Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey

From the publisher:

Welcome to LA. City of contradictions. It is home to movie stars and down-and-outs. Palm-lined beaches and gridlock. Shopping sprees and gun sprees. Bright Shiny Morning takes a wild ride through the ultimate metropolis, where glittering excess rubs shoulders with seedy depravity. Frey's trademark filmic snapshots zoom in on the parallel lives of diverse characters, bringing their egos and ideals, hopes and despairs, anxieties and absurdities vividly to life. Some suffer, like the otherworldly wino who tries to save a spoilt teenage runaway. Others gain, like the canny talent agent who turns sexual harassment to blackmailing advantage. Some are loaded, or grounded, and have luck on their side. Others, like the countless actresses-turned-hookers, or schoolboys-turned-gangsters, are doomed.

"Out of the many characters in Bright Shiny Morning, one dominates them all - the city of Los Angeles. Frey etches out the city's persona through the experiences of a cross-section of its inhabitants, from the highest to the very lowest. It is testament to his skills that even the most profoundly unsympathetic of these individuals cannot fail to get under your skin and the novel is always engaging although don't expect a story in the conventional sense."
Tom Goddard, Waterstones.com

An ambitious and wide-ranging first novel from the author of the controversial rehab memoir, A Million Little Pieces which paints a vivid fictional portrait of the city of Los Angeles and its many and varied inhabitants...Did you feel that James Frey suceeded in creating believable and sympathetic characters here? How did you find the unconventional narrative structure of the book? Did it affect your overall enjoyment of the book? Does the book provide a rounded portrait of the city that gives a real impression of sense of place and what the city is like? Did you empathise with any of the characters more than others? Amberton, Dylan, Old Man Joe - who did you feel was the most convincing character?

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Comments

[Lucy Oakes]

I was at first put off by the narrative structure of the novel. However, despite the unconventional composition, each character’s story does have a beginning, middle and end. I liked the short sections about the history of Los Angeles and they served as markers between the differing story strands.

I found Frey’s sentence structure hard going and this was part of what made it difficult for me to get into the novel. As Tom Goddard pointed out, the city of LA hovers over the entire plot and in this regard, Bright Shiny Morning reminded me of Carl Hiaasen’s Stormy Weather, in which the state of Florida and its weather systems are as much a part of the novel as the human characters.

The main characters were likeable and well-drawn and Frey manages to make the reader care about even the most lowly of them. The fact that not all of them get the happy endings that they might deserve enhances the realism.

[Denise Powell]

Wow - what looked initially to be quite an intimidating, weighty tome turned out to be one of the most original, thought-provoking books I've read in quite a while and I raced through it in two days.

The stories of the four central characters and the large supporting cast are by turns sad, funny, hopeful, depressing - in other words all human life is here. I did feel that Esperanza was a bit too good to be true at times, but otherwise the characters were well-rounded and believable. I would say I sympathised most with Dylan/Maddie and Old Man Joe. Amberton was a brilliant character but it's hard to feel any sympathy for such a narcissistic, self-obsessed egomaniac! He did provide the book's funniest moment though (the scene in the cafe with the Russian hitman).

However, the main star of the book is, of course, LaLa-land itself in all it's seedy, desperate, bright shiny glory. I found the structure of the book fascinating, especially the facts and figures Frey intersperses with the narrative and the snippets from LA's history at the beginning of each chapter. I had to keep reminding myself that, in his words, "nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable". (Maybe he just put that in to cover himself after all the flak he's taken in the past!)

A Million Little Pieces has been on my TBR pile for a while now, and I must admit I've been put off by the hype/backlash surrounding it, but on the strength of Bright Shiny Morning I'll definitely be reading it soon.

[Helen Nash]

I was totally gripped by this book. I didn't expect to be, but I found myself still reading, very late at night. I liked the style - I don't have any problem with the lack of speech marks etc and enjoyed the fluidity of the prose that Frey gained by simplifying his punctuation. It was like a big, glorious collage of stories, descriptions, details - all adding up to a real picture of the city.

I have to admit that I skimmed all the 'fact' bits (although I must declare a certain fondness for the freeway chapter), but the stories had me hooked. Often with multiple narratives like this I find myself more involved in one strand, but not here! The interweaving of the four main character/plotlines of Dylan/Maddie (I found this the most moving of the narrative strands), Old Joe, Esperanza and the loathsome Amberton (and his equally smugly self-satisfied wife) worked really well, and I was genuinely interested in following them all.

