![\"escher.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/escher.jpg\")
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Drawing Hands (1948) by MC Escher.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2022 New music: The World In Layers<\/em><\/a> by m\u014dshonsensu; The Rest Is My Ghost<\/em><\/a> by Lawrence English; Rotostyles<\/em><\/a> by Julien Ash & M.Nomized.<\/p>\n \u2022 At Public Domain Review: \u201cThe Persian M\u00e2r-N\u00e2meh or, The Book for Taking Omens from Snakes<\/a>\u201d (1892).<\/p>\n \u2022 At Little White Lies: Sam Moore<\/a> writes in praise of Hiroshi Teshigahara, “surveyor of the abyss”.<\/p>\n Paradoxically, art is useful only if it is allowed to remain entirely useless\u2014that is, entirely free to go where it will. Wilde finds an ally here in Baudelaire, who followed his observation of the strangeness of the beautiful with a sharp rebuke to those who would subordinate artistic beauty to a utilitarian logic. Baudelaire asks:<\/p>\n “How could this necessary, irreducible, and infinitely varied strangeness…ever be controlled, amended, and corrected by Utopian rules conceived in some little scientific temple or other on this planet, without mortal danger to art itself?”<\/p>\n The privileging of utility over uselessness, of work over play, is the death of art\u2014and the death of the given world in which our utilitarian spirit must be grounded if it is to have purpose and meaning.<\/p>\n JF Martel<\/a> explores the ways in which art invented humanity<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u2022 Old music: Visions Of Sodal Ye<\/em><\/a> by Mar-Vista.<\/p>\n \u2022 RIP Bill Oddie<\/a> and Raoul Vaneigem<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Martyn Ware<\/a>\u2019s favourite albums.<\/p>\n \u2022 The Last Museum<\/a><\/p>\n \u2022 Snake Rag<\/a><\/em> (1923) by King Oliver\u2019s Creole Jazz Band | Ananta Snake Dance<\/em><\/a> (1980) by Suns Of Arqa | Snakes Crawl<\/em><\/a> (1980) by Bush Tetras<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Drawing Hands (1948) by MC Escher. \u2022 New music: The World In Layers by m\u014dshonsensu; The Rest Is My Ghost by Lawrence English; Rotostyles by Julien Ash & M.Nomized. \u2022 At Public Domain Review: \u201cThe Persian M\u00e2r-N\u00e2meh or, The Book for Taking Omens from Snakes\u201d (1892). \u2022 At Little White Lies: Sam Moore writes in … Continue reading “Weekend links 841”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: Weekend links 841","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,29,7,3,14,31,19],"tags":[14710,4187,2346,273,14708,14705,4546,8696,14706,14709,14712,216,14704,116,14711,14707,4548],"class_list":["post-31469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-electronica","category-film","category-music","category-politics","category-religion","category-television","tag-bill-oddie","tag-bush-tetras","tag-charles-baudelaire","tag-hiroshi-teshigahara","tag-jf-martel","tag-julien-ash","tag-king-olivers-creole-jazz-band","tag-lawrence-english","tag-m-nomized","tag-mar-vista","tag-martyn-ware","tag-mc-escher","tag-moshonsensu","tag-oscar-wilde","tag-raoul-vaneigem","tag-sam-moore","tag-suns-of-arqa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-8bz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31469"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31472,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31469\/revisions\/31472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}