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Completed Questionnaire by M Frissore:
Please answer all (or some) of these questions. You may skip any questions you don't like or even change them to something you do like. I want to know more about you. I understand that this is very long and I would scoff at this at first myself, but it is for real. I really care about what you have to say and we promise to take it into account when making the site better, so please take a few minutes (it shouldn't take too long, really) and fill it out and email it to us at litk.os@gmail.com (please put questionnaire in the subject line, just in case, so it doesn't get spammed). Thank you so much. You're the best for doing this. I will always remember you. --Ralph-Michael
1. are you a poet, fiction writer, or visual artist? Fiction Writer
2. do you like the layout of the zine? Very much so, yes.
3. what would you change? It needs some photos of naked women.
4. what new content would you like to see? See above.
5. what service do you like most about litchaos.com? This is nice.
6. what’s your yearly income? Not applicable at this moment
7. what kind of job do you do? I'm a "scorer," which is not as awesome as it sounds.
8. are you married? Quite.
9. do you have children? Not yet. Soon though. Hang in there.
10. what’s your favorite sports team? New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics
11. who is your favorite writer or artist? I dig Eric Spitznagel.
12. what’s your favortite website? Helium.com
13. Do you use a homepage, like My Yahoo or igoogle? MSN
14. Do you click internet ads? If they appeal to me.
15. Do you watch internet porn? Sporadically
16. Do you use a newsreader? See, I don't know what that is.
17. Has your poetry been published as a book or chapbook? No.
18. Have you ever been interviewed? You know what? I was once.
19. Do you have a page all about you on the web somewhere? Does MySpace or Facebook count?
a. If yes, how many people visit per month? and who made it? I guess not.
b. If no, would you like one? I don't know.
20. How do you improve your writing? Read and keep writing
21. Do you enter writing contests? Here and there
22. Do you donate to any ezines? No. I'm poor.
23. Do you read other ezines? (list as many as you’d like) Zygote in My Coffee, The Cerebral Catalyst, Monkeybicycle, decomP, rumble
24. Do you subscribe to any print journals? (list as many as you’d like) McSweeney's, Monkeybicycle, Hobart, New England Review
25. What can we do to improve litchaos.com? Not sure yet.
26. Have you ever been published by litchaos.com? Almost.
a. If yes, did you link to friends?
b. If no, why don’t you send something? Maybe I will.
27. What’s your biggest writing-related problem? It tends to be bizarre and/or offensive.
Here's one by Tantra Bensko
1. are you a poet, fiction writer, or visual artist?
All of them, all of them, all of them.
2. do you like the layout of the zine? 3. what would you change?
I'm used to analyzing web layout for magazines, as i've been the main artist on staff in three. I'm going to get more general than only the layout.
The layout is very clear. Someone put careful consideration into the placement of everything, all the ways of buying, and navigating around. It's consistent, professional, has panache. You seem to be putting more excitement into it. It's complete, intuitive, trustworthy, and I really congratulate you on making something viable, a business that is taking advantage of modern technology well.
But Visually, I am not drawn to it, myself. Though I do like the visual with the warning. I want to see more things like that there.
I would change the artistic aspect, but our visual preferences are just extremely different, i think, and yours is doing what it can to match the colors of the template. I just bought the Print issue, so will see how it looks in the flesh and pulp. As it is, the pictures on the book covers look like they were printed on the back side of inexpensive printing paper, scanned at low res, and saved too small but blown up. At the risk of being obnoxious to someone, I'd like to see the artistic visual effects be more appealing. It may well be that that's the effect you want, because that is fits the feel of the site.
That flat commercial, clashing colors style doesn't say "depth" to me, and I do want depth rather than superficiality in the writing in a magazine. You describe what you're presenting as hard nosed and kick-ass, and so maybe you're going for a hard edged style but I'd even roughen up what you have more. Put in more things like the Warning image. I would like to see the visuals either either softer or harder, but not in between like it is now.
There's a sense created by the visual effect that the work inside might be slightly superficial. The the general text of the site language isn't innovative or literary, and the art style isn't either, and without enough saturation and contrast to make it pop culture or rebellious, with a lot of humor or intensity or any style. It is good to be minimal enough to allow each writer or artist to dominate the page with his own style. But, if it weren't so one dimensional, with unartistic colors that don't set each other off, it would suggest more depth in the literature, more aesthetic appeal. I'd like to see boxes in the site somewhere with visuals which have some depth, or if not, humor or intensity.