What surprised me was how the little, often unnamed, cameo appearances stayed in my mind: the woman who was raped, the teenage gang-members, the creator of the mini-golf business, the trailer park residents... all these and more haunt me as much as the 'main characters'. LA itself is, as other reviewers have said, the main character of the novel, and we see it in all its seedy glamour, freeways and all!

This book reminded me of other books I've liked: 'If No-one Speaks of Remarkable Things' for example (I can't quite put my finger on what else it reminds me of - I'm hoping someone else's comments will remind me!) but is also very visual. If Quentin Tarantino were to write a novel about LA - and then censor it (a bit, at least) for violence - this would be it!

[Neil Fulwood]

I finished 'Bright Shiny Morning' last night, slept on it, and I'm still in two minds about the book.

FOR: it's a swift read - I was averaging over a 100 pages in each sitting - finished it in four days.

AGAINST: the author's total disregard for punctuation. Okay, I know I was reading an uncorrected proof copy, but a cursory perusal of his other titles in Waterstones confirmed that this is his usual style of writing. It's awkward, gimmicky and self-conscious - as is his non-indentation of paragraphs and dialogue. Hopefully this is something Frey will get out of his system quickly, whereupon I'm sure he'll produce something of real literary value.

FOR: the epic scope of the novel, the smog-wreathed city itself looming over every page, the REAL main character, against which the likes of Amberton, Esperanza and Old Man Joe are ultimately ephemeral.

AGAINST: of the four main narrative strands, two end predictably (Esperanza reunited with Doug; Dylan facing violent consequences for taking the money); one ends predictably but with an effective coda (Old Man Joe discovers the girl he was trying to protect wasn't a drop-out but a rich kid deliberately slumming it); and one is curtailed just as it's starting to get interesting (Amberton in cohorts with a Russian assassin ... like Denise, I thought this provided the funniest moment in the book, but the subplot is never developed).

FOR: the tender and poignant scenes between Dylan and Maddie.

AGAINST: the saccharine-heavy scenes between Esperanza and her impossibly saintly family.

FOR: the bite-sized history of L.A, interwoven through the novel.

AGAINST: digressive overkill (eight pages on highways, six on natural disasters) and a tendency, particularly towards the end of the novel, to fill up pages with lists of things (schools, museums, etc) instead of writing actual prose. Granted, Frey includes a wealth of information about L.A., but given his - how to put this tactfully? - flexibility with facts in his autobiographical works, I wasn't sure how much credence to give it.

There were some passages that soared, making 'Bright Shiny Morning' close to a masterpiece, and others that I skimmed, bored with the digressions and repetitions and eager for the narrative to recommence. I'm still undecided. The only thing I'm certain about is that I'd like to take up a blue pencil and do something about the punctuation!

[Helen Nash]

I can see what Neil means about the punctuation - some of it (especially the apostrophes eg friend's for plural!) is downright wrong and will hopefully be proof-read out. On the other hand, I really didn't notice the lack of commas and speech marks after a while (and I'm a pedantic English teacher!) - I felt that stylistically it speeds the book up, and you get that feeling of language flowing over you. After all, if James Joyce can get away with it...

I agree that the Esperanza story was a bit shmaltzy, but I'm not so sure the Dylan ending was that predictable - I thought he'd got away with it (but that might just have been wishful thinking, and would have been very saccharine!)

I'd agree the novel is patchy (as I wrote in my initial review, I did skip a lot of the 'digressive overkill' - love that phrase!), but I would describe it as surprisingly technically accomplished, particularly the structure.

But I do have a question: has anyone - honestly - read every word, including the lists of Hollywood hopefuls, 'facts' and freeways? And if people are going to skim those bits, do they have any value? Why are they there - is it 'local colour'? Making unforgiving LA the major character...?

[Anne Cater]

I really did not know what to expect of this novel. I'd heard of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces but never read it - I will now!

I was hooked on Bright Shiny Morning from page one - I was drawn in by the characters, the history of LA and the wonderfully descriptive writing.

