Contributor Spotlight: Eric LeMay
Eric LeMay’s hybrid work, “Nonsense,” as well as his reflective piece, “Hic Sunt Dracones,” are featured in Issue 73 of the Bellingham Review.
What would you like to share with our readers about the work you contributed to the Bellingham Review?
I hope the video in the piece conveys my primary aim: to explore and celebrate nonsense. What readers might not notice immediately is that the frame for the video is something like a “nonsense generator,” which will riff on nonsense until you shut it down. Readers might enjoy seeing a snippet the code that writes this element of the essay.
var character = [“sense”,”nonsense”];
var characterCap = [“Sense”,”Nonsense”];
var action = [“makes”,”takes”,”breaks into”,”fakes”,”wakes”,”rakes up”];
var preposition = [“out of”,”from”,”beyond”];
var prepositionCap = [“Out of”,”From”,”Beyond”];
var modifier = [“nonsensically”,”sensically”];
var modifierCap = [“Nonsensically”,”Sensically”];
Subsequent code takes these variables, randomizes them, and composes them into the sentences that frame the video and, after the video ends, become the entire work. I’m not very good at writing code, but I do find it easier than finding a monkey to bang on a typewriter until I’d get the nonsense I’d need.
What are you reading right now?
I’m a fan of my fellow writers in the feature on the “Kinetic Page” that Susanne Paola Antonetta kindly put together. I’m reading them in the hopes of figuring out why “hybrids” seem to be a key genre (or non- or anti-genre) of our literary moment. If anyone has any good ideas or insightful recommendations to read, please email me at eric@ericlemay.org.
Where can our readers connect with you online?
ERIC LEMAY’s latest collection of essays is In Praise of Nothing and can be found at http://www.inpraiseofnothing.org/.