EXPLORE THE ISSUE 

Includes artists’ projects by Adam Chodzko (featuring a unique object hand-inserted into each issue); Thomas Lawson (with an 18" x 22" poster), and Alyson Shotz (with a 25" x 29" poster). The issue opens with Metagame, a specially commissioned card game meant to inspire cultural debate designed by the experimental collective Local No. 12. (Each issue contains 120 cards out of 360 total, available in three different sets spread throughout the print run.) Esopus 17 also features the inauguration of “Analog Recovery,” a new series co-presented the Magnum Foundation and edited by John Jacob; this first installment features Inge Morath’s "Bal D’Hiver," a series of 16 photographs of a Paris charity ball shot by the late photographer in 1955. Brand-new installments of two other regular series also make unforgettable appearances here: “Modern Artifacts,” copresented with the Museum of Modern Art Archives, highlights documents related to MoMA’s influential Art Lending Service (introduced by Michelle Elligott); and “Guarded Opinions,” edited by Paul VanDeCarr, features commentary from two guards at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. The issue also features a suite of new work by emerging poet Jessica Elsaesser, short fiction by first-time author Rick Stinson, and 100 frames from Moscow-based documentarian Sergey Dvortsevoy’s remarkable feature debut, Tulpan (2008), with an introduction by National Book Award finalist Jim Shepard. The archival photo researcher Rich Remsberg offers a found object—brain-twisting rebus puzzles discovered in a bound volume of a Victorian-era children’s magazine, and Angus Trumble focuses on 1877 for his “Year in Retrospect” column.

The issue closes with “Fear Itself”: a compilation CD featuring 13 new songs inspired by Esopus subscribers’ irrational fears. Contributors to the CD include Meursault, Corey Dargel, Bishop Allen, We Are Augustines, and The Sweetback Sisters.

174 pages, offset-printed and perfect bound. Printed in Canada. Published November 2011.