Incredible visuals really sell literature and improve the experience. I've had my art paired with a large number of writing pieces in online magazines. And I've had my writing paired with a lot, and it can sometimes make the whole experience seem inviting, other times, I wouldn't have read my piece myself, if I were scanning the page.
The trailer for the first print issue starts off for the majority without enough saturation, and then it suddenly becomes saturated. That looks much, much better. A line goes through the center of it for awhile then. I would have liked the trailer to have had a quote from the magazine. And I had to turn the music off when it came on. Ugh.
Thank you--it's good you're moving out of just youTube, and found a better site. YouTube's pixilation is definitely not appealing.
Last time I described what I'd change about a magazine, I went into the color scheme reaction I had, what I wanted to see happen with the art, and I was enlisted to be the Art Director at Mad Hatters Review. (This issue, Marty Ison is taking over that role.) A magazine that is promoting itself as the best experimental art is going to have to prove itself to me pretty hard.
I like the looks of Unlikely Stories, and Retort Magazine and they are somewhat similar in tone to yours.
4. what new content would you like to see?
Maybe you'll keep up the chapbook contests til you are able to do regular full length book contests, and use very high quality art on the covers on expensive papers, have larger runs and lots of well known reviewers in magazines, which aren't generated between us, and you are able to offer them for low enough prices to make it viable. I'm rooting for you.
Primarily, just better and better innovative writing, more literary criticism and theory being discussed in the wiki, not going too much into rascally banter in it but having a sense of play and enthusiasm that you are so good at. Attracting the best writers out there is really the most important part.
I'm interested that you're moving more multimedia. I will be glad, as long as I like what you put up. My main inspiration for my art and writing is a combination of the two, really: experimental movies. If you have really beautiful, powerful movies, that would be a big draw for me personally, but I'm reserving myself until I see what you do. Experimental music would draw me too, truly innovative and high quality personal work that was as good as the best literature.
If anything you do can get me breathing more deeply, and trembling, I'd like that, please.
Though I just submitted some photos to it recently, I'm not sure what to think yet about your erotica page as it at this stage is empty.
I have sold a lot of art and writing, mostly articles about Tantra, to a women's erotica magazine, Oysters and Chocolate. Tantra, with its glowing layers of heavenly bliss of love and pulsating Kundalini flashes of manifest and non manifest, circulating energy between the lovers or around the self, is a lot of my sexuality.
To me, if the erotic content becomes pornographic, I guess you'd call it, too obvious, mainstream lighting and outfits and basic activities, it is not at all erotic. If the attitude of the magazine overall becomes too focused on the lustful, it could be tricky for the rest of it to be taken seriously.
If it goes into the erotic with high standards, keeps the rest of the discussions relevant enough, though of course, with the scintillating flirtations going on, and the naughty teases, it could be a wonderful way to combine the personalities of people such as myself. (See Ra's interview with me, Tantra Taunts Ra.) High quality sensual imagery can definitely be a big draw for a lot of people. You're trying an experiment, for sure. Living up to your reputation, there.
5. what service do you like most about litchaos.com?
That you keep energy and encouragement up for the world of experimental literature. That you can say you're at the top of the experimental writing ranking and it can make us get excited. We're really writing for our peers, and to connect with each other really helps, and this might forster that. That is a service. I like that you're opening it up more for people to get involved, in such a clear and organized way. That this can be a place to foment discussion about literary style, for example, and maybe readers will find that interesting enough to be made more lively, more excited about the potentials of being alive, looking at the world a little more vividly.
I like the poetry train idea.
6. what’s your yearly income?
Income?
7. what kind of job do you do?
I teach Tantra Yoga. People really go away transformed, and happy, from my sessions. I call some of my work Lucid Play, and that's the name of my company. I'm also a hypnotherapist.
8. are you married?
No, but I used to be, for 8 years, long ago, to a writer.
9. do you have children?
Yes, we created a fantastic pineapple of a son. He is the best thing that ever happened to me. He's a shining creature.
10. what’s your favorite sports team?
Sea lions. They knock each other off what they float on in the water. I root for both sides.
11. who is your favorite writer or artist?
I don't have one favorite. I like a lot of them, and am always coming across people in my path who do wonderful things. I have to say that artist Paul C. Wilm is my favorite writer, because of the consistently literary interactive quality of our communications over a large part of our lives. That inspires my genius more than any other writer.
I'm finishing up writing an essay that spans a whole series of John Crowley's books, including the one recently published by Small Beer Press, and though I am not a fantasy reader at all, I find his books an interesting example of what I call Lucid Fiction.
