Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Book Spectrum. I'm yourhost, Chris Cordiny. This is where
we talk with writers who aren't alwaysseasoned career authors, but from occupations and
professions across the spectrum. Harry Houdini'smagic, career and the life were all
fascinating. He escaped all kinds ofrestraints and casements and situations. Still,
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there was one thing even the greatHoudini couldn't escape, his own mortality that
hit him at an early age backin nineteen twenty six. Houdini did,
however, say he would try.He reportedly told his wife Bess, if
there was any way out, I'mgoing to find it. I will find
you and I'll make contact with youon the anniversary of my death. While
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that never happened, the escape artist'sfascination with spirituality and communication with those in
the afterlife from his attempts to contacthis deceased mother through his own passing provide
the background to this highly intriguing whatif historical fiction book. It's called Houdini's
Last Handcuffs and with Me are theauthors, Charles C. Young and Cheryl
Ell Young. Cheryl's Cheryl, Welcometo Book Spectrum. Thank you, Chris.
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Glad to be here. Thank youfor having us. Chris, I'm
glad to have you as well.I must make sure our audience knows that
your father, Morris Young, wasa stiller magician in his own right.
Yes, he was a major collector. Did also perform some magic, but
his profession was he was an isurgeon, but early on, you know,
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he had developed an interest in thingsmagical. He is, he was
a magician, an ice surgeon,and definitely influenced by Houdini all around.
Correct, right, Yeah, hehad met the met the magician early in
his career, and he became acquaintedwith one of Houdini's secretaries who happened to
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be the author of the shadow novels. You know, who knows what evil
lurks in the heartsome in the Shadowno That was Walter Gibson, and they
formed a partnership and wrote some booksabout Houdini. So he was very involved
with that, and Walter took overfrom Bess, Houdini's wife, the tradition
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of doing seances yearly. I wouldassume that Harry Hoodini was pretty prominent throughout
your childhood. Yeah. Absolutely.The home was steeped in magic. There
were magic posters on the wall.There were items, one in particular a
pair of handcuffs that our father wasfortunately to be given by Elsie, Elsie
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Harden, who was the widow ofWhodini's brother, Hardened the Magician. When
Houdini died, he left all ofhis magic act to his brother because his
brother was also a magician. Andwhen Hardin died, you know, sold
off a bunch of stuff. Butthen she invited my father and his collecting
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buddy to come in and clear upthe last portions of this state. And
one of the absolute last pieces wasunusual pair of handcuffs. So talk about
these handcuffs. These are obviously Houdini'shandcuffs, and we know we have the
title of the book as Houdini's Handcuffs. So let's get into what you have.
Carol, Well, I think Idon't. I was going to say,
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I don't think that the handcuffs,of course, are integral to the
book, and it were a veryimportant piece, especially Charlie still has them,
and that in itself is part ofit. But another major influence on
this our knowledge of Houdini was thatevery year there was a seance held to
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try and reach Houdini and growing upwith these seances going on, and later
on when we got older, weactually were able to sit and watch a
seance my parents, my father inparticular, participated, and I think that
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itself was so intriguing that I've alwayswanted to reach you Deani, to have
him come back again. They werea major inspiration for writing this tale.
Our father had written an article innineteen ninety two for The Linking Ring,
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which is the major magazine of theInternational Brotherhood of Magicians, and he called
that article the Last Handcuffs. Nowwe named our book inspired by that Hudini's
Last Handcuffs because in the article hedescribes finding the handcuffs and asking Elsie whether
he could take them because he thought, well, they must be special because
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they had been tacked to a wallin the basement and they had been altered
clearly by one of the brothers tomake them easier to escape from. So
they were magical in that sense.But our father felt that this was the
last spore of the brothers Houdini leavingthe Houdini has stayed and that made them
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very special to him, and whythey were on show in our house when
we were growing up and why hewrote the article about them. So they
were a major inspiration for writing thistale. I'm with Cheryl and charyls Young,
the authors of Houdini's Last Handcuffs,right here on book spectrum. Chris
Gordeni, your host. Let's getto the book because in this particular story,
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what are those seances worked? Whenyou were watching the seance? What
were you thinking about this idea,like, what would happen if, in
fact the seance worked? Well?I think we were always hopeful, although
I don't think most of us believethat it was possible, there was always
that kernel of hope that perhaps wewould reach him. In the tail,
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the adults are going off to Houdini'shome to try to reach him with the
seance, and Walter Gibson, theshadow rider, leaves the children with a
Wiji board because the children are disappointedthat they couldn't tag along. They were
youngsters eight nine. Well that's reallysmart kids. Well, we also did
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have because you know, these childrenreally represent us in the tail, but
we did have a housekeeper, aliving housekeeper who was left with us,
so we weren't totally alone. Butwe were left with this Ouiji board and
Walter, you know, said goahead, see if you can contact him
yourselves. Unbeknownst though to all ofus, Houdini had actually already returned that
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evening, and he returned because ofthe magic in the handcuffs. One would
think that if anybody could be reachinga seance and brought back to life resurrected
if you will, it would beHarry Houdini, the guy who would be
able to escape his own but justsay demise yes. And in the story,
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you know, he does return andhe makes a connection with the children.
