Also a must read publication; “Dismemsel The wartime series” as published in July 2023
Dismemsel
‘Dismemsel’? What is ‘dismemsel’?! It’s something that looks – and probably sounds – like a word, but which, the last time I tried ‘Googling’ and ‘Yahooing’ for it, did not yet seem discernibly to exist, at least not in their patch of cyberspace. Yet it seems obvious enough as an un- or de-punctuated running together of a conventionally likely way of abbreviatingDisjecta Membra Selecta
Caveat lector – and, of course, welcome! Rick van der Linden has kindly invited me to inhabit a niche on his website, and to do so with complete editorial freedom. He is no more accountable for any of the content of this niche, than I am for any of the rest of his site – beyond the written contributions I have made there at his invitation. How far this niche will interact in terms of content with the rest of Rick’s site, only time will tell. Having been invited into his cyber-meadow, I do not particularly aspire to be a gadfly. But in real-time-and-space encounters we have been regularly crossing swords in all sorts of ways, often enough in fashions at once friendly and fierce, for many a year. So, if ever I do take to any such prickling or pinking, here, I hope it will be simply in written extension of such conversations. My first contribution does, in fact, as my introductory note suggests, have some points of contact with Rick’s work, not least his adventurous and exciting collaboration-in-progress at the time of this writing. It is also an example of existing ‘membra’ of my ‘corpus’, originally (cyber- or paper-) published separately, and so ‘disjecta’, now ‘selecta’, being drawn together for their shared subject matter. They are also in Dutch. How much will appear here in which of my two ‘best’ languages (or a mixture of both!), again only time will tell. (My Latin, German, Italian, Greek, and Welsh are not, I fear, up to snuff enough to be likely to yield any original expressive prose (or verse!) in the near future – to put it mildly – and perhaps reassuringly.) How extensively the niche will be excavated or filled – how often and how much I will be ‘posting’ here of old or new at all, itself also remains to be seen, quivering as I too often am between the poles of prolixity and procrastination (to mention but one factor). Maybe I will even pay attention to a mysterious new urge to try to write simply… So, once more, welcome! And (shamelessly borrowing), for the rest my ending is despair, Unless I be reliev’d by prayer, Which pierces so, that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon’d be, Let your indulgence set me free. David Llewellyn Dodds, A.M. 15 June A.D. I.C. 2010 upon this Feast of St. Amos, of Sts. Vitus (or Guy), Modestus, and Crescentia, of St. Trillo, of Sts. Augustine and Monica, and (salva reverentia) the Eve of the Feast of St. Lutgardis