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    Film Noir Was All About Ticking Clocks and Checking the Time

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    Experts say the genre was all about suspense, and what better way to convey that to audiences than an obsession with time?The race against the clock — to solve a crime, to outwit a villain, to escape one’s fate — has propelled the plotlines of dozens of the movies that define Hollywood’s golden age of noir, the dark movies that dominated screens from the 1930s to the ’50s.“Time and film noir go together like ham and eggs,” said Alan Rode, an author and a director of the Film Noir Foundation, which sponsors Noir City, a continuing series of film festivals that this month has been scheduled in Chicago, Detroit, Washington and Philadelphia. “Time is a continuum not only of our lives, but also in film noir.”That foreboding sense of time defines film noir — in English, “dark film” — a phrase that was coined in 1938 by Lucien Rebatet, the French author who wrote under the pseudonym François Vinneuil, but is most closely associated with the French film critic Nino Frank. He used it in 1946 to define the cynical films of postwar America.The genre itself, however, has not been defined anywhere near as clearly.Some film scholars have said it describes detectives or private eyes caught up in a world of crooks and femme fatales who lead them astray. But a broader definition has been the immoral journey of a protagonist caught in downward spiral, all of it being clocked somehow in the shadowy black-and-white of film.“Film noir is replete with time moments, partly because the driving mechanism of its stories is suspense, and partly because the lost chances and missed deadlines of noir lends a strong mood of regret and pathos,” Helen Hanson, an associate professor of film history at the University of Exeter in England and the author of several books on noir, said by email.“Perhaps because film noir existed in an era defined by time and life lost during World War II, it featured a heightened sense of how quickly life can go haywire.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      John Mayer on Being the Watch World’s Celebrity ‘Go-To Guy’

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      When the guitarist John Mayer takes the stage this week in Las Vegas, to cap Dead & Company’s 10-week residence at the Sphere arena, his wristwatch is bound to loom large on the venue’s massive LED screen.“I happen to have a job where my wrist is naturally looked at,” Mr. Mayer, 46, said last month on a video call from his home in Los Angeles.That suits the longtime watch collector (and downright watch nerd) just fine.“The number of people who come up to me and ask me what I’m wearing is far greater than the number of people who come up to me and say, ‘Love your music, or how’d you write that song?’” he said. “People want to know about watches more than anything. They’ll say, ‘Gotta ask: What do you have on?’ It’s such a great entree to conversation.”One of Mr. Mayer’s favorite talking points is his new collaboration with the Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet (A.P.). After three years of development, in March the brand introduced a Royal Oak perpetual calendar wristwatch designed by Mr. Mayer.Limited to 200 pieces, the $180,700 timepiece, encased in 18-karat white gold, featured a blue metallic dial inspired by the night sky as well as some subtle aesthetic details that Mr. Mayer conceived.“When you look at this perpetual calendar, the first thing you should see is the time,” he said. “You shouldn’t see the vastness of the universe when it comes to timekeeping if you’ve got 15 minutes to get to a meeting.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rock Around the Clock: 8 Songs About Very Specific Times of Day

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      Hear tracks by the Strokes, beabadoobee, Normani and more.The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas onstage in 2011. (Sadly, we don’t have the specific time.)Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,On Friday, the R&B artist and former Fifth Harmony member Normani will finally release her debut album, “Dopamine” — a long (long) awaited, endlessly delayed release she has been teasing for nearly six years. Not that I’ve been watching the clock. Or at least I wasn’t until last month, when Normani dropped the album’s sultry lead single, “1:59.” That ode to not-quite-2-in-the-morning got me dreaming up a playlist of songs about incredibly specific times of day. Now that Normani is ready to share her opus with the world, so am I.Plenty of songs celebrate the hour on the hour; Drake has an entire playlist’s worth of songs with titles like “6PM in New York” or “8AM in Charlotte.” But that’s not what I’m interested in here. With all due respect to Ariana Grande, I’m not even talking 6:30. I’m talking absurdly precise, random time stamps glimpsed on a digital clock or a lock screen and forever burned into one’s memory: “12:51,” “10:35,” “11:59.”Luckily, there is no shortage of such songs, from artists as varied as Moby Grape, Tiësto and Elliott Smith. And weirdly enough, there exists a trio of unrelated songs that are named after three subsequent minutes in the middle of the 10 o’clock hour. Go figure! Naturally, I sequenced the track list in chronological order — like an incredibly abbreviated playlist version of Christian Marclay’s “The Clock.” It certainly won’t last you 24 hours, but it’ll take you on a temporal journey just the same.All right, you know what time it is: Press play.It’s 11:59 and I want to stay alive,LindsayListen along while you read.1. The Strokes: “12:51”We begin exactly 51 minutes after midnight, “the time my voice/Found the words I sought,” as Julian Casablancas specifies on this catchy leadoff single from the Strokes’ 2003 album “Room on Fire.” “12:51” is a mumbled tale of rekindled romance, the acquisition of malt liquor and other sordid things that happen after the clock strikes 12.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Silent Film Classic Marks Its Centennial

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      “Safety Last!,” the 1923 Harold Lloyd movie best known for the dangerous scene, marks its centennial.It is one of the most enduring images from the silent film era, and arguably the movie stunt that led to the cliffhanging, skyscraper-loving action hero of today: the actor Harold Lloyd dangling from the hands of a clock on the side of an office building.The film, “Safety Last!,” released in April 1923, was in many ways Lloyd’s zenith as a major Hollywood star. He is said to have come up with the idea of dangling from the side of a building after seeing a man scale one in Los Angeles.But Lloyd wanted the stunt to be even more outrageous on film. Enter the clock.“Harold was such a realist, and every scenario in his movies had to be a real event or a real situation for a person to be in,” his granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd, 71, said during a recent video interview from her Los Angeles home. “The clock was another tool on the side of the building to perpetuate the stunt. He thought, ‘I can really play off of that.’”And play he did. Lloyd’s character, The Boy, thinks up the idea of scaling a department store to win $1,000 offered by its manager to increase business — and hopes the stunt also will help him win The Girl. He begins his ascent, battling a flock of pigeons, a swinging window and a friend named Limpy inside the building who becomes as much of a danger as a helper.As The Boy pauses on a window ledge, a buffoonish moment with Limpy causes him to fall back, saved only by grabbing the clock’s hands, which were conveniently positioned at 2:45 (when the longer minute hand is parallel to the ground).Timely News and Features About Watches Rolex Resales: The watch giant has started its own certified pre-owned program, which many in the industry say will change the secondhand market forever. Casio G-Shock, at Home: A visit to the factory in Japan where most of these chunky and durable watches are made. Is That Watch Cardboard? Using humble materials, a Hong Kong artist makes his own versions of high-end Swiss timepieces to have “a bit more fun.” What Are You Wearing? A new European Union regulation is expected to change the industry’s longstanding culture of secrecy. More on Watches: Stories on trends and issues in the industry.For filming, according to Ms. Lloyd, a safety net was constructed on a roof about one floor below the action, though the scene was shot to look as though there was a sheer drop to the bustling streets far below. (Reports at the time said many in the audience covered their eyes or even fainted, and ambulances were parked outside some movie theaters.)The Boy holds on, even as the clock dial tilts down and he is left hanging from the minute hand. There are a few failed attempts and a lot of slapstick, but, with the help of a rope, he finally makes it to the roof where The Girl is waiting with a kiss.