Galley Proof

We're still referring to it as the beta release. Coming from an old-fashioned publishing background, I proposed the term gallery proof. But it's a new era, I'm reminded.

With the launch of the Selections page and Variorum page today, we're closer to what traditionally would be called the final version. But as Klenwell and NP like to remind me, web publishing is a race between Achilles and the Hare. Or maybe that scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail is more apt. The closer you get to finished, the further you find you have to go.

Calendargoria

Not quite. It's Calendariorum -- a play on the word variorum. As literary scholar, it is a word that has always enchanted me. As literary editor of the Sweepers Calendar, I have always felt it a concept of special relevance.

It gives me special pleasure to announce here that, now that the Sweepers Calendar has been revived after months (years?) of neglect, I've returned to my night job as literary editor. In a rare instance of a new year's promise followed through, our beloved new poete has neglected friends, family, and work, and seized his quill and pricked his to round out his Calendar.

Also, we've brought in a new technical editor for the complicated stuff. While he finishes work on a new enhanced interactive version, we've released the new beta edition of the Calendar featuring a new minimalist design that I rather like.

With the aid of our technical maven, we've converted the Calendar into a relational database -- which really seems to have been its destiny all along. Its given both newpoete and I interesting new insights into the project, helping us dramatically in firming up those portions we felt were dragging and breathing new spirit into the Calendar as a whole. We're excited to see how it evolves.

The new site itself will include a scholarship section that will serve as a variorum edition in itself by compiling existing commentary and scholarships and inviting new readers to offer their own. I hope this blog will come to be seen as a positive contribution to this larger project. It will include notes on the Calendar, its history, development, and, yes, variations.

And so, Dear Reader, let us begin.