He enlists the children's help because he'sreturned with the purpose. He needs
to find his special secret notebook thathas formulas, one of which was the
formula that he used to be ableto return, but the formula was flawed
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and that was one of the reasonsfor his return to work on this formula
again. But there were other formulain the book. None of the book
contained hocus pocus or let's say,traditional magic. This was all in math
and physics and different science formulas.And that's a really you know, an
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important theme of the book that thatreal magic is actually science and physics making
the seemingly impossible possible and that's whatwe want to try to bring out.
Houdini himself was a very learned man, and there were there he used science
to try to make some of histricks actually successful too. So I think
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that's important that we understand that thatmagic involves math and science. A lot
of these tricks do well, thinkabout it. Look at the magicians of
today and their high tech, theirtheir high tech illusions, their elaborate stage
shows. Right, one of thatrequires mathematics and physics to make things happen
and to kind of twist things aroundand show people what they're seeing is what
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they're seeing, but it's not reallyhappening. It's well, that's the amazement.
Well, we were kids, itwas always the math teacher saying you're
going to be able to use thiswhen we were when when you're older?
Kids were always asking when when amI going to use it when I'm older?
Well, i'll tell you what.Very important to note that almost every
almost every occupation requires math and scienceor some degree magic to a heavy degree.
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Absolutely. Yeah. I think that'svery clear today that that you need
to be uh, very sophisticated todesign, to design the tricks that we
see the physic the magicians are performing. And I was going to say I
was going to say, so thephysicians perform, and that historically, I
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think that's interesting that that magic cameabout first, I guess with religion and
magic was tied into this, butit was the early alchemists that really started
science and all began with magic becomingscience. So this is a true transition
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of that historically. Right, spittingbass items into green? Right like lord
person hit on the Black Leader,that was a good one. Lead into
gold. There we go or green, as I said before, a nice
beautiful brooch made of pure pure green, if you will, purest green.
Chris Cordini here, this is bookspectrum I have with me as Cheryl and
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Cheryl's young there wrote a book calledHoudini's Last Handcuffs. It dials into a
lot of things. We talked aboutmath and science, we talked about Houdini's
and it's an historical fiction. Youalso take this to a spiritual level as
well, where we where we lookat the difference between good and evil,
the fight with that and getting childreninvolved. Were generally innocent to join in
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this fight against evil, And yes, I'll look at one's own mind's journey
as well. The children, particularlyCharlie in this tale is very interesting,
active and has talks with Houdini,trying to understand the nature of life and
death. Where where has Houdini been? And you know, I'll say,
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I'm not going to reveal that,but that's revealed in the story. He
discusses where he's been, and there'sa question of what is kind of the
meaning of life. And also there'sthe importance of education to get us where
we want to go. It alsoimportant is why why the children? And
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why does he come to the childrenand right in the first instance, rather
than to the doubts. And Ithink that it's also important part of us
is to keep the freshness of theeyes of children and a essentially there's the
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thought that to be receptive to him, you needed that kind of mind,
that that children were more open tobelieving in things than adults. Readers of
Houdini's Last Handcuffs will also find themselvesthrough the story for your story raising questions
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perhaps about the mind itself, it'spotential, and how humans can learn to
harness the power. Yes, oneof the things that is brought out and
here in the book that Houdini andalso I think my father discussed that ultimately
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what they're they're hoping to achieve isthat the body is more of a battery
for the mind, and ultimately wewant to be able to have the mind
exist on its own, and whenthat happens, the battery of the body
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essentially will no longer be essential andthe mind will being able to exist on
its own, that there will beno death at that point. Interesting point
that you bring up, or you'rebrought up a little earlier in the interview.
