{"id":3686,"date":"2012-05-28T11:40:58","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T16:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/?p=3686"},"modified":"2012-05-28T17:08:21","modified_gmt":"2012-05-28T22:08:21","slug":"theme-swan-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2012\/05\/theme-swan-song\/","title":{"rendered":"Theme (Swan) Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time for a change. Way past time for the blog Brick<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As of today, because I couldn’t stand waiting for July 1, the beginning of a quarter, or June 1, the next detail-fixated date, I have changed the theme of this blog.<\/p>\n

\"Brick,<\/a>
Brick 2004-12, WordPress' veryplaintext theme<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Theme is what wordpress.org<\/a> calls a template. The theme organizes the overall look, the type fonts, the navigation (those indexes etc.). Thousands of them are freely available, because wordpress.org and the sister wordpress.com are gloriously open source<\/a>. These are created by novice web designers learning their craft, master web designers “offering a taste” with more sophisticated, similar themes available for a price and so on — but to be made available through WordPress, they\u00a0 are rigorously tested by the WordPress community. That makes a difference.<\/p>\n

Brick<\/strong> has been managed under for essentially all of its eight-plus years (starting early 2004) is called VeryPlainTxt<\/a>, by Scott Wallick. WordPress has improved its overall platform many times since Wallick’s last upgrade, in July 2008. I liked it because it emphasized the text and its similarity to the wonderful McSweeney’s Internet Tendency<\/a><\/em> online journal.<\/p>\n

This new theme is The Erudite<\/a>, created by Matt Wiebe. Classy, simply that. I’ve been mooning over it for a long time, wondering when to change, or if something better would come along. Yes, but not as appealing as this one.<\/p>\n

Like Wallick’s, Wiebe’s design has things I’d love to change. There is a way to do that. It’s dealing with the programming code directly. Most people I know who use WordPress or from-scratch (or nearly so) web designers prefer to customize. I have dived in for Brick<\/strong> and the handful of sites I’ve managed over the years to modify lines of code here and there.<\/p>\n

But I’d rather not. The sense of time passing disappears when I do it, and coders love that. I enjoy it, too, but that time is lost to where I’d rather lose track: working on the content. Sure I can design, but I’m a writer.<\/p>\n

That said, I will modify this site after a while, when I get a strong urge or, more likely, when I want a good excuse to procrastinate on a writing project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s time for a change. Way past time for the blog Brick. As of today, because I couldn’t stand waiting for July 1, the beginning of a quarter, or June 1, the next detail-fixated date, I have changed the theme of this blog. Theme is what wordpress.org calls a template. The theme organizes the overall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technical-difficulties"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6860,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2020\/12\/song-about-a-theme\/","url_meta":{"origin":3686,"position":0},"title":"Song about a Theme","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Website design runs in waves, as it evolves toward greater simplicity and greater complexity, easier to use and easier to muck up. I'd rather call these fashions or trends, as sometimes they're as much about the look as the functionality. Just like in clothing, if one doesn't care to follow\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Brick, with the veryplaintext theme","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Brick-veryplaintext_theme-2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Brick-veryplaintext_theme-2.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Brick-veryplaintext_theme-2.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Brick-veryplaintext_theme-2.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Brick-veryplaintext_theme-2.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Brick-veryplaintext_theme-2.png?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":287,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/02\/corrections-so-far-this-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":3686,"position":1},"title":"Corrections So Far This Week","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"An illustration Sunday with a story about the McClellan-Kerr waterway incorrectly showed the angles of the gates when closed and the position of the lower gate when open.\" \"A story in Monday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette incorrectly called President Bush a Republic when he actually is 1\/298 millionth of a Republic.\" \"A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/02\/bowling-in-league\/","url_meta":{"origin":3686,"position":2},"title":"Bowling in league","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Feb. 4, 2005. Where was I? Friendship, before I got so full of myself. Friendship broadly and specifically. Now, as an adult, as a man, as an American. Marriage and. ... Work and. ... It's a theme that could be developed in occasional Bricks.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Lessons"","block_context":{"text":"Life Lessons","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/life-lessons\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/02\/brokeback-storm-or-ice-mountain\/","url_meta":{"origin":3686,"position":3},"title":"Brokeback Storm or Ice Mountain","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Brokeback Mountain.\" A Brick review. It's a winner. It's for mature audiences, mature as in for grown-ups who realize sadness exists as does love and passion. Mature as in people who love \"story\" and love characters developed in \"story.\" What I haven't seen, though, is a professional review saying this:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":148,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/05\/god-sheds-over-yonder\/","url_meta":{"origin":3686,"position":4},"title":"God shed’s over yonder","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 5, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, May 5, 2005. I attended one of the things I thought I'd never see, a National Day of Prayer service at noon today. I participated in one of the sets. As a member of the Bella Vista Recorder Consort, I played on tenor recorder\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":346,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/08\/stox-and-bondz\/","url_meta":{"origin":3686,"position":5},"title":"Stox and Bondz","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Why I'm in journalism and not real business, Point 2001: I do force myself to save some salary twice a month, once to IRA things and the second to more-immediately available accounts. I do mutual funds, no-load indexed jobs just like neutral experts advise: Money market, stocks and bonds. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Body, Home, Street"","block_context":{"text":"Body, Home, Street","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/body-home-street\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3686"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3698,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686\/revisions\/3698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}