Thanks, all!
I did the thing my dad suggested, and as far as I can tell everything is working now. All in all I have about half a page of code at https://github.com/gefjon/asdf-org-babel-tangle/blob/master/main.lisp https://github.com/gefjon/asdf-org-babel-tangle/blob/master/main.lisp which could probably be improved somewhat. I’d appreciate any glances and tips as to how I should be doing things.
thanks, Phoebe