Writers who take their innovation really seriously and plunge into the depths of what consciousness is, our relationship to time, to our expanded selves including the true synchronistic nature of networking behind the scenes appeal to me. Writers who go beyond the traditional plot arc so that the structure of their fiction becomes part of the creative plot. Writers who let go of the old limitations of what a character is, so they explore what a person is, without the automatic bias of labeling a person by mass media standards.
What other ways can we look at what a constitutes a character. Can it be the force of flow of the universe in one sector? Does anything really cut apart what sector that is? I mean, our skin breathes all the time. Our nadis, which are astral pathways, which you can see on the Tantric diagrams, are our nerve endings of our aura around us. But our auras really are so huge it becomes hard at the edges of them to even say there are edeges to anything.
I am a spiritual teacher and healer and researcher, and I write as much about that as I write literature. But my spirituality is more like quantum physics than anything like religion. In fact, part of my concept of Lucid Fiction, is that it pushes beyond the usual mass media requirement to keep Christians in ignorance about all the previous Messiahs who had the same life stories.
So, I write about authors who are writing what I call Lucid Fiction. It's hard to have time to do it as often as I'd like because I have so many projects. But I hope to be able to promote that style of writing and really get that genre taken seriously as a style, like Slipstream, Bizarro, New Wave Fabulism, and such, which it has some relationship to. But it fills a gap in the publishing industry. I explain that in my published essays about it, which can be seen at http://www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko/lucidfiction.htm.
So, my next favorite writers may well be among those who send me their books or anthologies they are in, if feel they are Lucid Fiction writers, and would be curious what I have to say about them in that context, in public. I also write about magazines at times which have some Lucid Fiction qualities in some way. When they publish my Lucid Fiction fiction, that alerts me to consider writing about them.
12. what’s your favortite website?
Well, to answer accurately, the one I go to most regularly is actually www.Pandora.com, which is a music site, so I know we're veering off here. Though I do put out experimental music as well. (www.lucidplay.com/rubyfireorchestra.htm. My other answers stick to the literary realm. But for going to websites, I go quite often for information, to alternative information sites that deal with the consipiracy, health, and such. And I of course go to my own a lot, adding to them all the time. I do use myspace, have one for the orchestra, and one for me, http://www.myspace.com/latantriata.
13. Do you use a homepage, like My Yahoo or igoogle?
Yes.
14. Do you click internet ads?
Yes. I clicked the one for Fringe on your site. I never heard of the TV show.
15. Do you watch internet porn?
No, I find it a turn off whether it's on the internet, in print, or in the mind of someone I'm aroundi.
16. Do you use a newsreader?
What's a newsreader?
17. Has your poetry been published as a book or chapbook?
No, but I have three manuscripts completed and ready to publish.
18. Have you ever been interviewed?
Yes, silly! You're kidding, aren't you. I remember it well. You're just teasin' that you don't remember. http://litchaos.com/2006/vol2/issue22/interviewtantrabensko.htm
And for my writing, other magazines like Southern Hum, Global Inner Visions, Logascene, and quite a few more for my art, like The Times Journal of Photography, where I had my spread as the World Class Photographer. They contacted me from India. I was glad the world didn't end before it came out.
19. Do you have a page all about you on the web somewhere?
The web is my page. My sites are my exoskeletons. My writing site is www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko. An art site is http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com. A video site is www.YouTube.com/LucidFiction. An overarcing site is www.LucidPlay.com, but it doesn't lead to them all. They are a labyrinth you have to fly to get through.
a. If yes, how many people visit per month? and who made it?
I have a variety of sites, and it adds up to tens of thousands a month going to them.
I made them, using a template, www.freewebs.com, which is not free unless you want ads and such, which I would not want.
Some of my sites win awards. One site was Tantragarden, before someone snagged it, and it was made from scratch because of the skills and enthusiasm and genius of Dr. Simon Peter Hemingway. The site won awards, and Simon won the BT Design Award for that one. It had a lot of links that explained a lot of what was going on behind the scenes in the world. I was a juror for a long time for that award after that for both photography and art.
One of my other art sites won an award twice. It was for the http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com. The mosaicglobe gave the award themselves. That one is still around.
My sites come and go, and change, so go play in them. I couldn't even tell you how many there are offhand.
b. If no, would you like one?
It's....got.....to stop.
20. How do you improve your writing?
I used to be part of the Zoetrope writing community for a long time, workshopped my writing there. I spent a lot of my life in workshops with my MA and MFA long ago, but it still was helpful and I'd recommend it.
21. Do you enter writing contests?
Yes, sometimes, though the cost is generally too prohibitive. And I've won. Better is when I win contests that don't require entering, like Editor's Pick types. It makes me want to send them my best stuff.