The main characters are children. Theidea that the adults went away the
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kids were the ones able to bringHoudini back is rather interesting in a lot
of ways because the thought is thatyes, children are not jaded by life
or years of life by the timethere's only maybe six, twelve or thirteen,
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they are more open to believing thingslike the after life, for believing
in something that they haven't seen.And that's exactly what we say in the
book, that this tale begins atthe start when we're young, and that
you have to have the mind ofa youngster perhaps to be open enough and
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receptive enough to believe in things thatadults think aren't real. Already. I
hope they learned to go to mathclass too. Yes, I think that
adults also have a child within them, and so by us communicating with the
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adults, we are And actually wewere very precocious children. So in reality,
our companions were each other and theguests that our parents had in the
house. Who are some of thesecharacters in the book. So young children
can communicate with adults in a wayon an adult level, and there's some
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child in adults, and there doesn'treally have to be a huge differentiation.
And Houdini was our friend in thebook, so he could have been a
kid for it in our mind,but of course as an adult he was
the great Houdini. But for ushe was just he was there. Suddenly
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he was there, and it wasnot It wasn't like a freaking out experience.
It was because you're as a child, you're so open to these things.
He could easily become part of ourlife. Cheryl's Cheryl in Houdini's list,
hair and handcuffs. There is alot of intrigue in this there's your
fight between good and evil and theidea of resurrection alone, but your story
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also looks into some real life situationslike grifters in the medium field, and
there are a lot of those.It's hard to separate the real ones from
the grifters for a lot of people. Also personal reflection. There is a
discussion in the book. It isa historical fiction. And Houdini himself,
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although he wanted to believe, healso felt that all these or most of
these mediums were false. And hespent a lot of his later life exposing
these false mediums, but always withthe hope that he would be able to
reach across to the other side,that there might be a kernel of truth
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in it. It wasn't bad atthe time. In the nineteen twenties,
spiritualism and mediums were popular throughout thecountry. It was so much so that
and there was so much belief thatyou could that you were able to communicate
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with people in the afterlife. ThatScientific American, that organization, that magazine
put together a committee to try toascertain whether this was really true. Could
we communicate with the dead? Andthey put on notable scientists and physicians and
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people have known. But they alsoadded Houdini to this committee, and he
felt that he was the only onereally who was able to know the tricks,
the shenanigans that he had learned earlyin life through side shows to con
artists. Essentially that took people,and he went around and he actually,
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you know, did expose them.That was published, but again all with
the hope that he would ultimately findsomeone who really could communicate with the afterlife.
Or was it that there's the onething that Houdini couldn't escape from is
being as signed to a committee.But he really did want to believe,
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and of course he exposed all thefalse people, but he had he did
have a pact with his wife thatif he could come back, he would.
I mean, if there was anybodywho could escape death, it was
going to be Houdini. And shewas the one who had the seances every
year. And I believe she wasten years right, Charlie, that she
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actually did it every year. Andthen she just said, I can't,
I can't do it anymore. Ithink the disappointment was too great, and
she passed on the leadership role toto Walter, the our father's friend who
they wrote the books, wrote bookstogether and and this didn't die out though,
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with our parents and their generation,these seances are still going on today.
It's something that people continue to have, this hope that that there is
a link and that that he willhe will be back, and of course
for us, he didn't come back. So that's one though, that's the
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big one, that there's always hopeand the reason why people want to look
at the afterlife. We all wantto believe there is one. We all
want. We all have different ideasmaybe what it's going to be like.
We want to believe it's there.We want to believe that we can communicate
with our deceased relatives. And whileit opens us up to grifters, it
also opens us up to the ideathat there is still a pausibility. K
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J with me is Charles and CherylMoore. They're the authors of Houdini's Last
Handcuffs, and yes they're in possessionof Houdini's Last Handcuffs. So how about
that. That's kind of pretty cool. Another thing I wanted to bring up
about the book is I share youraffinity with nineteenth early twentieth century architecture.
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You make these structures important parts ofthe book. You place the reader at
the scenes as you describe the interiorof these great buildings and rooms, as
if we were inside them. Ibelieve that's important as well, not just
to bring us into the story,but to show show the readers, especially
of today, the younger readers,that there was really, there was real
care into the design and the detailof some of these great buildings of the
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seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, andtwentieth century. We think the children,
in their quest to find the notebook, move along the Upper west Side,
they see different monuments, They talkabout the different monuments, the history of
the different monuments, They talk aboutthe architecture of the Upper west Side.
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There bose Arts building. O'deini's houseitself is a masterpiece of brownstone architecture from
the turn of this last century,and they wonder whether that could have played
anything into where the notebook had beenhidden. They ultimately decide that well,
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his house had already been built,so probably didn't that there were probably no
clues in the architecture of the home. But they found some some some things
that were intriguing in the house thatled them to be able to discover his
notebook within the home. There's anentire throughout the book we try to blend
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what was real events and places andpeople uh in our life growing up that
they were part of the inspiration forthis tale, and we want the we
want to make it difficult at timeswhile the readers reading this book to know,
but where does the reality end andthe fantasy of this tale begin?