“The 1920s was an era of stunts, from planes to climbing buildings,” said Steven K. Hill, a curator at the UCLA Film & Television Archive in Los Angeles, which has been instrumental in saving and restoring hundreds of silent films, including a collaboration with the Criterion Collection on “Safety Last!” in 2012.“Part of its appeal is that he’s not dressed like a construction worker,” Mr. Hill said. “He wears a straw hat and glasses and is well dressed. It can be seen as an image of his need for upward mobility.”The Boy certainly is in pursuit of money — but for love. “The subplot in all of his movies was always about getting the girl,” Ms. Lloyd said. “Harold was really a romantic lead.”Not only did The Boy get The Girl in “Safety Last!,” but Lloyd and the actress, Mildred Davis, were married shortly before the film was released. They stayed married until her death in 1969; Lloyd died in 1971. The couple had three children (Ms. Lloyd’s mother was Gloria, the eldest).What makes the clock stunt even more impressive, Ms. Lloyd said, is that her grandfather was hanging on with only eight fingers. In 1919 he had lost part of his right index finger, his entire right thumb and part of his palm when he attempted to light a cigarette from the fuse of what he thought was a prop bomb for a publicity photo. But the bomb exploded, temporarily blinding him and putting him in the hospital for about two weeks. For years he wore a prosthetic glove to mask the injury in movies, but not in his personal life.“I remember as a girl that he always wore a Rolex watch, but because he only had three fingers on his right hand, he would have to get someone to buckle the watch on his left hand,” Ms. Lloyd recalled. “Years later, he had a custom-made Rolex that was made of white gold and had a white face with silver numerals. And it didn’t have a clasp. It had a flexible watch band so that he didn’t have to ask anyone to help him.”Harold Lloyd with his granddaughter, Suzanne Lloyd, at Greenacres, the family estate in Beverly Hills, Calif. She said she grew up around clocks thanks to her grandfather. “We had a lot of clocks in our house, including a jade clock in his den,” she said.via Suzanne LloydLloyd’s fondness for clocks was evident to Ms. Lloyd as she grew up at Greenacres, her grandparents’ famous 44-room mansion in Beverly Hills, Calif. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and is now owned by the billionaire financier Ron Burkle (who also purchased Neverland, Michael Jackson’s California estate, in 2020).“We had a lot of clocks in our house, including a jade clock in his den,” she said. “I remember once going watch shopping with him in Montreux, Switzerland, around 1961. He bought me a little blue watch with filigree that I wore on a chain around my neck. He later bought me a Cartier Tank watch when I was 18.”Lloyd’s love of clocks might have been about making sure everything — and everyone — ran on time.“Harold was always punctual, and my mom was constantly late,” Ms. Lloyd said with a laugh. “He bought several watches for her and adjusted the hands, and sometimes changed the time on the clock in her bedroom.”“Harold would always say, ‘Move that clock up in Glo’s room to get her here on time,’” she said. “It worked!” More

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      How Elvis Measured His Success: With Watches

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      The legend’s hips weren’t the only things keeping time, says Catherine Martin, the production designer for Baz Luhrmann’s new biopic.Of all the swagger and style that defined Elvis Presley — the gyrating hips, the clothes, the cars, the smirk of all smirks, that hair! — his collection of watches probably didn’t elicit giddy screaming across teen-dom in the late 1950s.But “Elvis,” a new biopic of the singer’s life, celebrates it all. Directed by Baz Luhrmann (with, one assumes, the same panache that all but turned the music and the dancing into characters in films like “Moulin Rouge!” and “Strictly Ballroom”), the movie is said to be a homage to a humble man whose love of collecting and trading watches was often overlooked during his all-too-brief 42 years.Elvis Presley in 1968. “He would swap watches with strangers whose watches he admired,” said Catherine Martin, the costume and production designer for Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” biopic.Getty Images“Watches were a symbol of his success and a big part of his story, and he gathered more valuable watches as his career developed,” said Catherine Martin, the four-time-Oscar-winning costume and production designer for the film, in a phone interview from her home in her native Australia. “They were a status symbol, and yet Elvis traded and gave watches away. He would swap watches with strangers whose watches he admired. It was crazy.”Ms. Martin, who also is a producer on the film and is married to Mr. Luhrmann, said she saw Presley’s love of watches as essential to telling his story: The way he wore and collected and traded watches reflects the image he created for himself as “the King,” but blended with his folksy roots.