22. Do you donate to any ezines?
Yes, I donate my heart.
23. Do you read other ezines? (list as many as you’d like)
Yes, like Cafe Irreal, and Dream People.
24. Do you subscribe to any print journals? (list as many as you’d like)
Yes, I subscribe to a few, usually when they come with the price of the contest entry. I like to support magazines on the cutting edge of experimental writing when I can afford it, which can be tough, and I have to chose carefuly, usually based on my developement of Lucid Fiction as a genre. I get anthologies more often. Paraspheres, Interfictions, Feeling Very Strange, Away With It.
As a photographer and artist, I also subscribe to magazines for that when I can afford it, like Black and White Magazine. They're incredible. Shots Magazine is another one. Breathtaking.
25. What can we do to improve litchaos.com?
I think I answered that one thoroughly. Thank goodness, eh? I bet you weren't ready for any more.
26. Have you ever been published by litchaos.com?
Yes, Indeed. Like:
http://litchaos.com/2006/vol2/issue20/bensko.htm and
http://www.litchaos.com/2007/vol3/issue26/tantra.htm
a. If yes, did you link to friends?
I would assume I posted it to my tantrabensko yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ TantraBensko/, which I was still taking the time to tell about my publications back then. I promise to start posting again, now that I went ahead put the link here. Being involved with so many publications and such that it's hard to take time to record them for the public is a problem I don't mind having.
But friends in general: they'd think I was bragging if I linked to all my publications as they happen a lot and i don't think that would make them happy. I don't just send them out when they first come out because they're out. There has to be some reason to send it to that particular person.
I put them on my website, www.freewebs.com/tantrabenkso, which is called Lucid Fiction. Then at some appropraite time, I may send the link to people who have some special interest, whether we've met in person or not, when it is a miraculously beautiful connection to make, and they feel my writing drip off their skin like raindrops in the sun.
b. If no, why don’t you send something?
Does anyone have friends who read online magazines? I mean, seriously, I'd like to suggest we take a poll on the wiki. Anyone who isn't a writer read literary magazines online? They may well do it. I'm curious if we are an incestuous, inbred bunch, inbred, speaking to ourselves like the various personalities of a skizoid personality.
Maybe I'll be oh so pleasantly surprised! If I learn that there are many readers who aren't writers looking to publish in magazines, I'll feel as if I'd just lain back naked, while someone wafted the wings of birds and their little bird beaks that tap up inside my nostrils and my ears, and my closed lips, that make me open them just a little more and speak into the beaks of the birds and write more passionately than ever.
27. What’s your biggest writing-related problem? Take 6 and 26 a and b above and mix them together in a blender. Add some cayenne pepper. Straight up.
I love you.
Tantra Bensko
Please answer all (or some) of these questions. You may skip any questions you don't like or even change them to something you do like. I want to know more about you. I understand that this is very long and I would scoff at this at first myself, but it is for real. I really care about what you have to say and we promise to take it into account when making the site better, so please take a few minutes (it shouldn't take too long, really) and fill it out and email it to us at litk.os@gmail.com (please put questionnaire in the subject line, just in case, so it doesn't get spammed) or if you don't mind it being public, just do it right here. Thank you so much. You're the best for doing this. I will always remember you. --Ralph-Michael
1. are you a poet, fiction writer, or visual artist?
2. do you like the layout of the zine?
3. what would you change?
4. what new content would you like to see?
5. what service do you like most about litchaos.com?
6. what’s your yearly income?
7. what kind of job do you do?
8. are you married?
9. do you have children?
10. what’s your favorite sports team?
11. who is your favorite writer or artist?
12. what’s your favortite website?
13. Do you use a homepage, like My Yahoo or igoogle?
14. Do you click internet ads?
15. Do you watch internet porn?
16. Do you use a newsreader?
17. Has your poetry been published as a book or chapbook?
18. Have you ever been interviewed?
19. Do you have a page all about you on the web somewhere?
a. If yes, how many people visit per month? and who made it?
b. If no, would you like one?
20. How do you improve your writing?
21. Do you enter writing contests?
22. Do you donate to any ezines?
23. Do you read other ezines? (list as many as you’d like)
24. Do you subscribe to any print journals? (list as many as you’d like)
25. What can we do to improve litchaos.com?
26. Have you ever been published by litchaos.com?
a. If yes, did you link to friends?
b. If no, why don’t you send something?
27. What’s your biggest writing-related problem?
1. are you a poet, fiction writer, or visual artist?
