The winners of yesterday’s JESSICA Z Giveaway are:
Leslie of cuteonthecheap.com
and
Maureen McGowan
You know the drill!
In passing, if you are one of the winners of previous days’ giveaways and you do not contact me by Monday, I’ll draw new names. I’m totally hard core like that.
So if I’d been on my game, I’d be having a fun guest blog with the author of today’s giveaway right about now. Unfortunately, between deadlines, the new house, Rio, and family emergencies, it kind of got away from me. Bad, Diana.
Today’s giveaway is two copies of the debut novel CYCLER, by Lauren McLaughlin. The book has one of the highest-concept premises I’ve heard in a while (unsurprising, given McLaughlin’s screenwriting creds): Once a month, teen Jill McTeague becomes a boy for four days.
Talk about a bad period.
Her family’s horror at their daughter’s “condition” has led them to take extreme measures. Jill’s “boy self” is imprisoned in her room during his cycle, and Jill is instructed to repress all memories of her time spent as a boy. But their actions backfire, creating in Jill a split “boy” personality named Jack who is not only interested in Jill’s portion of their shared life, but doesn’t want to be imprisoned anymore.
Sailor Boy and I both devoured this novel, and I was fascinated with its exploration of gender identity. From the description above, you might imagine that this is a very dark book. Not at all! But there are some chilling underpinnings to the story. In an effort to make sure that Jack doesn’t “bleed” into her portion, Jill — in concert with her anti-feminist mother — has ruthlessly excised any aspect of her life or personality that may be viewed as “unfeminine.” Stuff like sports. Yeah, you read that right. Scary.
I was regularly reminded of the activities in those “scared straight” camps, where the instructors are under the delusion that men who act like men and women who act like women are no longer homosexual, as if forcing traditional gender roles will have an impact on sexual orientation? If Jill acts “like a girl” will the boy inside her disappear? As the first in a series. many of these question are not fully answered by the end of the book.
As my books regular deal with issues of the intersection of feminism, femininity, and cultural expectations of the same, I was fascinated by this exploration. (More on that when I talk about RAMPANT. RIght now we talk about CYCLER.)
It’s a great book for discussion, and we definitely had a lot in my living room after we finished!
So it’s been a week of highs and lows Chez Diana. Low: We didn’t get the house we offered for. High: Booksigning! Low: Another house we were interested in went into contract before we found out about not getting the first house, so we couldn’t even offer on that one. High: New York Observer put me on a list with Salman Rushdie!
We capped off the week with a Fourth of July Trip out to the Eastern Shore, and an afternoon spent waterskiing, tubing, wakeboarding… (I’m really only good with the tubing). Sailor Boy took me sailing. These are all highs. Last night we were supposed to go watch a midnight showing of The Goonies but everyone involved was far too worn out to attempt it.
In other news, Angie of Angieville has read Rites of Spring (Break) and commented on it, here.
A highlight of the review (which is happily spoiler-free):
This book…how I loved this book. I loved the increasingly mature way Amy deals with her friends. Her experiences with Jenny in the previous volume have made her more sensitive, I think, to the delicate emotions and motivations at work among her fellow Diggers. Despite their rank, wealth, brains, looks, or attitude. I loved how the class of D177 coalesces in this book. They stand up for each other. They notice things. They’re not so quick to judge.
Nice words on a rainy Saturday morning. I really enjoy Angie’s reviews. Even if I don’t agree with her take (she was not as big a fan of Keturah and Lord Death as I was), I find that she always picks really fascinating parts of the story to comment on. They aren’t what most reviewers choose to mention and they always make me think.
Not much focus to the blog today, is there? I’ll probably be spending the bulk of the day housekeeping and working on SSG4, that is, if I’m well-behaved. If not, I’ll be experimenting in the kitchen and reading. I have a whole bunch of new books. What are you all up to?
There’s always so much to do when you get home from a vacation. Like, unpack, and then look around in dismay at all the stuff (mail, email, bills, work, laundry — and seriously, there was more laundry, which makes me wonder what species of brownie or sprite was wearing my clothes when I was in the Caribbean) that somehow piled up while you were gone.
So Sailor Boy* and I spent a little while doing housekeeping and bookkeeping yesterday. And we came to the rather unfortunate conclusion that we have no more space on our bookshelves. The shelves are packed, two and three deep, stacked tight with all of our books — old school textbooks, from both undergrad and grad school, his novels, and my gazillion, fabajillion books.
