.

That’s just a sampling of what I’ve found in my personal selection criteria. It’s surprising that there is anyone at all I’m willing to vote for. But I found enough candidates to make the short walk over to the polling station worth the effort. Sure, none of the candidates that I’ll be voting for is likely to win. But they still need my vote. And I need it too.

Elections – they can be a useful tool for the personal as well as the political.