2. do you like the layout of the zine?
3. what would you change?
4. what new content would you like to see?
5. what service do you like most about litchaos.com?
6. what’s your yearly income?
7. what kind of job do you do?
8. are you married?
9. do you have children?
10. what’s your favorite sports team?
11. who is your favorite writer or artist?
12. what’s your favortite website?
13. Do you use a homepage, like My Yahoo or igoogle?
14. Do you click internet ads?
15. Do you watch internet porn?
16. Do you use a newsreader?
17. Has your poetry been published as a book or chapbook?
18. Have you ever been interviewed?
19. Do you have a page all about you on the web somewhere?
a. If yes, how many people visit per month? and who made it?
b. If no, would you like one?
20. How do you improve your writing?
21. Do you enter writing contests?
22. Do you donate to any ezines?
23. Do you read other ezines? (list as many as you’d like)
24. Do you subscribe to any print journals? (list as many as you’d like)
25. What can we do to improve litchaos.com?
26. Have you ever been published by litchaos.com?
a. If yes, did you link to friends?
b. If no, why don’t you send something?
27. What’s your biggest writing-related problem?
Completed Questionnaire by M Frissore:
Please answer all (or some) of these questions. You may skip any questions you don't like or even change them to something you do like. I want to know more about you. I understand that this is very long and I would scoff at this at first myself, but it is for real. I really care about what you have to say and we promise to take it into account when making the site better, so please take a few minutes (it shouldn't take too long, really) and fill it out and email it to us at litk.os@gmail.com (please put questionnaire in the subject line, just in case, so it doesn't get spammed). Thank you so much. You're the best for doing this. I will always remember you. --Ralph-Michael
1. are you a poet, fiction writer, or visual artist? Fiction Writer
2. do you like the layout of the zine? Very much so, yes.
3. what would you change? It needs some photos of naked women.
4. what new content would you like to see? See above.
5. what service do you like most about litchaos.com? This is nice.
6. what’s your yearly income? Not applicable at this moment
7. what kind of job do you do? I'm a "scorer," which is not as awesome as it sounds.
8. are you married? Quite.
9. do you have children? Not yet. Soon though. Hang in there.
10. what’s your favorite sports team? New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics
11. who is your favorite writer or artist? I dig Eric Spitznagel.
12. what’s your favortite website? Helium.com
13. Do you use a homepage, like My Yahoo or igoogle? MSN
14. Do you click internet ads? If they appeal to me.
15. Do you watch internet porn? Sporadically
16. Do you use a newsreader? See, I don't know what that is.
17. Has your poetry been published as a book or chapbook? No.
18. Have you ever been interviewed? You know what? I was once.
19. Do you have a page all about you on the web somewhere? Does MySpace or Facebook count?
a. If yes, how many people visit per month? and who made it? I guess not.
b. If no, would you like one? I don't know.
20. How do you improve your writing? Read and keep writing
21. Do you enter writing contests? Here and there
22. Do you donate to any ezines? No. I'm poor.
23. Do you read other ezines? (list as many as you’d like) Zygote in My Coffee, The Cerebral Catalyst, Monkeybicycle, decomP, rumble
24. Do you subscribe to any print journals? (list as many as you’d like) McSweeney's, Monkeybicycle, Hobart, New England Review
25. What can we do to improve litchaos.com? Not sure yet.
26. Have you ever been published by litchaos.com? Almost.
a. If yes, did you link to friends?
b. If no, why don’t you send something? Maybe I will.
27. What’s your biggest writing-related problem? It tends to be bizarre and/or offensive.
Here's one by Tantra Bensko
1. are you a poet, fiction writer, or visual artist?
All of them, all of them, all of them.
2. do you like the layout of the zine? 3. what would you change?
I'm used to analyzing web layout for magazines, as i've been the main artist on staff in three. I'm going to get more general than only the layout.
The layout is very clear. Someone put careful consideration into the placement of everything, all the ways of buying, and navigating around. It's consistent, professional, has panache. You seem to be putting more excitement into it. It's complete, intuitive, trustworthy, and I really congratulate you on making something viable, a business that is taking advantage of modern technology well.
But Visually, I am not drawn to it, myself. Though I do like the visual with the warning. I want to see more things like that there.
I would change the artistic aspect, but our visual preferences are just extremely different, i think, and yours is doing what it can to match the colors of the template. I just bought the Print issue, so will see how it looks in the flesh and pulp. As it is, the pictures on the book covers look like they were printed on the back side of inexpensive printing paper, scanned at low res, and saved too small but blown up. At the risk of being obnoxious to someone, I'd like to see the artistic visual effects be more appealing. It may well be that that's the effect you want, because that is fits the feel of the site.