My solution: buy another bookshelf. SB’s solution: Get rid of some of my books.
You’d think he’d know me better, after all these years.
His argument is that a good proportion of these shelves (or rows on shelves) are dedicated to TBR (i.e., “to be read”) and that a lot of them haven’t moved from that position in the last three and a half years. If I didn’t read these books in three-and-a-half years, I’m not going to read them now, he argues.
I say that’s untrue. After all, it was almost two years after Gina Black encouraged me to read Flowers from the Storm that it finally floated to the top of the pile and caught my interest. (It was great! Thanks, Gina!)
But I can admit that there are a lot of these books on the shelves that I am never going to read. I get a ton of books every year at conferences or trade shows (I have ARCs from 2006 BEA, books that might not even be in print anymore, that I have not read), and they are not all to my taste or interest.
But SB is afraid, with good reason, that if I start going through them and putting them into piles of “may read someday” and “will admittedly probably never read” — well, one of those piles just isn’t going to go very far. Because I like to believe I’ll read them all, someday. It’s someone’s book, that they labored long and hard over.
What to do, what to do… ____________________________________ * For those of you following, Sailor Boy read both Under the Rose and Rampant this weekend, then lamented that he hadn’t brought Rites of Spring (Break) with us. Have you put in your order?
One of the really nice things about WordPress* is that I can write blog posts in advance and them schedule them to appear, so on days when I can’t check in — not even to change something from “draft” to “published” — we can already have posts raring to go. Just think of it — there will be no more two-week long dry spells like in January, where you heard nothing as I sludged, enfeebled and sick with some sort of named British flu bug (the Brits like to name every “thing that’s going around”) across the continent of Europe in search of the perfect settings for Rampant.
Speaking of Rampant, I got an email from a friend today reminding me that she’s been waiting for this book for over three years, and she still has to wait another 12 months. And I feel for her, truly I do. I feel for her decidedly more than I feel for the person who was standing behind Sailor Boy in line at the cafeteria three years ago when he was describing the book to one of his classmates, and who said, “What is this book called and where can I buy it?”
I often wonder about this complete stranger, and whether she will remember the 1L talking about his girlfriend’s fantasy novel and connect it, sometime in 2009, with Rampant. That would be nice, I think.
Meanwhile, both she and my friend are going to have to wait a year. Because no, I don’t have the ARC. I also can’t promise anyone one, since I don’t know if I’ll have giveaway ARCs in my possession. And it wouldn’t be for a couple of months, anyhow. When I know, you’ll know. Promise.
I am, however, making a single, self-made ARC, which is neither easy nor inexpensive, but that I promised to someone very special so he could read it on his upcoming vacation. He had to beg a lot.
And he’s my dad. So if you aren’t my dad, share a comparable amount of genetic material, or are currently married to me, the answer is no. Sorry.
Currently, there are seven people who have read the full manuscript: Me, Kristin (HC editor), Ruta (HC), Deidre (Agent), Carrie, Justine, and Marley. Actually, there may be more at Harper; I don’t know. And there’s someone else at the agency reading it right now. But that’s it.
Sailor Boy has not read it. Nor has he read Rites of Spring (Break). I know, shocking. His argument is that he is present while I am writing it, and hears me alternately groaning or giggling about the process, so it’s almost like he already knows what happens. It’s a bit like being a fan of a baseball team without watching any games, but maybe he likes the uniform or something. He does promote it to random people in the cafeteria, after all.
But it makes me wonder about the friends and family plan. I encouraged everyone I know to read my first book. People who don’t generally read novels about cute co-eds who say “Dude” and talk about how Everything They Needed to Know About Relationships They Learned From Jane Austen.** People who don’t read novels, full stop. People who wouldn’t be caught dead with something pink, and that’s including their steaks. My dad and brothers read it. My uncles read it. Heck, my childhood dentist read it.
But I don’t think it’s a statement about me or our mutual respect and affection if they decline to read it. After all, I’m sure I’m not so keen on said dentist’s articles for the Journal of American Dental Health.*** It’s my job. Not everyone has to be “into” my job.
