Ryan Field's Blog, page 578
January 5, 2011
Glenn Close Reacts to Navy Video: Don't Mention My Name (or image) Without Permission
If you haven't heard about the kerfuffle going on right now with the Navy video, take a minute to check it out here.
I'm not weighing in with an opinion yet. I honestly don't feel as if I have enough information to blast Capt. Honors, and certainly not enough to support him.
But I do commend Glenn Close for speaking up the way she did. And I can weigh in on this aspect. For them to use her image without her permission gives her every right in the world to denounce the video. They could have created this video without her, and it still would have had the same impact it's getting right now.
If someone were to use my name or image in something this controversial without my permission, I would react exactly the same way. The Internet seems to have given people certain unwarranted liberties when it comes to mentioning names and bringing people into situations they don't want to be in, without asking for permission first. And I'm not sure if this is just stupidity or arrogance. But it sux either way.
I'm not weighing in with an opinion yet. I honestly don't feel as if I have enough information to blast Capt. Honors, and certainly not enough to support him.
But I do commend Glenn Close for speaking up the way she did. And I can weigh in on this aspect. For them to use her image without her permission gives her every right in the world to denounce the video. They could have created this video without her, and it still would have had the same impact it's getting right now.
If someone were to use my name or image in something this controversial without my permission, I would react exactly the same way. The Internet seems to have given people certain unwarranted liberties when it comes to mentioning names and bringing people into situations they don't want to be in, without asking for permission first. And I'm not sure if this is just stupidity or arrogance. But it sux either way.
Published on January 05, 2011 08:24
January 4, 2011
LGBT Film Reviews by Amos Lassen
I don't know about anyone else out there, but where I live we've lost all our video/dvd stores. In New Hope, PA, which is, in fact, a large gay community and tourist town, we had a small privately owned video/dvd store and I used to be up to date on all the latest lgbt films.
However, commercial rents started to soar, the Internet made it easier for people to rent films, and small stores like the one we had here couldn't afford to stay open.
So I've been forced to submit to the choices Fios on demand has listed. And though I'm not totally unhappy, I miss a lot of the independent films I used to find in my local video store.
And the best alternative I've found so far is reading Amos Lassen's new review blog on wordpress. As everyone knows, I'm a blogging fan. I've been interviewing bloggers for a long time, and following favorite blogs even longer. And there are several things I love most about well done blogs. One is when they are neat and clean, without a lot of junk that confuses people. And the ofther is the information in the posts I'm getting from the blog. Whether it be personal or professional, I want to read something of substance. And I haven't been disappointed with Amos' new review blog since I started reading it...especially when it comes to the films. I don't have time to troll for new films. I'm always too busy writing. And now all I have to do is click over to wordpress and there they are.
However, commercial rents started to soar, the Internet made it easier for people to rent films, and small stores like the one we had here couldn't afford to stay open.
So I've been forced to submit to the choices Fios on demand has listed. And though I'm not totally unhappy, I miss a lot of the independent films I used to find in my local video store.
And the best alternative I've found so far is reading Amos Lassen's new review blog on wordpress. As everyone knows, I'm a blogging fan. I've been interviewing bloggers for a long time, and following favorite blogs even longer. And there are several things I love most about well done blogs. One is when they are neat and clean, without a lot of junk that confuses people. And the ofther is the information in the posts I'm getting from the blog. Whether it be personal or professional, I want to read something of substance. And I haven't been disappointed with Amos' new review blog since I started reading it...especially when it comes to the films. I don't have time to troll for new films. I'm always too busy writing. And now all I have to do is click over to wordpress and there they are.
Published on January 04, 2011 17:05
January 2, 2011
Lies of Omission: Who Said There Isn't Enough Emotion in Erotic Romance?

Those who read my blog know I rarely ever review books. But once in a while I do comment about a book I've read, even though it's not a formal review. And the reason why I'm commenting about this book, LIES OF OMISSION, is mainly because I read a comment the other day on a well known romance blog where the person writing the post said she couldn't find enough "emotion" in erotic romance, and then went on to say most of the erotic romances she'd read were not well written.
Well, this dear romance blogger should pick up a copy of LIES OF OMISSION, by Michele L. Montgomery. Because this book is filled with emotion beyond what I expected. And the mc, Trenton, is one of the most emotionally charged characters I've read in a long, long time. I've read other books by Michele before (Tony and Ryan), and I've enjoyed them. But I liked this one in particular because of all the emotion...not to mention the modern romance quality. And, it's very well-written.
