The Year Ahead – The New York Times

Four days into the year and everything is possible now. You have an idea of ​​how things will go – what to expect, what will be challenging – but you’re working with archival material. Memory and experience, educated guesses. “2025 will be very difficult for me,” a friend said in fact the other night, before ticking off all the things she had to do this year: take her business to a new stage, considering a move. To me, these things seemed exciting, interesting – the fascinating content of someone else’s life.

We are all sitting here with the same year of days in front of us now, the same calendar. What activities and events will we fill it with? How will we greet the material of our days? What meaning will we give it?

I recently saw Christian Marclay’s installation “The Clock” at MoMA. It’s a 24-hour montage of thousands of clips from movies and shows, each with a clock, clock, line of dialogue or other clock. The film is synchronized with the current time, so each scene represents the moment in which you watched it, making “The Clock” a functioning clock in itself. Watch a movie, but also watch a clock, for hours on end.

The museum was opened for 24 hours on December 21 for a special solstice exhibition of “The Clock”, from 7 pm Saturday to 7 pm Sunday. On my way on Saturday night, I noticed that I was running: It was 8 o’clock in the evening, it was late! But then I stopped. It didn’t really matter when I arrived. People came and went throughout the screening all night and the next day. Here’s an invitation to rethink how you think about time. “The Clock”, like real time, is not a show with a beginning and an end. It happens yes or no. It appears to you or not. Pay attention or don’t. You can do no wrong.

Sitting in the audience as three, four, five hours passed and somehow my attention never wavered, I considered this proposal again. Maybe you can hurt yourself. Should I pay attention to the plot of each clip, the characters and the dialogue, or should I pay attention to the timepieces? 11:22, 11:23, I missed the clock on the screen showing 11:24 because I was trying to figure out what movie the last scene was from? (I found out later that there was a whole wiki dedicated to “The Clock” with the provenance of each clip identified – 11:24 includes scenes from “Shanghai Knights”, “Malice in Wonderland” and “Se7en.”) Can you make the wrong time, paying too much attention to its passage, or not enough?

“The Clock” forces you to think about time, the way we compulsively turn the consecutive scenes of our lives into a narrative, project a cause and effect on everything that happens, assume that everything has meaning and decide if he is positive or negative. We are the artists and architects of our own lives, studying the day or the year ahead and trying to understand what story we have to tell. Will this be a good year? Will it be hard? Who decides?

I stayed on “The Clock” until I started to sleep and dream some time Sunday morning. Marclay insists on sleeping during the film: “That’s what you have to do – let it go and absorb and feel that you are part of this thing,” he told my colleague Marc Tracy. If I had remembered that, I could have stayed longer. Instead, I stumbled outside during the wee hours of the first winter day in Midtown Manhattan.

That was two weeks ago. In the following time, the sun rose and set 13 times, one year ended and another began. I tried to pay attention to the time, but not too close, to notice it passing without being too attached. This year is spread before us, a lot of pencil but nothing sure. It could be difficult, as my friend predicted for herself. And, in the words of a Morning reader who wrote in to offer his best advice – the question mark for me is what makes this good advice, as if the idea of ​​things that are not terrible is a revelation – “Could it be great?”

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THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Movies and TV

CULTURE CALENDARS

🏆 Golden Globes (Sunday): The Globes, once a glamorous and boozy cousin of the more austere Oscars, are on life support after a series of ethical, financial and diversity scandals. The show has a new owner (the Hollywood Foreign Press Association no longer exists), a more diverse voter pool and a new network. But those changes will be – and a list of List A candidates – is it enough to attract viewers? The ceremony is tomorrow night on CBS and Paramount +.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Split Pea Soup

Suddenly, the holidays are over, and the lively sparkle of December has been replaced by the cozy and quiet days of January. That means it’s time to pull out your biggest pot and cook up a batch of Ali Slagle’s. split pea soup. Their hearty and fragrant recipe is filled with three different alliums (leek, onion and garlic) and carrots and thyme, all of which enhance the thick broth, adding sweetness and depth. Many split pea soups call for ham or pancetta, and you can use one in Ali’s flexible version, or leave the meat out and sprinkle in some smoked paprika. However, make sure to add a squeeze of lemon at the end to cool everything down.

REAL ESTATE

Hunting: In Harlem, two friends join forces to buy a row house. Which one did they choose? Play our game.

What you get for $1.3 million: A Queen Anne house in Denver; a top floor unit in a 1916 condominium building in Chicago; o a 2020 ranch style home in Austin, Texas.

A valuable import: Saffron is difficult to harvest. But in the United States, more small farmers and home gardeners they grow the spice for profit, or simply pleasure.

Platonic romances and AI clones: Experts share theirs predictions for the future of dating.

Not just leggings: Some women’s active clothes have become wider and more comfortable.

Would you like some scotch?: Luxury brands are using liquors and sweet treats to keep customers engaged.

WIRECUTTER TIPS

How to (easily) clean your fridge

There’s a good chance your fridge has been packed, Tetris-style, with leftover leaks from November. To clean up the mess, follow this advice: Mentally divide your fridge into small sections that you can tackle in five-minute chunks – leaving the door open any longer is not ideal. Then, set a timer and clean each section, piece by piece, giving your refrigerator at least 20 minutes to return to temperature between. You can hit it all in one day if you want, but for me, the real appeal of this approach is that it turns a daunting task into something easily doable in a few days. – Rachel Wharton

New York Rangers vs Washington Capitals, NHL: As we approach the halfway point of the NHL season, the Capitals are the team to watch. They are at the top of the standings in the Eastern Conference and have the No. 1 position in the latest power rankings of The Athletic. And Alex Ovechkin, in his 20th season in Washington, has a shot passing Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record. Today at 12pm Eastern on ABC.

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