Vine Started The Short Video Craze, And Then Died – But It May Be Back

Vine was introduced in 2012, bought by Twitter, and killed in 2016. But in its time, it “turned everyday people into stars on other platforms and beyond. Its musical whims warped the music industry. It cultivated memes that might have been dismissed as inside jokes if not for their tendency to flourish outside the app.” Can the app make a comeback in 2020, where TikTok rules the internet? – The New York Times

Archaeologists Find A New Shrine In Rome, Perhaps To Romulus

The find is in the Roman Forum, where authorities revealed on Friday that they believe this may date to the 6th century B.C.E., 200 years after Romulus was said to have lived. That means it’s a memorial site, if indeed it is a site to Romulus. Also, oops: “It’s the second time the sarcophagus and cylindrical stone stub have been unearthed, but it’s only now that archaeologists are attributing an exciting significance to them.” – The Washington Post (AP)

How Autumn De Wilde Came To Direct A New ‘Emma’

Take one cane, add whiskey, then gather a “mood” pitch for movie financiers, decades of photography, years of moving pitching, and presto! A new Emma. Miranda July on the director: “If there were more female directors, Autumn’s story wouldn’t be such a rare and precious thing to us. … Basically a single mom who worked so hard and at this age is coming into her own. I think we all feel really tender because it’s a very powerful example.” – Los Angeles Times

Sure, Years Elapsed Between Book Two And Book Three, But Hilary Mantel Did *Not* Have Writer’s Block

Mantel says there are so many stories in the Cromwell trilogy that the books are like a pamphlet. But of course: “At a combined total of more than 2,000 pages – with [forthcoming book three] The Mirror & the Light accounting for nearly half of them – you couldn’t get much further from a pamphlet. ‘I’ve got quite amused at people suggesting I have writer’s block, you know. I’ve been like a factory!’ She also chafes at the suggestion that her latest book was delayed because she was reluctant to kill off Cromwell. ‘It’s not something I’ve ever said; it’s what people think I should have said. It’s this version in which the woman writer is sentimentally attached to her creation.'” – The Guardian (UK)

Technology Recreates The Sound Of 500-Year-Old Singing In The Hagia Sophia

This is a rather unbelievable story. “When [the two researchers] met, Pentcheva started telling Abel about the Hagia Sophia – how we couldn’t really understand the experience of worshipers there unless we could hear the music the way they did. And as she talked, Abel started to feel a prickling of excitement. They could recreate what that music would sound like. If only they could get in the Hagia Sophia and pop a balloon.” (Note: They did.) – NPR