Esopus 17 presented 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 opened with Metagame, a specially commissioned card game meant to inspire cultural debate designed by the experimental collective Local No. 12. (Each issue contained 120 cards out of 360 total, available in three different sets spread throughout the print run.) Esopus 17 also featured the inauguration of Analog Recovery, a new series co-presented with the Magnum Foundation and edited by John Jacob; this first installment featured 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 made unforgettable appearances here: Modern Artifacts, copresented with the Museum of Modern Art Archives, highlighted documents related to MoMA’s influential Art Lending Service (introduced by Michelle Elligott); and Guarded Opinions, edited by Paul VanDeCarr, featured commentary from two guards at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. The issue also featured 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 offered a found object—brain-twisting rebus puzzles discovered in a bound volume of a Victorian-era children’s magazine, and Angus Trumble focused on 1877 for his Year in Retrospect column.

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