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Or did it all really happen?Perhaps because so much of it really did
happen to us, You know,we had the main the the well actually
the subsidiary characters in the book,like the Gibsons. You know, we're
real people and played an important part. The wife. His wife was also
a magician and a fort and tellher. She read poems, she tells
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the children, reads the children's pomsand understands that they're special and might have
special abilities. We are The neighborhoodthat we lived in had actors in the
building. Paul Tripp, who didchildren shows, was there. Eli Wallach
became was part of the committee.He lived maybe ten blocks away on Riverside
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Drive. He had known my dadin the Army Earth. The kit was
in the penthouse. Artie Shaw wash was actually not only just a musician,
but when he sort of left themusical world, he left it to
us do study math. We bringthat out in the book. These people
had other lives that were often infields that were science and could contribute to
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the special Uh, a cult groupof good people who are trying to decipher
these codes to use them for thegood of mankind. So you have and
then and then Charlie can yeah,can I interrupt? I don't know if
and when we went in and outif you mentioned it, but I think
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very important. Our mother was actuallya cryptographer in World War two. So
that's some knowledge. Yes, shereally, she really knew her stuff.
Had a collection on cryptography as wellat home. Yeah, it's all of
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this is based on real, reallyreal people, real things, and some
things are real and some aren't.I think when you were talking about architecture,
for instance, the part that takespart in Saint John's Divine, very
impressive cathedral in New York and thelive that really that's a fantasy. It's
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not there. We have in thebook. There is a repository of all
this great knowledge that's in a deephidden library beneath the cathedral Saint John the
Divine, and we incorporate the building. There was difficulty building the building historically
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that they needed for a cathedral thatsize. It's I think the third largest
cathedral in the whole world that theyneeded to have it have the foundation on
bedrock, and they kept digging anddigging, and it was getting more and
more expensive, and they were goingto move it and move it somewhere else,
and JP Morgan stepped in and said, no, I'll pay for it
and we use that. As Morganwas part of this occult group that he
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wanted to have a deep space belowthe cathedral that could be that no one
would know about, and they coulduse the building of the cathedral to conceal
this special space where people could meetand study these master texts. I could
go for that. That sounds likea place to meet. I'm in Yeah.
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Who want to ask you, bythe way to say? Have you
here? And the story is aboutbringing Harry Houdini back to life. Let's
say you were part of the ofa seance that was actually successful and Harry
Houdini comes back at least for abrief moment or two. What would both
of you like to ask him?I think, you know, I think
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we've imagined where he's been in thebook, and there's a description where he
tries to relate it, describe itthat you know, if you are able
to go skin diving or or snorkeling. You're able to see a whole other
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world that you could you wouldn't normallyimagine existed unless you ever had that experience,
And so he equates it to somethinglike that where he's been. So
I would, I guess, youknow, I would want to know you
know what's it? That's like,yeah, exactly, I understand you have
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plans for a sequel. We didn'tthink that. We thought that we weren't
ready to let go of him sobecause the book in itself is it's complete.
But but we we thought, no, there's there's got to be more
and h and we're in the processof seeing exactly where that's taking us,
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or taking him so or taking allof us. You become you become friends
with your characters and it is difficultto let them go and you keep imagining,
but what are they doing next?And because of that, we we
just said, well, it's naturalfor this to continue, and the publisher,
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you know, one a sequel,so we had no problem agreeing with
that. I'm looking forward to funnymore about the sequel and having your back
on when it comes out. Iwant to thank both of you for coming
on with us. The book isHoudini's Last Handcuffs. Where can our listeners
find more information about the book.We do have a website easy to remember
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if you remember the title of thebook, Houdini's Last Handcuffs dot com.
There are little buttons on on thatfirst page on the handcuff on the website
that you know. Amazon is there. Barnes and Nobles also button for your
favorite indie store so you can goonline and purchase the book now. It
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was just released this past month tocoincide actually with Houdini's one hundred fiftieth anniversary
of his birth, which was Marchtwenty twenty fourth just occurred, so it's
an anniversary celebration and the book isavailable online through Amazon, Barnes and Nobles
are your favorite indie store in thestore. Once again, the book is
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Houdini's Last Handcuffs. My guest Charlesand Cheryl Young, thank you very much
for being with us on Book Spectrum, and thank you all for listening.
I'm Chris Grudeni, your host,and keep those pages turning.