I admit, I did struggle a little with the lack of punctuation, but felt by the end that this just added something to the whole experience.

Of course Los Angeles itself is the real star of the novel. How sad to read in such brief snippets about the rise of a new city and what it has become.

Maddie and Dylan were my favourite characters - although I liked every one of them. As someone has already said, it was often the unknown characters - the short paragraphs that affected me the most.

By telling the individual stories in short bursts, I never became bored by their story - I wanted to read on and to know just what would happen next.

Yes, I skimmed over the list of LA hopefuls - but I did read all the other facts, and on the whole found them quite fascinating. The novel would work without them, but I do think these quirky touches add a lot to the reading experience.

I'd recommend this to all.

[Lynsay Lambert]

Where to start??

I wasnt new to James Freys' way of writing, as i have read A Million Little Pieces, so after the first page i was back into the swing of it!

I though that this book was fantastic, in all honesty. I admit that some of the characters were a bit too worthy (how many people can honestly say that they could live with 17 members of their family in total harmony?), but i think that extreme was necessary to contrast Esperanza with other not-as-'good' characters, such as Amberton, who i just ended up feeling really sorry for!

I will admit that i skimmed over some of the lists in the book, by no means all of them, but i think they were a great device for introducing some real facts (or maybe made up facts lol) about the actual city, which is one of the main characters of the book.

It was fascinating to cover the history of the city from its birth up to the present day, touching on all the things that have happened there throughout the years and how they've affected the city.

I thought all of the main characters were incredibly well written - i especially liked Dylan and Maddie, and i liked that the stories had realistic endings, rather than all of them having Hollywood endings!

The cameos were great as well - did anyone spot a cheeky wee one of Perez Hilton? they made me think a lot more about all the different types of people who make up a city, and how they may have ended up there.

I would encourage everyone to read this book, and have recommended it to my friends already. A lot of people may find the narrative style a struggle at first but its definitely worth the effort!

[Scott Eden]

I loved every page. Monumental but with a great light touch. The history snippets were a brilliant thread and kind of reminded me of Dos Passos … not the style but just the scale they added. I kept wondering where they wd lead… and the lists were brilliant too. Hard to do that without making it seem like padding, but there was nothing superfluous. The list of vets was crushing. And the lists of gangs I loved – my favourite squad was Exotic Foreign Creation Coterie which made me burst out laughing, an unusual event. All part of the riches.I cannot believe some people are not reading every word. Do they put their fingers in and out of their ears when listening to music / shut their eyes watching movies?

I also thought his treatment in terms of punctuation etc. was perfectly in tune with the matter in hand and added significantly. Perfect standard punctuation? Come on, it's the 21st century....

Thought the main characters were fantastically well drawn. Nobody cd love Amberton obviously but he seemed really convincing. Have seen characters along those lines elsewhere ( - Ellis? ) but they seem always to be a bit cartoonish for my taste. Amberton's rant into the mirror is particularly memorable. As for the others, I confess that near the end I buzzed the final pages through my fingers just to check that the names of Dylan and Esperanza were going to come up again. Doug was really solid too for a character who really appears so little.His monologue when he comes to the store for the last time was so naturally spoken…and I smiled because I cd just see those women nodding in approval: it wd be that slow-motion nod with the arms crossed and the eyebrows raised! All the dialogue seemed alive and authentic and all the unexpected tenderness was some of the best stuff in there in the way it was presented..

My favourite passage had to be the bit at the end about the guy who is walking everywhere on his $200 a month from the ATM….the Land of Angels… Just a big poem almost. When I read the last page too, I put the book in my lap and looked out the window and shook my head, I really did. Mythic. I really look forward to reading this book again …. Am sure I’ll pick up a lot of nice weaving that is not possible to catch on a first read. Lovely stuff ….as Ry Cooder said about Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains, “…and by God he can flat out do it”. As with Mr. Moloney, Frey hits no bum notes.

Read it.

[Kathy Clark]

Well I have to admit that I did not like this book at all. I read it all, hoping that it would improve but it just didn’t! If I had not been reviewing it I would not have slogged through to the end. I was 150 pages in before I thought there may be a story. Normally I would give a book 50 pages to grip me – but this one didn’t – ever!

