Received in the mail the other day: issue No. 4 of Esopus, the elegant and quirky biannual magazine designed and edited by Tod Lippy and published on very thick paper stock. My ultracool friend Lila recently gave me a one-year (two-issue) subscription as a gift, which only confirms her ultracoolness. I love the cometlike blob of melting ice cream on the cover:

Here’s how the magazine describes its mission:

Esopus is a twice-yearly arts magazine featuring fresh, unmediated perspectives on the contemporary cultural landscape from artists, writers, filmmakers, playwrights, photographers, architects, designers, musicians, and other creative professionals. It includes long-form artists’ projects, critical writing, fiction, interviews, and, in each issue, a CD of specially commissioned music.

In November of last year, David Carr of The New York Times wrote a gushy feature about Lippy and Esopus. You can read it here.

I haven’t had a chance to delve very deeply into the new issue yet, but it looks gorgeous. I’m looking forward to reading Daniel Tannehill Neely’s article “Soft Serve,” which the Esopus website describes this way: “A musicologist combed archives and spoke with a number of truck drivers and inventors to chart the evolution of that perennial summer anthem, the ice cream truck jingle.”