Thematics and Appearance

The theme of Ghulf Genes, the blog, comes from the central theme of Ghulf Genes, the novel. The novel came first. Its collective hero is a “peculiar” family based more on shared values than on blood, thus on a shared culture and a will to maintain it. Our own experience as a family gave me the initial idea. As participants in international student exchange we came to enroll young people who were, at first, total strangers into our own clan. They became real children for us. But this did not happen automatically or invariably. Something more played a role, shared values, and not least mutual choice. This insight developed from there. Eventually came the notion of genetics “raised an octave,” as it were, from the physical to the next level above—and the notion that culture itself has a code as flexible, tenacious, and as unforgiving as exists beneath it to support the physical.

When I changed the look of this blog a few days ago, I thought that I’d make this more explicit here and in the header. It might give some minimal orientation to new visitors—and I thought it appropriate now that the blog is approaching its first anniversary. The color change? Since I became the owner of a camera last July, I’ve put up more pictures. I operate a private test blog which uses the Scribe theme; that thematic has a similar beige coloration. Testing photos there, I found that they looked better against a non-white background—hence the change.