I too hated the lack of punctuation, particularly quotation marks, as I often had to go back and work out who was speaking. Obviously it is still in draft so one can forgive the hundreds of grammar and spelling mistakes.

However, if I read a novel, that’s what I want – a story, a good narrative, not a compendium of useless facts about a city I have no interest it. Five pages of information about L.A.’s road numbering scheme? I wanted a good read not a trivia list! I probably skipped about 200 pages of this book – i.e. all the gruelling facts and depressing figures.

Yes there were 4 stories running through, one with a happy ending, one with a sad ending and 2 with so-so endings. All weak, and all could have been condensed into a book a quarter of this size. I so desperately wanted the four themes to be developed more. But that didn’t happen. There was potential for 4 great intertwined stories that just never materialised.

There were also dozens of mini-stories of a page or 2 long. Again, I started to skip these depressing potted histories.

I have seldom read a book where I felt such dissatisfaction at the end – I don’t think that I would read another book by this author.

I am sure that there were many people who enjoyed it as we all have different likes and dislikes – unfortunately I was not one of them. Sorry!

[Georgina Tranter]

Well I am 3/5ths of the way through so far but thought I had better post now incase it takes me a while to finish it.

I have really liked the style Frey uses, and 'yes' I have read all of the lists and facts about LA. If anything, I have liked those as much as the reading of the book itself, but maybe that is the historian in me. If you didn't read them all, you might have missed the one about licking toads being illegal in LA!!!!

Okay so the typos are annoying, but hopefully will be sorted by first release (though Hodder have suffered of late with other books I have recently read) but I thought the style was original and entertaining. I liked that fact that a story would end and then you had to read much further on to find out how it continues. The characters were all varied and believable enough.

One of the better books we've reviewed this year I think.

[Helen Nash]

Sorry Scott, I am one of those people who will fast forward/skip bits of films/songs at times (although it SERIOUSLY didn't work with 'Donny Darko'...); I'm a great believer in selection! Here, I see my not reading every word of the 'lists' as a sign that the narrative strands were so strong that I couldn't stay away from them (good excuse anyway!). If I were teaching the novel I'd have loads to say about the significance of all the 'non-fiction', but in reality there were only so many veterans/gang names etc I wanted to read...

I couldn't agree more with the praise for the naturalness of the dialogue (which is SO hard to achieve) - and I maintain that the lack of speech marks helps!

And I too loved the story of the man walking America on $200 dollars a month, given by his wife.

The more I think about this book, the more I like it. It has an afterlife in my imagination...

[Elaine Dingsdale]

Approached with trepidation, I found this month’s novel grabbed my attention immediately. Peopled by a great array of characters, each offering a unique and individual insight into their different lifestyles.

The typos irritated me-as did the lack of punctuation, which I don’t really feel added anything terribly original to the structure. The first will no doubt be resolved, the second is perhaps here to stay!

I was particularly moved by Joe’s story, enjoyed Esperanza’s, was less keen on Dylan-and really didn’t empathise terribly much with Amberton, and his view of life from the top of the heap. Nonetheless there were great moments in each of the tales, and I found each and every character-even the minor vignettes, were startling in their veracity. However there are really only two levels of narration-somewhat sickly, and completely brutal!

Felt the city didn’t quite come alive for me-it takes a bit more than reciting many facts for an interesting portrait to emerge of a location, and I was disappointed with this angle. As Kathy said, much of it read as a compendium of facts which really didn’t fuse into an inspiring entity. Granted some of the facts were quite interesting, but overall I tended to skim through these sections in the desperation to return to the human characters. I did however feel that Frey’s small snippets at the start of each section re the growth of LA worked well, and helped to build up a steady momentum and development which was reflected in the human protagonists.

The overwhelming pleasure of the novel for me emerged in the dialogue between the characters, which alternated between tragic, comic and downright inspiring. Expectations were raised as to how the novel would conclude, but realistically, given that there’s no interplay between the characters, there was never likely to be a rounded or traditional conclusion. In length, overlong, but at the same time, I didn’t want it to end! Will certainly read more of his work

[Gavin Bell]

I really liked the book. While Big Books About New York profiling the city through a handful of its denizens are fairly common (my personal favourite being Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities), I'm not aware of any other Big Books About Los Angeles, and that's definitely a gap in the market. I learned a lot more about a city that I've visited and the book made me realise that LA has hidden depths below a messy surface.

