FROM THE BEATLES TO CAVE RHINOS, IT

PICKING THE YEAR'S BEST IS always an exercise in nostalgia: looking back a few weeks or months and deciding which people and events are worth remembering. But this year the retro spirit took us back much farther than 1995. Jane Austen and the Beatles were back, and Bruce Springsteen returned to his roots. Discoveries in science (cave drawings in France) illuminated man's earliest days, and the big news in sports was comebacks (Northwestern?). Even in politics, Colin Powell harked back to an era when presidential candidates could emerge, Ikelike, untainted by the usual rough-and-tumble. Still, the year also had much that was new: Toy Story and Arcadia, Smashing Pumpkins and smashing TV courtroom drama (some of it real life). All that and some nifty Nikes too. So step up, 1995, and take a bow.