{"id":10388,"date":"2017-05-30T16:03:39","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T20:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=10388"},"modified":"2022-11-17T12:57:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T17:57:59","slug":"57-octaves-middle","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/57-octaves-middle\/","title":{"rendered":"57 Octaves Below Middle C"},"content":{"rendered":"

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paper \u2022 184 pages \u2022 17.95
\nISBN-13: 978-1-935536-98-7<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a>
\nWatch a Special Video from the Author<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/column]<\/p>\n

57 Octaves Below Middle C<\/em><\/h1>\n

Kevin \u201cMc\u201d McIlvoy<\/h2>\n

The 17th century poet Basho selling a nearly-new lawnmower. Aisle 4 of Mini Bob\u2019s Mart (not Bob\u2019s Mini-Mart). The good fortune of seeing the back of a woman\u2019s sweater as she leaves. An attempt to name the device, \u201cthe foot ruler thing,\u201d shoe stores have. A cleaner of Ladies\u2019 and Men\u2019s rooms in three Asheville bars. These are the ensorcellments that McIlvoy\u2019s dice-throwing mind invites us to explore. From \u201csnow-golfing\u201d in \u201cultramarine Sansabelt slacks\u201d to the odd couple of a homeless but newly-anointed newspaper bundler \u201cCaptain\u201d and Bee, the more experienced bundler who anoints him, as they establish their friendship with her purse sitting between them on the city bus, \u201cthe zipper closed around the nose of a gun barrel,\u201d 57 Octaves Below Middle C<\/em> offers a window into unlikely corners of modern life.<\/p>\n

Affirming what John Berryman called \u201cthe stance of wonder,\u201d these stories, prose poems, and short-shorts are fool\u2019s koans, inside-out riddles in which we get to spend a while, emerging a little older, a little more vulnerable, a little more transformed. Part Muddy Waters and part Russell Edson, with more than a nod to Lydia Davis, Jean Follain, and Henri Michaux, 57 Octaves Below Middle C<\/em> descends like Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00e9ry\u2019s The Little Prince<\/em> to find the wonderstruck child inside the world-weary adult. Yet this is no work of whimsy or fancy: for all McIlvoy\u2019s verbal riffs and musical interludes, he writes from deep pathos, attempting to peel back the constructed selves we shell about us in our daily lives. He makes us stranger to ourselves so that we can see ourselves again.
\n.<\/p>\n

From “You want to know\u2014,\u201d from\u00a057 Octaves Below Middle C<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u2014why I hate you.
\nIt\u2019s that you no longer let me learn my way over you, my singular chronic harassment, my particular persistent curse. You no longer let me lay my eggs like a louse in your pulse, traveling, unwelcomed, with you everywhere around and also far from this filling station in Extraellaville.
\nMe, the cause of your tics, dear Jay, the mite skating over your eyemeat, blade-blade \u2013 glide-blade-blade.
\nIt\u2019s a wonder I never came off in the wash or here at our workplace or from your unnatural hairpiece. Have I ever mentioned this: how I hated nothing about you \u2013 not the back rash, not the butt lint, not the rubber-black rug riding low on your forehead? As if you could cover what had recessed and recessed and been replaced by bald folds (practically flaps) of something I never once saw as ugliness.<\/p>\n

Buy a ball cap, would you?<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] paper \u2022 184 pages \u2022 17.95 ISBN-13: 978-1-935536-98-7 Add to Cart Watch a Special Video from the Author [\/column] 57 Octaves Below Middle C Kevin \u201cMc\u201d McIlvoy The 17th century poet Basho selling a nearly-new lawnmower. Aisle 4 of Mini Bob\u2019s Mart (not Bob\u2019s Mini-Mart). The good fortune of seeing the back of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10388","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10388"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18608,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10388\/revisions\/18608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}