Let’s go back to my dad. Like most people , his first reaction to “I’m writing a book about killer unicorns” was best described as “Whaaaaa?” But once I gave him the full-court pitch, he became quite enthusiastic, and has maintained this enthusiasm ever since. He’s read all of my books, and has said, several times, that he’s especially excited about Rampant, which he thinks is “more his style” than the chick lit.****
Followed up by the repeated requests for the extra-special ARC for his vacation. Isn’t that sweet?
SB is similarly excited. He pitches the story to anyone who will sit still enough to listen. He did it today, in fact. But he hasn’t read it. Which is too bad, because I think that this is also “more his style.”*****
Should SB read my books? I don’t know, what do you think?
“Others” and explanations in the comments section.
_______________________________________________ * Those of you who have emailed to say their offices block WordPress, never fear. It’s getting dedicated server space shortly. One of the not so nice things at the moment is my inability to get the poll thing to work on it. This will apparently also be remedied when I upgrade from the free version.
** I’d go ahead and claim this title/premise, but I’m pretty sure Karen Joy Fowler already did, and made a mint.
*** Disclaimer: I actually don’t know if my old dentist writes articles, or indeed if this publication even exists.
**** Keeping in mind, of course, that this is the man who named me after Mrs. Emma Peel (I narrowly escaped the moniker Leia.) ***** Keeping in mind, of course, that this is the man who, despite his constant reminders to pack light during our backpacking excursion through Oceania, thought nothing of bringing a complete omnibus version of The Lord of the Rings.
11. Tell you that normally, upfront fees are a warning sign of a questionable agent, but your agent is the exception. Sorry. We understand how much you want to believe it, especially if the fee is already on your credit card–but we can’t lie to you. Go ahead–shoot the messenger. We can take it.
10. Admit that whatever writers’ mythology you’re clinging to is absolutely true, and we were wrong to contradict you. I’ve had extended email exchanges with writers who vigorously and sometimes angrily attempted to convince me I was in error when I told them that new writers can get good agents without having to be published first, or that commercial publishers do market all their books, not just the bestsellers, or that it’s not an author’s job to get his or her book onto bookstore shelves, or that writers don’t have to give back their advances if they don’t earn out. These pernicious myths are astonishingly deeply rooted–especially when they’re shoring up a bad decision.
When you see the comment threads on agent blogs or go to Absolute Write, you see how common things like that really are. If I read too much of it, I start to get all distracted and Sailor Boy makes loud, throat-clearing noises about how maybe I need to not spend so very much time online and oh, how’s that book coming along? Working hard? Huh? Huh?
The Time: New Year’s Eve, 2007. The Place: Washington D.C. The Cast of Characters: Diana, Sailor Boy, and Five of their Closest Friends The Event: It’s a Mad, Mad, Masquerade Ball, presented by Scythian, at the Carnegie Library.
Diana took a break from stressing over her impending journey out of the country for a New Year’s Eve celebration. Diana and SB are usually quite leery about NYE events, and they agree with the character of Ted on How I Met Your Mother that there is a generally a lot of build up for events that subsequently let you down. (Someday, Diana will tell you the story of the mythical Ibiza-like New Year’s Eve party that was supposed to take place on an Island in New Zealand that was populated primarily by sheep. Of course, that New Year was particularly memorable because it introduced Diana and SB to the wonder that is eating green lip mussels within minutes of their harvest.)
But a Masquerade Ball! Their favorite band! An open bar! How could they resist. So they costumed up and headed off. Because many of their friends had crazy holiday schedules, and Diana refused to be the only one in their party dressed in costume, she and her best friend (the swashbuckling marauder), took the liberty of getting everyone else masks. Sailor Boy rose to the occasion and dressed up like Westley, from The Princess Bride, which is one of their favorite books. Diana’s outfit was Buttercuppy. They made quite the pair.
(Yes, that’s a picture of Sailor Boy. We figured masked was okay.)
Next up was a fabulous steak dinner, cooked by Sailor Boy, at a friend’s house, Champagne was provided by yet another friend. Then they masked up!
Doesn’t everyone look snazzy?
Presently, they arrived at the Masquerade Ball. This is what it looked like from the outside:
Which doesn’t really do it justice, since Diana didn’t capture the spotlights swinging around, nor the bursts of flame which occasionally arced up over everyone’s head. But it was massively gorgeous.
