ESOPUS

For this panel discussion at the 50th Annual Rare Books and Manuscripts Conference (a division of the American Library Association) convention in Charlottesville, Virginia, ESOPUS editor Tod Lippy was asked to join McSweeney's publisher Eli Horowitz and moderator Susan Allen to talk about the ins and outs, and ups and downs, of small-press publishing. A transcript of the conversation was later published in the publication RBM.

For this atmospheric instrumental track created for the ESOPUS 25 "Jokes" CD (included in ESOPUS 25, the nonprofit arts publication now in bookstores) The Antlers frontman Peter Silberman took his inspiration from an old classic:

A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender asks, "Why the long face?"

Silberman talks about his choice in the issue's liner notes: "I love this joke for its simplicity, and fittingly, I wrote a piece that revolves around a single, economical melody [whose] central riff mimicked the phrase ‘Why the long face?’” The track appears on the compilation along with new songs by Lonnie Holley, Katie Von Schleicher, and Joseph Keckler, among others; the CD is introduced in the issue by comedian Demetri Martin.

The second sneak preview from the ESOPUS 25 "JOKES" CD -- included in ESOPUS 25, which is just hitting bookstores -- is a fantastic art-pop track by Alicia Walter, who chose this humorous poem by philosopher Alan Watts as its inspiration:

There once was a man who said,

“Though it seems that I know that I know,

What I’d like to see,

Is the I that knows me,

When I know that I know that I know.”

Walter describes her process on our website: “How could I pick just one joke, when everything tickles me? The 'cosmic joke' seemed to fit me best: life itself is funny -- it’s hilarious! Sometimes we think we 'get' what’s going on, but of course we don’t. We’re always looking, looking, looking for answers everywhere outside ourselves. And we may feel we come closest to figuring it all out when we just stop trying to figure it all out. But of course, we still haven’t figured out a thing! What could be funnier than that?”

Get more info about the CD and issue at https://www.esopus.org/contents/view/411

For its latest audio compilation, ESOPUS invited 11 musical acts -- including Peter Silberman, Joseph Keckler, and Katie Von Scheicher -- to create new songs inspired by a joke of their choice. The CD will appear in ESOPUS 25, which is just now hitting bookstores. The iconic comical query “Why did chicken cross the road?” opens “Why Did the Man Talk to a Horse Off in the Bar?,” created by acclaimed artist and musician Lonnie Holley. This song is a haunting, deeply moving meditation upon mortality, religion, and humankind’s relentless search for meaning through the act of storytelling. Holley recorded it at Figure 8 Recording Studio in Brooklyn several months ago, enlisting the help of musicians Courtney Hartman, Elizabeth LaPrelle, Anna Roberts-Gevalt, and Zosha Warpeha.

ESOPUS inaugurated a collaborative series with the newly renovated Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, with a screening and in-person appearance by actress Lisa Kudrow and her producing partner Dan Bucatinsky. In 2005, Kudrow and Michael Patrick King co-created "The Comeback," a penetrating and often brutal satire of reality TV, sitcoms, and show business in general, which aired on HBO for one season (and which was featured, along with an interview with Kudrow and King, in ESOPUS 15: TELEVISION). The program opened with a screening of the series’ first episode, after which Kudrow, who was nominated for an Emmy for her brilliant portrayal of the show’s protagonist, Valerie Cherish, discussed the conception, execution, and untimely demise of the critically lauded series (which was finaly ultimately resurrected by HBO in 2015 for another acclaimed season).

In front of a packed house at Brooklyn’s BookCourt, the celebrated Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard (My Struggle) spoke with ESOPUS editor Tod Lippy about “On the Value of LIterature,” his 5,000-word essay that appears in ESOPUS 23. Knausgaard also took questions from the audience about his writing process, and the evening ended with a book-signing.

On May 26, 2015, ESOPUS presented an evening of programming at NYC's The Kitchen related to ESOPUS 22: MEDICINE, the nonprofit's 2015 issue devoted to the intersections between medicine and the arts. Among the event's participants was screenwriter Hampton Fancher ("Blade Runner") who read a 1942 letter, which appears in the issue, from poet/doctor Williams Carlos Williams to a young medical student.

Learn more at https://www.esopus.org/news/view/82

On October 24, 2006, The Wrens' Charles Bissell and Kevin Whelan participated in "An Evening with ESOPUS" at NYC performance space The Kitchen. Among the tracks they performed was this version of "The House that Guilt Built" (from their acclaimed LP "The Meadowlands") for which they called upon three audience members to participate.

Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis wrote a series of three monologues for ESOPUS which were published in our second, third, and fifth issues. Guirgis read the third monologue for an ESOPUS event at MoMA/PS1 on May 11, 2006.

Learn more at https://bit.ly/2vs9kpl

Much of the content in the 24th issue of the nonprofit arts annual ESOPUS concerns itself with boundaries—between countries, cultures, languages, genders, and more—and in many cases, with using creativity as a way to breach them. This podcast features editor Tod Lippy's interviews with four contributors to the issue—translator Ann Goldstein, photographer and activist Clayton Patterson, and artists Hayden Dunham and Marco Maggi—and also includes clips from 5 songs from the ESOPUS 24 CD, "Pioneer Sessions," comprising 12 songs created in the recording studio of the Brooklyn nonprofit Pioneer Works.

Learn more about the issue at http://www.esopus.org/issues/view/24