Application_python -- layout of settings files, questions about deploy cookbook

I'm almost there! "There" being getting Django running using the
Application_python cookbook.
First, I discovered there is a known issue with this:
http://tickets.opscode.com/browse/COOK-2570?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=36358#comment-36358

I worked around that by making a link to the actual manage.py where
application_python expected to find the file
(/srv/bart/shared/<cached_copy>. Inelegant, but it works. However, I
still need to tweak the paths a bit for the settings file. It seems
like this is kind of a "deploy" question.

  1. I'm having a hard time getting the local_settings.py file placed
    where I want it.
    The deploy path is /srv/bart. The templatted local_settings.py file
    gets placed in /srv/bart/shared/. It is referenced (that is, it needs
    to be loaded as a module) from
    /srv/bart/shared/current/bartrendr/settings.py.

  2. Also, there are places in the settings.py file in which absolute
    paths to directories are required, for example, so that collectstatic
    knows where to look for static files.
    For example,

STATICFILES_DIRS = (
# Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or
"C:/www/django/static".
# Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
APP_ROOT + "api/admin/static/",
APP_ROOT + "api/static/",)
I can set APP_ROOT in the local_settings file, but it's not clear to me
how to include the directory created by deploy -- like this?
APP_ROOT = '/srv/bart/shared/current/bartrendr/'
But I'm not sure that will work if the directory is cached-copy and not
current.
I'm assuming there's a better way to do this?

Can anyone point me to an example?

TIA
Liam

--
Liam Kirsher
PGP: http://liam.numenet.com/pgp/