That flat commercial, clashing colors style doesn't say "depth" to me, and I do want depth rather than superficiality in the writing in a magazine. You describe what you're presenting as hard nosed and kick-ass, and so maybe you're going for a hard edged style but I'd even roughen up what you have more. Put in more things like the Warning image. I would like to see the visuals either either softer or harder, but not in between like it is now.
There's a sense created by the visual effect that the work inside might be slightly superficial. The the general text of the site language isn't innovative or literary, and the art style isn't either, and without enough saturation and contrast to make it pop culture or rebellious, with a lot of humor or intensity or any style. It is good to be minimal enough to allow each writer or artist to dominate the page with his own style. But, if it weren't so one dimensional, with unartistic colors that don't set each other off, it would suggest more depth in the literature, more aesthetic appeal. I'd like to see boxes in the site somewhere with visuals which have some depth, or if not, humor or intensity.
Incredible visuals really sell literature and improve the experience. I've had my art paired with a large number of writing pieces in online magazines. And I've had my writing paired with a lot, and it can sometimes make the whole experience seem inviting, other times, I wouldn't have read my piece myself, if I were scanning the page.
The trailer for the first print issue starts off for the majority without enough saturation, and then it suddenly becomes saturated. That looks much, much better. A line goes through the center of it for awhile then. I would have liked the trailer to have had a quote from the magazine. And I had to turn the music off when it came on. Ugh.
Thank you--it's good you're moving out of just youTube, and found a better site. YouTube's pixilation is definitely not appealing.
Last time I described what I'd change about a magazine, I went into the color scheme reaction I had, what I wanted to see happen with the art, and I was enlisted to be the Art Director at Mad Hatters Review. (This issue, Marty Ison is taking over that role.) A magazine that is promoting itself as the best experimental art is going to have to prove itself to me pretty hard.
I like the looks of Unlikely Stories, and Retort Magazine and they are somewhat similar in tone to yours.
4. what new content would you like to see?
Maybe you'll keep up the chapbook contests til you are able to do regular full length book contests, and use very high quality art on the covers on expensive papers, have larger runs and lots of well known reviewers in magazines, which aren't generated between us, and you are able to offer them for low enough prices to make it viable. I'm rooting for you.
Primarily, just better and better innovative writing, more literary criticism and theory being discussed in the wiki, not going too much into rascally banter in it but having a sense of play and enthusiasm that you are so good at. Attracting the best writers out there is really the most important part.
I'm interested that you're moving more multimedia. I will be glad, as long as I like what you put up. My main inspiration for my art and writing is a combination of the two, really: experimental movies. If you have really beautiful, powerful movies, that would be a big draw for me personally, but I'm reserving myself until I see what you do. Experimental music would draw me too, truly innovative and high quality personal work that was as good as the best literature.
If anything you do can get me breathing more deeply, and trembling, I'd like that, please.
Though I just submitted some photos to it recently, I'm not sure what to think yet about your erotica page as it at this stage is empty.
I have sold a lot of art and writing, mostly articles about Tantra, to a women's erotica magazine, Oysters and Chocolate. Tantra, with its glowing layers of heavenly bliss of love and pulsating Kundalini flashes of manifest and non manifest, circulating energy between the lovers or around the self, is a lot of my sexuality.
To me, if the erotic content becomes pornographic, I guess you'd call it, too obvious, mainstream lighting and outfits and basic activities, it is not at all erotic. If the attitude of the magazine overall becomes too focused on the lustful, it could be tricky for the rest of it to be taken seriously.
If it goes into the erotic with high standards, keeps the rest of the discussions relevant enough, though of course, with the scintillating flirtations going on, and the naughty teases, it could be a wonderful way to combine the personalities of people such as myself. (See Ra's interview with me, Tantra Taunts Ra.) High quality sensual imagery can definitely be a big draw for a lot of people. You're trying an experiment, for sure. Living up to your reputation, there.
5. what service do you like most about litchaos.com?
That you keep energy and encouragement up for the world of experimental literature. That you can say you're at the top of the experimental writing ranking and it can make us get excited. We're really writing for our peers, and to connect with each other really helps, and this might forster that. That is a service. I like that you're opening it up more for people to get involved, in such a clear and organized way. That this can be a place to foment discussion about literary style, for example, and maybe readers will find that interesting enough to be made more lively, more excited about the potentials of being alive, looking at the world a little more vividly.
