This is embarassing - I think I've been around this post once, but danged if I can search up a solution. On new blog I'm building I set permalinks to same scheme I'm using on seekerblog.com [at least that is what I thought I was doing].
I set permalinks to the pattern /archives/%year%%monthnum%%day%/%postname%/, then updated .htaccess to:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
The result is post URLs appear to be correct [e.g., http://adagiojournal.com/archives/20071218/test-htaccess/ , but I cannot access directly - nor can I access pages like http://adagiojournal.com/design/.
I can publish new posts.
Permissions of the www directory containing WP-installation are 775.