The first thing they saw was a man standing out front in another Westley costume. Uh-oh! Who knew that it would be such a popular costume? This dampened everyone’s spirits somewhat as they moved through the coat check, where the coat check people instructed Sailor Boy that he was, also, to check his rapier. Of course, he felt as if he couldn’t properly dance and drink while holding a four foot plastic sword, so he complied. We wondered how many Westleys we would come across as the night progressed.
By that time, three people had already asked him if he was dressed up as Zorro. Guys: Zorro has a cape and a hat.
Zorro: __________________________The Man in Black:
Clear now?
And then, to the party!
But wait, what is this? By the Dread Pirate Roberts, it turns out that the other Westley was, in fact, the fiddler in the band! Suddenly, they all felt much better, and were able to dance the night away. This guy on the left actually is with the band. The guy on the right? Not so much. (The guy in the middle would be awesome in a band.)
They also made a host of new friends, such as some Holly Black-esque fairies, and a few classical masquerade types.
Sailor Boy made more friends than anyone, since folks kept coming up to him and asking for a picture, mistaking him for the Westley in the band.
Sailor Boy and his new friends:
Our intrepid heroes discovered something the Venetians (and comic book superheroes) have known for centuries: you don’t get embarrassed in a mask. Though initially concerned about impersonating the band members for fun and profit, when one is masked, they can’t ACTUALLY track you down. Also, even though the majority of revelers were wearing regular evening clothes and not costumes, you don’t notice sticking out when you are in a mask and no one sees you.
There was also an eighties band playing in another room of the library, and at some point Diana lost her gold veil, and at some point, they all lost track of one another in the crush, but, as we all know, true love is the most powerful force in the universe, and eventually, Buttercup and Westley found one another.
At least, Diana thinks it was the correct Westley.
Or was this Sailor Boy up on stage?
Aren’t they amazing? Even in a topsy-turvy, Diana-doesn’t-know-how-to-use-the-video-function-on-her-camera, bad acoustic tape?
It occurred to Diana last night that though she often recommends novelists on the blog, she has rarely done the same with musicians. Which is why she’s glad to be giving away two copies of their most recent CD, Immigrant Roadshow, on the blog.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
_________________________________________ And now, in first person:
I know I won’t be around much for the next two weeks, but leave your name in the comments section of this post to enter, and I’ll do the drawing when I return from Europe.
So after posting about parapets yesterday, I had that Decembrist song “Infanta” in my head all day.
“And all across the parapets a multitude of coronets…”
Grrr… not exactly the music I was looking for. Though I do love that elephant trumpeting.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here, not least because the lobby of our building is playing carols twenty-four seven and all anyone will talk about is how behind they are on shopping. And after last week’s snow, well, it’s all downhill from here. This weekend, I’m going with friends to see the D.C. Revels, and I’m so excited! they put on such a great show.
So this Christmas is being spent with Sailor Boy’s family, which has led to some interesting conversations about various Christmas traditions. The other day, I walked in on SB and his mother debating the main dish at Christmas dinner. “Ham,” suggests SB’s mom. “Turkey,” SB argues. I sit there and blink for a few moments. “Wait, you don’t have lasagna and prime rib?”
So I mentioned this to another friend of Italian extraction and she said, “Oh yeah, lasagna on Christmas Eve, roast beef for Christmas Dinner.” Thank you! You crazy Northern Europeans and your crazy geese and turkeys and hams.
And though I only had one Christmas of it, I still think of it every time the season rolls around: Pavlova. Dear lord, I love Pavlova. I love listening to Kiwis and Aussies debate who it “belongs” to while I eat Pavlova. the first year SB and I lived here, I attempted to make Pavlova, and I failed miserably. I am not good with meringues. Meringues and crusts. This year, I am on a campaign to have my chef friend create for me Pavlova. I even like saying Pavlova. Mmmmm, Pavlova.
Pavlova and lasagna. And wine. That sounds like a Christmas dinner to me!
Sailor Boy is on Reading Week right now, which means his natural proclivity for night-owlness is given free rein, owing to the fact that he no longer has to be awake for morning classes. As my schedule is, similarly, not subject to the clock, I’ve been adjusting to fit his, staying up all night and sleeping all morning as well.
