THE BEST OF 1997 AND THE WORST OF 1997

Makers of 10-best lists have to look back, but in 1997 art, science and commerce looked way back. These pages could be a catalog for your Aunt Maud's garage sale.

Everywhere, yesterday's trash culture was exhumed and hauled to new frontiers, in architecture (Coney Island replicated in Las Vegas) and astrogeology (a Martian rock dubbed Scooby Doo). Our critics select a film of a '90s novel set in 1953 and a musical of a '70s novel set in 1906 as the year's best. And what is The X-Files if not a canny updating of '50s bomb sweat? "No matter how paranoid you are," the show tells us, "you're not paranoid enough."

Sometimes deja vu is deja boo; the citations for worst include a few old acquaintances. But that hardly disqualifies them for a chance at lingering impact. We doubt that Little Richard or Mad magazine or Invasion of the Body Snatchers made many 10-Best lists in 1956. Who knows what orphans of 1997 will be embraced in the inevitable retrofuture?

We may watch two computers match wits in a chess championship, and shop in the dairy section for frozen human eggs. But in culture we will still look to the past, as we do today, for clues to a better, truer, snazzier time. Everything old is always new again.