I like the poetry train idea.
6. what’s your yearly income?
Income?
7. what kind of job do you do?
I teach Tantra Yoga. People really go away transformed, and happy, from my sessions. I call some of my work Lucid Play, and that's the name of my company. I'm also a hypnotherapist.
8. are you married?
No, but I used to be, for 8 years, long ago, to a writer.
9. do you have children?
Yes, we created a fantastic pineapple of a son. He is the best thing that ever happened to me. He's a shining creature.
10. what’s your favorite sports team?
Sea lions. They knock each other off what they float on in the water. I root for both sides.
11. who is your favorite writer or artist?
I don't have one favorite. I like a lot of them, and am always coming across people in my path who do wonderful things. I have to say that artist Paul C. Wilm is my favorite writer, because of the consistently literary interactive quality of our communications over a large part of our lives. That inspires my genius more than any other writer.
I'm finishing up writing an essay that spans a whole series of John Crowley's books, including the one recently published by Small Beer Press, and though I am not a fantasy reader at all, I find his books an interesting example of what I call Lucid Fiction.
Writers who take their innovation really seriously and plunge into the depths of what consciousness is, our relationship to time, to our expanded selves including the true synchronistic nature of networking behind the scenes appeal to me. Writers who go beyond the traditional plot arc so that the structure of their fiction becomes part of the creative plot. Writers who let go of the old limitations of what a character is, so they explore what a person is, without the automatic bias of labeling a person by mass media standards.
What other ways can we look at what a constitutes a character. Can it be the force of flow of the universe in one sector? Does anything really cut apart what sector that is? I mean, our skin breathes all the time. Our nadis, which are astral pathways, which you can see on the Tantric diagrams, are our nerve endings of our aura around us. But our auras really are so huge it becomes hard at the edges of them to even say there are edeges to anything.
I am a spiritual teacher and healer and researcher, and I write as much about that as I write literature. But my spirituality is more like quantum physics than anything like religion. In fact, part of my concept of Lucid Fiction, is that it pushes beyond the usual mass media requirement to keep Christians in ignorance about all the previous Messiahs who had the same life stories.
So, I write about authors who are writing what I call Lucid Fiction. It's hard to have time to do it as often as I'd like because I have so many projects. But I hope to be able to promote that style of writing and really get that genre taken seriously as a style, like Slipstream, Bizarro, New Wave Fabulism, and such, which it has some relationship to. But it fills a gap in the publishing industry. I explain that in my published essays about it, which can be seen at http://www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko/lucidfiction.htm.
So, my next favorite writers may well be among those who send me their books or anthologies they are in, if feel they are Lucid Fiction writers, and would be curious what I have to say about them in that context, in public. I also write about magazines at times which have some Lucid Fiction qualities in some way. When they publish my Lucid Fiction fiction, that alerts me to consider writing about them.
12. what’s your favortite website?
Well, to answer accurately, the one I go to most regularly is actually www.Pandora.com, which is a music site, so I know we're veering off here. Though I do put out experimental music as well. (www.lucidplay.com/rubyfireorchestra.htm. My other answers stick to the literary realm. But for going to websites, I go quite often for information, to alternative information sites that deal with the consipiracy, health, and such. And I of course go to my own a lot, adding to them all the time. I do use myspace, have one for the orchestra, and one for me, http://www.myspace.com/latantriata.
13. Do you use a homepage, like My Yahoo or igoogle?
Yes.
14. Do you click internet ads?
Yes. I clicked the one for Fringe on your site. I never heard of the TV show.
15. Do you watch internet porn?
No, I find it a turn off whether it's on the internet, in print, or in the mind of someone I'm aroundi.
16. Do you use a newsreader?
What's a newsreader?
17. Has your poetry been published as a book or chapbook?
No, but I have three manuscripts completed and ready to publish.
18. Have you ever been interviewed?
Yes, silly! You're kidding, aren't you. I remember it well. You're just teasin' that you don't remember. http://litchaos.com/2006/vol2/issue22/interviewtantrabensko.htm
And for my writing, other magazines like Southern Hum, Global Inner Visions, Logascene, and quite a few more for my art, like The Times Journal of Photography, where I had my spread as the World Class Photographer. They contacted me from India. I was glad the world didn't end before it came out.
19. Do you have a page all about you on the web somewhere?
The web is my page. My sites are my exoskeletons. My writing site is www.freewebs.com/tantrabensko. An art site is http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com. A video site is www.YouTube.com/LucidFiction. An overarcing site is www.LucidPlay.com, but it doesn't lead to them all. They are a labyrinth you have to fly to get through.
a. If yes, how many people visit per month? and who made it?