It hasn’t affected the work; if anything, the change in Circadian rhythm has jump-started my creativity. One thinks different thoughts at three a.m. then one does at 11:30 a.m., and ideas that may seem too outlandish by the light of day seem like something worth trying in the middle of the night. Maybe the next morning it will turn out to be like a home perm, but maybe it be more like the time I put awesome magenta streaks in my hair and loved them like no one’s business.
But the weird thing, is, that’s okay. For instance, I just wrote a five page scene and then I looked at it, decided it wasn’t the best way to tackle that character’s introduction, and threw it out.* Five pages. It’s amazing!
However, it has made for some interesting conversations. Like the one we just had about the difference between a balustrade and a parapet, which was inspired by the fact that I wasn’t sure that the word for a parapet was, indeed, “parapet.” (It is.)
And the conversation we just had about what to eat at 12:50 a.m. We ate dinner at normal dinner hours, which is a bit more like lunch hours for people who sleep in, so now it’s more like dinner hours, and I’m hungry. But it feels weird to cook dinner this late, especially given that clanking around in the kitchen with pots and pans may upset my neighbors, who probably have nine-to-fives and hate us. Nevertheless, I’m hungry, and unlike Gizmo, I’m totally cool to eat after midnight.
Sailor Boy is eating Cool Ranch Doritos. I do not approve of this. I made some perfectly lovely chicken soup, from scratch, this evening, and for my late night snack, I chose Stoneyfield Farm mint double chocolate chip frozen yogurt, which is just about as far as you can get from fro-yo and still use the term. _________________ * Put it in a cut file. I do not delete. I do not recommend deleting. You never know when you’ll need those pearls.
The final winner of THE REMAINS OF THE DEAD Giveaway is: Celeste!
Sailor Boy and I spent some time yesterday doing life maintenance, which we’d been neglecting a bit since we got married (Hey! Honeymoon!) We spent a lot of time on the phone with various and sundry representatives of businesses. The words “wife” and “husband” were thrown around indiscriminately. We also wrote some thank you notes.
We also saw The Golden Compass. My opinion was a solid B+, though I’m torn. I don’t think that books should be precisely like movies, but I do think that the changes that are made should benefit the movie. I thought all the changes in Lord of the Rings, for example, were a great benefit to the movie — it was awesome in all the places that the books kind of sucked. I’m not sure how I feel about the changes in the film.
Still, I enjoyed it. I thought it was fast-paced, did a very good job of explaining what was an extremely complex set-up, looked perfect, and was acted extraordinarily. The girl playing Lyra did a pretty good job — there were only a few weak scenes, which is great for an actor her age, and Nicole Kidman brought the house down as Mrs. Coulter. The ‘gyptians and Lee Scoresby were great as well!
SPOILERS START HERE: (scroll over to see)
Certainly, the role of Billy Costa changed dramatically, and that one was a good change, I thought, because it added more drama to that whole section. Unfortunately, I think they whitewashed the infamous “Ratter, Ratter” scene, which remains, in my mind, as one of the scariest scenes I’ve ever read in any piece of literature ever ever ever (I can’t even think about it without crying). I understand that they were trying to make a children’s movie, though, and they couldn’t have presented it as they did in the film, or you know, the kids would be screaming in the aisles. But it does detract somewhat from the power of the Bolvanger scenes (especially when Lyra is captured). Also detracting from that plotline is the fact that they cut the scene early on where Pan tries to walk away from Lyra, though I suppose the scene where Mrs. Coulter smacks her daemon makes up for that. Plus, I odn’t htink they made it clear that the Bolvanger residents had been “inoculated” — or, as they call them later, “zombis.” And then — the ending. Wow, what was up with that ending? I suppose again, they couldn’t have ended it as the books did — we must think of the children! — but it made the ending feel very abrupt, and filled with, IMO, false hope. Unless they are going to change everything. Oh, and I was so sad that Hester didn’t have golden eyes.
SPOILERS END HERE
Scott Westerfeld, who edited The World of the Golden Compass Anthology I’m in, went to a panel at the Boston premiere. It was run by the Religious Studies dept. at Boston University, and he blogs about the experience here. Scott’s comments trails always include a bunch of his young readers, and every time I’ve seen him post about our anthology, I’ve been surprised by the number of commenters who have proclaimed that they are not allowed to read the books or watch the movie because their parents “heard” that in the His Dark Materials books, Lyra “kills God.”
