diff --git a/brozzler/__init__.py b/brozzler/__init__.py
index ea15dfd..edf7446 100644
--- a/brozzler/__init__.py
+++ b/brozzler/__init__.py
@@ -77,8 +77,20 @@ def fixup(url, hash_strip=False):
         hurl.host = hurl.host.encode('idna').decode('ascii').lower()
     return hurl.getURLString()
 
-# logging level more fine-grained than logging.DEBUG==10
+# monkey-patch log level TRACE
 TRACE = 5
+import logging, sys
+def _logging_trace(msg, *args, **kwargs):
+    if len(logging.root.handlers) == 0:
+        basicConfig()
+    logging.root.trace(msg, *args, **kwargs)
+def _logger_trace(self, msg, *args, **kwargs):
+    if self.isEnabledFor(TRACE):
+        self._log(TRACE, msg, args, **kwargs)
+logging.trace = _logging_trace
+logging.Logger.trace = _logger_trace
+logging._levelToName[TRACE] = 'TRACE'
+logging._nameToLevel['TRACE'] = TRACE
 
 _behaviors = None
 def behaviors():
diff --git a/brozzler/chrome.py b/brozzler/chrome.py
index 4ca476b..e5ef311 100644
--- a/brozzler/chrome.py
+++ b/brozzler/chrome.py
@@ -231,11 +231,11 @@ class Chrome:
                             b'CERT_PKIXVerifyCert for [^ ]* failed|'
                             b'^ALSA lib|ERROR:gl_surface_glx.cc|'
                             b'ERROR:gpu_child_thread.cc', buf):
-                        logging.log(
-                                brozzler.TRACE, 'chrome pid %s STDOUT %s',
+                        self.logger.trace(
+                                'chrome pid %s STDOUT %s',
                                 self.chrome_process.pid, buf)
                     else:
-                        logging.debug(
+                        self.logger.debug(
                                 'chrome pid %s STDOUT %s',
                                 self.chrome_process.pid, buf)
 
@@ -246,15 +246,15 @@ class Chrome:
                             b'CERT_PKIXVerifyCert for [^ ]* failed|'
                             b'^ALSA lib|ERROR:gl_surface_glx.cc|'
                             b'ERROR:gpu_child_thread.cc', buf):
-                        logging.log(
-                                brozzler.TRACE, 'chrome pid %s STDOUT %s',
+                        self.logger.trace(
+                                'chrome pid %s STDOUT %s',
                                 self.chrome_process.pid, buf)
                     else:
-                        logging.debug(
+                        self.logger.debug(
                                 'chrome pid %s STDERR %s',
                                 self.chrome_process.pid, buf)
         except:
-            logging.error('unexpected exception', exc_info=True)
+            self.logger.error('unexpected exception', exc_info=True)
 
     def stop(self):
         if not self.chrome_process or self._shutdown.is_set():
diff --git a/brozzler/cli.py b/brozzler/cli.py
index fcd5904..9e9545a 100644
--- a/brozzler/cli.py
+++ b/brozzler/cli.py
@@ -91,8 +91,7 @@ def _add_proxy_options(arg_parser):
 
 def configure_logging(args):
     logging.basicConfig(
-            stream=sys.stderr, level=args.log_level,
-            format=(
+            stream=sys.stderr, level=args.log_level, format=(
                 '%(asctime)s %(process)d %(levelname)s %(threadName)s '
                 '%(name)s.%(funcName)s(%(filename)s:%(lineno)d) %(message)s'))
     logging.getLogger('requests.packages.urllib3').setLevel(logging.WARN)
diff --git a/brozzler/frontier.py b/brozzler/frontier.py
index 43bf10b..8bf8e8f 100644
--- a/brozzler/frontier.py
+++ b/brozzler/frontier.py
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ class RethinkDbFrontier:
         self._vet_result(result, replaced=[0,1], unchanged=[0,1])
 
     def update_page(self, page):
-        self.logger.debug("updating 'pages' table entry %s", page)
+        self.logger.trace("updating 'pages' table entry %s", page)
         result = self.r.table("pages").get(page.id).replace(page.to_dict()).run()
         self._vet_result(result, replaced=[0,1], unchanged=[0,1])
 
diff --git a/brozzler/worker.py b/brozzler/worker.py
index f20ed86..7eb7d22 100644
--- a/brozzler/worker.py
+++ b/brozzler/worker.py
@@ -383,9 +383,8 @@ class BrozzlerWorker:
 
         try:
             self.status_info = self._service_registry.heartbeat(status_info)
-            self.logger.log(
-                    brozzler.TRACE, "status in service registry: %s",
-                    self.status_info)
+            self.logger.trace(
+                    "status in service registry: %s", self.status_info)
         except rethinkdb.ReqlError as e:
             self.logger.error(
                     "failed to send heartbeat and update service registry "
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 249d026..0f3b228 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ def find_package_data(package):
 
 setuptools.setup(
         name='brozzler',
-        version='1.1b9.dev179',
+        version='1.1b9.dev180',
         description='Distributed web crawling with browsers',
         url='https://github.com/internetarchive/brozzler',
         author='Noah Levitt',