Friday's Art Notes

Zach Condon of Beirut performs onstage as part of the "Dark Sounds Concert Series":http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/support/join/dark-sounds at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on July 15, 2010 in New York City. Photo by Roger Kisby/ Getty Images * New x-rays of the Mona Lisa help shed light on renaissance painting techniques, via "BBC":http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science+environment-10647510. * The Millions "suggests":http://www.themillions.com/2010/07/colonoscopy-it%E2%80%99s-time-to-check-your-colons.html that online social media has help to proliferate a new way to use the colon in a sentence (in the writer's words, "Punctuation can go viral. Syntax is a meme.") Meanwhile, Susan Orlean ponders the potential of the Twitter hash tag (another new form of punctuation) for stylistic applications in other domains, via the "New Yorker":http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/susanorlean/2010/07/rehash.html. * Italian police showed off their bounty -- about 300 looted antiquities recently recovered by the authorities -- at the Colleseum in Rome on Friday, via the "Associated Press":http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j3-sYLbi_8tWTKf2l4rbmHmU06mwD9H082DO0. * Country music performer and songwriter Hank Cochran, who wrote hit songs for stars like Patsy Cline, died in Nashville at the age of 74, via the "Tennessean":http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2010/07/15/hank-cochrans-last-night-filled-with-music-from-friends/.