Published on January 02, 2011 12:13
January 1, 2011
VALLEY OF THE DUDES: "Our Favorites of 2010"

When I read my e-mails tonight and saw that VALLEY OF THE DUDES was a favorite pick for 2010 by Michele Montgomery, of Michele 'n Jeff reviews, I was more than surprised. First, because I was just thinking about this book the other day and remembering it was one of the books I've enjoyed writing the most. Second, even though sales have been good, VALLEY OF THE DUDES hasn't received many reviews one way or the other. And sometimes it just goes that way. You can't ever predict these things.
I'd like to thank Michele Montgomery and everyone over at Michele 'n Jeff reviews. This was a nice way to ring in the new year. And definitely something I didn't expect.
Published on January 01, 2011 16:15
December 31, 2010
Cheers!

I found a great web site with all kinds of quotations to start the new year off. Below is an anonymous quote, and the link to the site is here.
Hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year's Eve.
To Start A New Year. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anonymous
"A new year is unfolding—like a blossom with petals curled tightly concealing the beauty within.
Lord, let this year be filled with the things that are truly good—with the comfort of warmth in our relationships, with the strength to help those who need our help and the humility and openness to accept help from others.
As we make our resolutions for the year ahead, let us go forward with great hope that all things can be possible—with Your help and guidance."
Published on December 31, 2010 10:23
December 30, 2010
Will Indie and LGBT Bookstores Survive?
I often post about how things used to be for the lgbt community. Just yesterday, in the post below this, I talked about how I personally craved reading m/m romance when I was younger and wished there was more of a selection. But I've never discussed my own thoughts on indie bookstores and lgbt bookstores, or the way things have changed in the last ten years or so.
I'm lucky to have grown up in an area where I had access to both New York City and Philadelphia. As soon as I was old enough, I headed directly to small indie bookstores in both cities to fill my need for both entertainment and knowledge. And though I rarely ever found novels that satisfied my taste for m/m romance, at least I had exposure to lgbt books in a general sense.
After college, I worked for Conde Nast for a few years as an associate editor. But I wanted to write fiction and knew I never would if I spent most of my days editing the work of other writers. So I moved to touristy New Hope, PA, where I still reside, and opened an art gallery, which gave me the freedom to write fiction part time. At the time, which wasn't that long ago, there were at least three different small indie bookstores in town that catered to the lgbt community. Now there is one, and it's not even lgbt oriented. (There were also three gay bars/restaurants in town; now there is one, barely hanging on.)The shop next to my gallery was a lesbian bookstore, owned by a wonderful woman who passed away about seven years ago. But even back in the l990's indie bookstores were having problems surviving. The owner of the lesbian bookstore next door to me was always complaining about how bad business was. The large chain stores had started popping up by then and the small stores simply couldn't compete with them.
After the large chain stores started giving indie lgbt bookstores huge competition, the Internet came along and created even more havoc. And now, with e-books becoming more popular every day, I've heard about all indie bookstores (and not just lgbt stores) closing up left and right. In Philadelphia, the gay bookstore, Giovanni's Room, just announced it will be selling e-books, which I think it a very smart move.
These days, thankfully, as a gay man I don't feel the need to be separate from the mainstream anymore. It's nice to have lgbt oriented businesses, and I always support them, but I don't think the same way I did ten or fifteen years ago. When it comes to my own reading list, I don't have time to drive to New York or Philadelphia anymore just to go book shopping. I read only e-books now, on an e-reader, and I buy them at places like amazon, allromanceebooks, and fictionwise. And I love oneromanceebooks. This doesn't just pretain to books; it spills over into other areas of my life as well. Due to lack to time, and some serious deadlines this holiday season, I did a great deal of Christmas shopping on amazon. And I was happy with the results. Everything arrived on time, I didn't have to drive around and waste precious energy with gasoline, and I didn't have to stress out with Christmas shopping crowds. Though I've learned not to pay attention to amazon product reviews (I'll post about this soon; most product reviews are just plain dumb), I've been happy with amazon in general.
So if there's a plausible way for indie and lgbt bookstores to survive, I hope they find it. If selling e-books in retail bookstores does the trick, I couldn't be happier. I'll be in Philadelphia next month and, as usual, I'll make a point of stopping by Giovanni's Room to buy something. I still love small bookstores and I truly hope they stick around.
I'm lucky to have grown up in an area where I had access to both New York City and Philadelphia. As soon as I was old enough, I headed directly to small indie bookstores in both cities to fill my need for both entertainment and knowledge. And though I rarely ever found novels that satisfied my taste for m/m romance, at least I had exposure to lgbt books in a general sense.