Amberton/Casey and Dylan/Maddie were the two best subplots, highlighting two very different facets of the American dream.

The one thing that bugged the hell out of me was the constant misplaced apostrophe in "friend's". As this is the only plural word it pops up in, and it does so a lot, I'm forced to conclude that either James Frey is doing it on purpose (annoying and pointless), or he used the Find/Replace edit function on Microsoft Word a little too comprehensively.

[Karen Sykes]

I am really struggling to find anything nice to say about this book. I have not read this author before but I was expecting an something along the lines of Alexander McCall Smiths 44 Scotland Street stories but with a significant American twist and in that respect I was looking forward to starting it. Having struggled to the end, I don't think I will be hurrying to read any more of his work.

The style did not help and I found the lack of punctuation irritating throughout. The one to two sentence dividers I quite liked but the big chunks of lists and information I found tedious and boring. As I got towards the end, I skimmed and glossed over these. I had very little interest in LA as a place before I started to read and I think I have even less now. I might have had a better image of the place if it had been woven into the story rather than giving it in effect a separate story thread. It just did not work for me and the whole thing did not flow and felt disjointed. Some of the mini-stories were okay and I particularly liked the one at the end about the man wandering America having forgotten his life after an accident. On the whole though, I found the mini-stories only served to make it more disjointed.

Reading others thoughts I found I agreed with Neil in his "against" points and some of his "for" points. Neil was undecided as to how he felt, but I am very much decided in that I did not like it. I have to agree with all Kathy had to say and agree that it just was not for me either. I agree with much of what Elaine says too, especially in respect to the two levels of narration - either very saccharin or totally brutal.

[Lucy Oakes]

Have to agree with Gavin and say that "friend's" really got on my nerves, too! Looking back a couple of weeks after finishing the novel, I think that it never gripped me in that "I have to know what happens next" kind of way. The four main plots were somewhat disjointed so that it was sometimes hard to keep the momentum going. I kept waiting for the stories to intertwine in some way: maybe Dylan and Maddie would go to Esperanza's store or something similar!

[Stephen Grice]

Sorry, but I found myself having real difficulty with this book. I gave up halfway through and just read the inter-chapter facts which I found more interesting.

I just could not bring myself to care about any of the characters, and I think this was due both to the fragmentary narrative and the fact that Frey can’t seem to write decent prose. His style seems to be far too straightforward.

I was unaware of Frey’s reputation before I got this book and I don’t think I’ll be going back to read the previous one. The lack of punctuation didn’t bother me (Jose Saramago is one of my favourite authors and he uses less punctuation) – I just think Frey can’t actually write very well. No objections to the structure either, though I would have been more engaging to concentrate on one strand of the story.

I do think that one of the most interesting things about this book is that it was an uncorrected proof copy. I find it fascinating to proof read it and pick out all the typos. You can even infer how some have been made by a spellchecker program. So more uncorrected proofs please Greg!

Best thing the publishers could do with this one is to strip out all the narrative, leave all the facts and illustrate them with some really good B&W photos. Should make an excellent coffee table book about LA.

[Elaine Dingsdale]

Think Stephen has made a great suggestion. But maybe seperate the book into two, so that we could have the novel or the factual book.Novel for me please, as I skimmed the factual bits!

[Clive Wallis]

I've only read 50 pages but just wanted to say Wow. I've not read any other posts to avoid any plot spoilers, so sorry if I repeat anything.

First impressions are that the style reminds me very much of James Ellroy's American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand. The short, sharp, machine-gun prose style. The subject matter here is softer, but the style works just as well.

Love the changing POV and the short, sharp chapters.

Love the small bites of history.

IF we are heading for a Crash / Magnolia intertwining of lives and plots, let's hopes it's done properly..!

[Karen Sykes]

I agree Lucy, I kept hoping for the story threads to crossover even just a little bit.

I found it quite interesting that Stephen gave up on the stories and just read the LA sections rather than the other way around. I have to agree though, two books from the one would have suited me better - like Elaine, I would have skipped LA and just gone for the fiction. A book of the type Stephen is suggesting would only interest me if I had some connection with the place in question.