In his latest post, Scott actually confronts that rumor directly:
We also discussed the bogus controversy around the series and movie, especially the persistent disinformation campaign that claims the protags of HDM “kill God” in the third book. (As those of you who’ve read it know, the Authority is an impostor posing as god, and Lyra and Will don’t actually kill him. Ah, if only the people who love to ban books would, like, learn to read books. Think of all the effort they’d save.)
I think that’s one interpretation. My interpretation of the character of the Authority is that he was one angel who held a coup of sorts, then styled himself a god when he won. And then there were further coups and blah blah blah and by the time of the book, the Authority is not so much the one in charge anymore anyway. And no, Lyra and Will don’t kill him, nor is that their purpose, ever, in the books. She has one purpose, and that’s to save Roger.
But I don’t see why, even if that were the purpose of the books, that it should be something for religious types to get up in arms about, no more than they should be getting up in arms about the latest edition of Edith Hamilton, which also presents gods who are acting in manners totally unlike those the religious types believe in. It’s fiction, people. And some of the characters in this fiction style themselves as gods. I’m a person of faith, and I wasn’t at all offended by the theology presented in the novel. NOVEL.
What the books are really about (and what I think the movie did a great job of explaining) is the fight for free will, which of course is a huge topic of debate among the various tenets of Christianity (and religion in general), but I think Catholics are on the pro side. Pullman is clearly pro free will as well. (One of my favorite scenes in the series is when the mulefa tells Mary Malone the version of the creation myth that exists in her universe. There, the acquisition of knowledge is not presented as “the fall of man” but rather as a true positive — for more on that, read my essay.)
I wonder if the people interested in banning the movie would have gotten farther by presenting it that way. Probably not. It’s much more sensational to say that the books are about “killing God” — not true — than that they are about the evils of religious totalitarianism and the battle for free will. In this country, people tend to be against religious totalitarianism, so not a lot of fans there. However, there are some sects that have a lot of folowers here that lean more towards the anti-free will side of the equation. Hmmmm….
In this interview on MSNBC, Pullman talks about how the religious aspects of the book are an exploration of the fact that both good and bad things have been done in the name of religion — the Magisterium is an example of religious totalitarianism. Religious totalitarianism = bad. I can’t speak for Pullman’s personal beliefs (and I don’t think they much matter), but I can speak for what is in the books. In fact, I had the books originally recommended to me by a woman who was a devout Christian.
But I think the real problem here is what Scott said — that the people who are joining in on the boycott don’t know anything more about the books or movies than what they’ve “heard” in the disinformation campaign. And they probably aren’t interested in informing themselves. Some of the comments in his post bear this out. It’s a shame that people would rather believe some bit of disinformation they heard from others who haven’t read the books than either listening to an expert (hey, he edited a whole book on the series!) or better yet, to read for themselves and make their own judgment.
Yes, that’s right… Sailor Boy and I hit level 40 tonight with our adorable Draenei couple (it was only a little bit annoying and required a couple of rounds through one particularly frustrating instance). But it was worth it, because once we hit level 40, we got our licenses to drive… elephants!
Or, in this case, elekks, which is like the video game version of the elephant.
The elekks come in three colors: brown, gray, and purple, and since I’m already pretty purple, I decided to go for brown. Also, the gray looked really sketchy in the shady area where you can buy them. But once in the light, they look kind of cool. So now part of me wishes I’d gone with a gray one, like Sailor Boy did:
What do you think?
Speaking of fantasy worlds, has everyone checked out the new website from debut author C.L. Wilson? Her first fantasy, Tairen Soul Book One, Lord of the Fading Lands, is due to be released this October. I was an early adopter to the Tairen Soul club (which, um, means I’ve long since claimed my member of the quintet) and read this marvelous epic a few years ago, before the brilliant people at Dorchester bought it and published it.
It’s amazing, guys. One of my favorite books of all time. Definitely the best book I read in 2003. Highly recommend it. Put it on your wish list for fall.
Today’s giveaway is two copies of the debut novel CYCLER, by Lauren McLaughlin. The book has one of the highest-concept premises I’ve heard in a while (unsurprising, given McLaughlin’s screenwriting creds): Once a month, teen Jill McTeague becomes a boy for four days.