After college, I worked for Conde Nast for a few years as an associate editor. But I wanted to write fiction and knew I never would if I spent most of my days editing the work of other writers. So I moved to touristy New Hope, PA, where I still reside, and opened an art gallery, which gave me the freedom to write fiction part time. At the time, which wasn't that long ago, there were at least three different small indie bookstores in town that catered to the lgbt community. Now there is one, and it's not even lgbt oriented. (There were also three gay bars/restaurants in town; now there is one, barely hanging on.)The shop next to my gallery was a lesbian bookstore, owned by a wonderful woman who passed away about seven years ago. But even back in the l990's indie bookstores were having problems surviving. The owner of the lesbian bookstore next door to me was always complaining about how bad business was. The large chain stores had started popping up by then and the small stores simply couldn't compete with them.
After the large chain stores started giving indie lgbt bookstores huge competition, the Internet came along and created even more havoc. And now, with e-books becoming more popular every day, I've heard about all indie bookstores (and not just lgbt stores) closing up left and right. In Philadelphia, the gay bookstore, Giovanni's Room, just announced it will be selling e-books, which I think it a very smart move.
These days, thankfully, as a gay man I don't feel the need to be separate from the mainstream anymore. It's nice to have lgbt oriented businesses, and I always support them, but I don't think the same way I did ten or fifteen years ago. When it comes to my own reading list, I don't have time to drive to New York or Philadelphia anymore just to go book shopping. I read only e-books now, on an e-reader, and I buy them at places like amazon, allromanceebooks, and fictionwise. And I love oneromanceebooks. This doesn't just pretain to books; it spills over into other areas of my life as well. Due to lack to time, and some serious deadlines this holiday season, I did a great deal of Christmas shopping on amazon. And I was happy with the results. Everything arrived on time, I didn't have to drive around and waste precious energy with gasoline, and I didn't have to stress out with Christmas shopping crowds. Though I've learned not to pay attention to amazon product reviews (I'll post about this soon; most product reviews are just plain dumb), I've been happy with amazon in general.
So if there's a plausible way for indie and lgbt bookstores to survive, I hope they find it. If selling e-books in retail bookstores does the trick, I couldn't be happier. I'll be in Philadelphia next month and, as usual, I'll make a point of stopping by Giovanni's Room to buy something. I still love small bookstores and I truly hope they stick around.
Published on December 30, 2010 07:23
December 29, 2010
New Release: BIG BAD AND ON TOP

BIG BAD AND ON TOP is a book about two gay men in the military who find each other, fall in love, and have to deal with their furtive situation. The live in fear they will be discovered, and sneak around so no one will find out about their relationship. It's loosely based on the old movie, Top Gun, with Tom Cruise. And, once again, I didn't write it as fan fiction. Personally, I didn't even like the film when I first saw it. If anything, my book is more like anti-fan fiction. And because the main characters are two gay men in the military during DADT, the characters in this book, not to mention the ending of the book, don't follow the original storyline of the film.
Growing up when movies and books like Top Gun were released in the mainstream, I would have killed to have had something I could identify with. And there was nothing but the same old arty, over-written, gay fiction that satisfied a small sub-culture of the lgbt culture. The books I read about gays were elitist, with creepy titles and long drawn out narrative, and I couldn't identify with any of the characters. The books I read in the mainstream never went near the topic of gay men, so I couldn't identify there either. (This is one of the reasons I love Toni Morrison's books so much...though I couldn't identify with characters of African descent, I could identify with oppressed characters.) But if there had been a book like BIG BAD TOP GUY I would have read it for sheer pleasure. To feel good and to be entertained without having to think too hard. And sometimes that's what reading is supposed to be all about.
Published on December 29, 2010 08:09
December 28, 2010
Still Reading Toni Morrison...
Actually, I just re-read Toni Morrison's THE BLUEST EYE. I read it back in the late 80's, and wanted to go back and revisit the characters this winter. It's probably the book that has had the most impact on me both personally and professionally.
Right now I'm in the middle of BELOVED, and then I'm moving forward with JAZZ. But I wanted to post something a lot of people may or may not know about. It was something that I didn't know about until I read BELOVED. Morrison describes the use of an iron bit as a torture device used for slaves. Though it's painful to read, not to mention comprehend that human beings would ever do something like this, I think it's important to know.
Below is an excerpt from a web site that goes into far more detail.