[cheryl pasquier]

I love the basic idea - seeing the seedy underside rather than the glitzy, showbiz side of LA. Not terribly original but the characters were well chosen and presented. I was expecting at least one hard-working waitress/porn actress with stars in their eyes as a main character but they only had cameo roles.

I too was bugged by the word "friend's" but I concluded in the end that it was done on purpose - it's the only word consistently spelt wrong and at one point, we even come across "friend'ship" - surely that can't just be a typo ?! But I tried to work out what significance this could have or why the author would have chosen to do this and I drew a blank !! I actually liked the style with little punctuation, a bit like the "flow of consciousness" technique.

I didn't read all the lists (although I did enjoy the funfacts ! )but scanning through them was sometimes equally effective - for example, if you go to see the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington DC and see the never-ending list of names, you don't have to read them all for the sheer scale to hit you. I think the list of veterans (and down-on-their-luck actresses and gangs ... )here was similar.

The four main plots were enjoyable to read but I admit that in the first hundred or so pages, I had trouble remembering who was who and working out which characters were important and which ones weren't.

I think this could be made into a decent film, some of it reminded of "Brooklyn Boogie", and some of the characters were very memorable, even with just a couple of short paragraphs.

[Steve Grice]

I think friend's has fallen foul of a spellchecker genie.

[Neil Fulwood]

Gavin - if you're looking for other big books about LA, try James Ellroy's LA Quartet, comprising 'The Black Dahlia', 'The Big Nowhere', 'LA Confidential' and 'White Jazz' - though period-set (from the late 40s through to the mid 50s), as opposed to the contemporary 'Bright Shiny Morning', Ellroy's evocation of the city and its seething underbelly jumps off the page and grabs you by the throat.

[S Jackson]

Well, when the book arrived I was slightly nervous of the weight and size of it, but due to some lovely warm days I flew through the book in four days of outdoor garden reading!

I really loved the book, and like quite a few others, James Fey, was a new author to me but I now will be getting myself a copy of his previous book.

I do agree with the other comments about the punctuation issue and this was the one thing which 'broke' up the flow of the novel as it had a constant annoyance factor whilst reading the book!

I like the idea Cheryl has of the 'friend' thing having a hidden meaning, if anybody knows what this is, it would be great to hear...

I also would have liked maybe to see some intertwining in the style of 'Crash' as Clive stated, it seems like a lot of people were hoping for the book to swing towards this.

Overall, a really enjoyable read and one of my favourite book choices this year!

[amw]

I was also daunted by the size and weight of the book, but found it skimmed along very well.
Like other reviewers I found the friend's thing infuriating and also pondered if it were meant to be significant, but can't imagine how. I normally don't like reading prose without punctuation but must say that in this case I think it actually added to the racy, untidy, disjointed image of the city.
For me LA was the main character, and not having read any other books on the city I found that the mixture of historical facts, narratives and lists joined together to provide a very credible image of what makes the city tick.
To me what emerged from the four major narratives - which as other reviewers have said alternate between the brutal and the sickly - was an underlying thread of humanity which contrasts with the general superficiality and brutality of the city. I loved the character of Lemonade who was just a good friend, because that's what he was (sorry - don't have the book with me and am "quoting" from memory); Shaka and his family, and in general Dylan's colleagues at the golf course, who first put him to the test but then took him in as one of the family; Doug stuttering to come out with his declaration to Esperanza; and even to a certain extent Cassie telling Kevin not to hurt Amberton because she loves him (although the 'or else' bit which followed was characteristically despicable).
I really enjoyed the book and think it is one of the better ones we've reviewed this year, and didn't mind going through it with a pencil in hand to correct the typos!

[cheryl pasquier]

came across this earlier on a literary site that made me smile !!! :

James Frey's Lies Are Bestsellers Again
Posted at 7:19AM Thursday 22 May 2008

Good news for fabricating memoirist James Frey and his once-embattled publisher: His first novel, Bright Shiny Morning, just debuted at number 9 on the Times bestseller list, with 14,000 copies sold.
But...Unlike any other novelists, James Frey got historical minutiae wrong! Probably on purpose, just so he could sensationally claim that the LA didn't have a newspaper until 1873 and move the date of water metering forward nine years. He has not changed one bit. Scandal!

oops !