I have a variety of sites, and it adds up to tens of thousands a month going to them.
I made them, using a template, www.freewebs.com, which is not free unless you want ads and such, which I would not want.
Some of my sites win awards. One site was Tantragarden, before someone snagged it, and it was made from scratch because of the skills and enthusiasm and genius of Dr. Simon Peter Hemingway. The site won awards, and Simon won the BT Design Award for that one. It had a lot of links that explained a lot of what was going on behind the scenes in the world. I was a juror for a long time for that award after that for both photography and art.
One of my other art sites won an award twice. It was for the http://lucidvision.mosaicglobe.com. The mosaicglobe gave the award themselves. That one is still around.
My sites come and go, and change, so go play in them. I couldn't even tell you how many there are offhand.
b. If no, would you like one?
It's....got.....to stop.
20. How do you improve your writing?
I used to be part of the Zoetrope writing community for a long time, workshopped my writing there. I spent a lot of my life in workshops with my MA and MFA long ago, but it still was helpful and I'd recommend it.
21. Do you enter writing contests?
Yes, sometimes, though the cost is generally too prohibitive. And I've won. Better is when I win contests that don't require entering, like Editor's Pick types. It makes me want to send them my best stuff.
22. Do you donate to any ezines?
Yes, I donate my heart.
23. Do you read other ezines? (list as many as you’d like)
Yes, like Cafe Irreal, and Dream People.
24. Do you subscribe to any print journals? (list as many as you’d like)
Yes, I subscribe to a few, usually when they come with the price of the contest entry. I like to support magazines on the cutting edge of experimental writing when I can afford it, which can be tough, and I have to chose carefuly, usually based on my developement of Lucid Fiction as a genre. I get anthologies more often. Paraspheres, Interfictions, Feeling Very Strange, Away With It.
As a photographer and artist, I also subscribe to magazines for that when I can afford it, like Black and White Magazine. They're incredible. Shots Magazine is another one. Breathtaking.
25. What can we do to improve litchaos.com?
I think I answered that one thoroughly. Thank goodness, eh? I bet you weren't ready for any more.
26. Have you ever been published by litchaos.com?
Yes, Indeed. Like:
http://litchaos.com/2006/vol2/issue20/bensko.htm and
http://www.litchaos.com/2007/vol3/issue26/tantra.htm
a. If yes, did you link to friends?
I would assume I posted it to my tantrabensko yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ TantraBensko/, which I was still taking the time to tell about my publications back then. I promise to start posting again, now that I went ahead put the link here. Being involved with so many publications and such that it's hard to take time to record them for the public is a problem I don't mind having.
But friends in general: they'd think I was bragging if I linked to all my publications as they happen a lot and i don't think that would make them happy. I don't just send them out when they first come out because they're out. There has to be some reason to send it to that particular person.
I put them on my website, www.freewebs.com/tantrabenkso, which is called Lucid Fiction. Then at some appropraite time, I may send the link to people who have some special interest, whether we've met in person or not, when it is a miraculously beautiful connection to make, and they feel my writing drip off their skin like raindrops in the sun.
b. If no, why don’t you send something?
Does anyone have friends who read online magazines? I mean, seriously, I'd like to suggest we take a poll on the wiki. Anyone who isn't a writer read literary magazines online? They may well do it. I'm curious if we are an incestuous, inbred bunch, inbred, speaking to ourselves like the various personalities of a skizoid personality.
Maybe I'll be oh so pleasantly surprised! If I learn that there are many readers who aren't writers looking to publish in magazines, I'll feel as if I'd just lain back naked, while someone wafted the wings of birds and their little bird beaks that tap up inside my nostrils and my ears, and my closed lips, that make me open them just a little more and speak into the beaks of the birds and write more passionately than ever.
27. What’s your biggest writing-related problem? Take 6 and 26 a and b above and mix them together in a blender. Add some cayenne pepper. Straight up.
I love you.
Tantra Bensko
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Please take a few minutes of your time to answer these questions. You can answer on this sheet after each question and then send it to litk.os@gmail.com (put “questionnaire” in the subject line) or attach it to our wiki “Yes”. We will be eternally grateful because we want to make litchaos.com better and need conversations with you to do so. This is an anonymous questionnaire to get some information to help us grow in a direction that’s helpful for you and the online writing community. It’s truly anonymous, and if you don’t want to answer a question, just skip it. I understand that this is a bit long, but it’s for real—this is no small thing, these are real questions, and your answers are quite important to me.
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