Morrison writes candidly of "the iron bit" (70) in describing Paul D's slave experience, and carefully details the horrific nature of its use as a torture device. Marilyn Sanders Mobley writes of Paul's "personal stories of enduring a "bit" (69) in his mouth – the barbaric symbol of silence and oppression," (196) outlining the item's cold, constraining capabilities. Morrison uses the symbol of the bit, carefully woven into the novel's interchange between Sethe and Paul D, to represent Paul D's slave experience, and, taken on an allegorical level, to represent also the slave experience in general. Her introduction of the bit into Paul's "rememories" ushers in comment on the iron's structural qualities, i.e. "how offended the tongue is, held down by iron," (71) indicating the metal's constraining, unyielding nature. The author's inclusion of rich imagery in explaining the bit to the reader aids in delineating the iron's less obvious characteristics aforementioned. She writes of "The wildness that shot up into the eye the moment the lips were yanked back," (71) a reminder of the metal's unyielding, thoroughly rigid conformation and related effects. Immediately following, Morrison affirms "Days after it was taken out, goose fat was rubbed on the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe the tongue or take the wildness out of the eye," (71) thus reinforcing the concept of metal's hard, unyielding nature. Essentially, the metal symbol of the bit becomes the slave experience through the shared characteristics of metal. Rigidity of the slave experience, represented by the metal in the bit, with Paul's "own mouth jammed full of iron" (96) earns its own symbolic explication, as does slavery's physical and mental constraint, itself discussed by Trudier Harris as "confining them in bits" (330). Even more importantly, the context of Paul's "licking iron" (72) generates the symbol's analogous context with slavery, as Paul literally cannot speak to Halle, whom he discovers freshly delusional as a result of witnessing Sethe's rape. The animalistic nature of slavery reveals itself in the metal bit's confining nature, with Paul kept from communication with his friend and forced into inhuman silence by the rigidity of the cold metal. The bit renders Paul incapable of sharing his friend's grief, itself brought about by the nephews of schoolteacher, themselves representative of slavery.
Read More...
Right now I'm in the middle of BELOVED, and then I'm moving forward with JAZZ. But I wanted to post something a lot of people may or may not know about. It was something that I didn't know about until I read BELOVED. Morrison describes the use of an iron bit as a torture device used for slaves. Though it's painful to read, not to mention comprehend that human beings would ever do something like this, I think it's important to know.
Below is an excerpt from a web site that goes into far more detail.
Morrison writes candidly of "the iron bit" (70) in describing Paul D's slave experience, and carefully details the horrific nature of its use as a torture device. Marilyn Sanders Mobley writes of Paul's "personal stories of enduring a "bit" (69) in his mouth – the barbaric symbol of silence and oppression," (196) outlining the item's cold, constraining capabilities. Morrison uses the symbol of the bit, carefully woven into the novel's interchange between Sethe and Paul D, to represent Paul D's slave experience, and, taken on an allegorical level, to represent also the slave experience in general. Her introduction of the bit into Paul's "rememories" ushers in comment on the iron's structural qualities, i.e. "how offended the tongue is, held down by iron," (71) indicating the metal's constraining, unyielding nature. The author's inclusion of rich imagery in explaining the bit to the reader aids in delineating the iron's less obvious characteristics aforementioned. She writes of "The wildness that shot up into the eye the moment the lips were yanked back," (71) a reminder of the metal's unyielding, thoroughly rigid conformation and related effects. Immediately following, Morrison affirms "Days after it was taken out, goose fat was rubbed on the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe the tongue or take the wildness out of the eye," (71) thus reinforcing the concept of metal's hard, unyielding nature. Essentially, the metal symbol of the bit becomes the slave experience through the shared characteristics of metal. Rigidity of the slave experience, represented by the metal in the bit, with Paul's "own mouth jammed full of iron" (96) earns its own symbolic explication, as does slavery's physical and mental constraint, itself discussed by Trudier Harris as "confining them in bits" (330). Even more importantly, the context of Paul's "licking iron" (72) generates the symbol's analogous context with slavery, as Paul literally cannot speak to Halle, whom he discovers freshly delusional as a result of witnessing Sethe's rape. The animalistic nature of slavery reveals itself in the metal bit's confining nature, with Paul kept from communication with his friend and forced into inhuman silence by the rigidity of the cold metal. The bit renders Paul incapable of sharing his friend's grief, itself brought about by the nephews of schoolteacher, themselves representative of slavery.
Read More...
Published on December 28, 2010 07:21
December 27, 2010
New Release: BIG, BAD, and on TOP

Here's a sneak peak at the new cover for BIG, BAD, and on TOP. I'll post more about it this week when it's released, but I wanted to share the cover right now. It's a little more risque than my other RR book covers. But to be perfectly honest, I like readers to know what they are getting. This is, in fact, an erotic romance and I don't want readers thinking otherwise. The romance is there, with a happy ending, but it's not pg rated. And, again, if anyone has any questions about the book, please feel free to e-mail me and I'll answer any questions you have. We now have all this communication and it's nice to take advantage of it.
Published on December 27, 2010 16:37
Christmas Amaryllis

For years, I tried getting Amaryllis bulbs to bloom at Christmastime. Sometimes they bloomed earlier, sometimes later, and sometimes they never bloomed at all. But this year I finally got a bloom on Christmas Day. How to care for and grow an amaryllis: http://www.thegardenhelper.com/amaryllis.html
Published on December 27, 2010 09:40