“Elvis was an absolutely iconoclastic dresser, and he was always accessorizing watches,” Ms. Martin said. “He reinvented himself constantly throughout his career. We don’t think of him as shocking now, but in the ’50s it was like he was a member of the Sex Pistols.”That radical transformation of Presley, played by Austin Butler in the film, provides much of the story line for “Elvis,” including his tumultuous relationship with his manager, Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), who discovered the singer in 1955.Watches are an ever-present, if not obvious, element in many of the film’s scenes, Ms. Martin said, particularly because Presley always put a great deal of thought into how he wore and accessorized timepieces.“Even in the 1968 TV special, in his black leather outfit, he had a custom leather wristband made for a Bulova Accutron Astronaut,” she said, referring to Presley’s famous televised comeback concert. “A lot of the watches he wore were about technological style advances. He was always interested in what the latest watches were.”The watch that started it all was one he owned just as he was hitting it big: the triangular Hamilton Ventura, created by the American industrial designer Robert Arbib and known as the world’s first battery-powered watch. It became a signature for Presley — showing up in a gold version in his 1961 film “Blue Hawaii” — and for the watch company, which reintroduced the “Elvis watch” in 2015 to mark what would have been his 80th birthday. (It also was seen in all four “Men in Black” movies.)The “Elvis” director Baz Luhrmann with the Oscar-winning costume and production designer Catherine Martin, who is his wife, at the Met Gala in May. Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“It just happened that we didn’t end up with the ‘Elvis watch’ because it’s such an iconic watch and so well known that we didn’t want it to be a main part of the story,” Ms. Martin said. “There is so much more to tell over 40 years. I don’t want to deny that this watch was super important in the Elvis story, but watches were in general.”One example would be the Omega Constellation he wore while stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960. Made of pink gold with a black “sniper” dial, it was one of the originals in the Constellation line. Presley later gave it to Charlie Hodge, a friend and fellow musician.Antiquorum auctioned the timepiece in June 2012, expecting it to fetch $10,000 to $20,000; it sold for $52,500.And there was a second Omega Constellation, given to Presley in 1961 by his record company, RCA. The 33-millimeter white gold watch has a silver dial, with 44 round diamonds accenting the bezel, and a case back that is engraved, “To Elvis, 75 Million Records, RCA Victor, 12-25-60.” Lettering beneath the Omega logo shows that RCA purchased the watch from Tiffany & Company.Legend has it that Presley swapped it for a fan’s watch, and the fan’s nephew put the watch up for auction with Phillips in 2018. It sold for 1.8 million Swiss francs (about $1.87 million today), making it at the time the most expensive Omega ever sold. The highest bidder: Omega itself, which added the watch to its museum collection in Bienne, Switzerland.“The character arc of Elvis is fascinating, as is the fact that he was an extraordinary stylist who created his own look,” said Ms. Martin, who oversaw Mr. Butler’s watches in the new film. “He became super famous super fast, and watches were important to him to show that he had made it.”Warner Bros.One watch that was prominent late in Elvis’s career was the Rolex King Midas, which has an asymmetrical case with a wide integrated bracelet and was designed by Gerald Genta, the name behind such legendary watches as the Royal Oak and the Nautilus. Concert promoters gave the Midas to Presley in 1970 for performing six days of sold-out concerts, and it is now on permanent display at Graceland, Presley’s home in Memphis, where he died in 1977.“The King Midas is a very unusual shape, and Baz happens to own one, so Austin Butler wore that in the movie,” Ms. Martin said. “Some watches were borrowed or purchased online. Some were so valuable that it was impossible to have them on set, so we had duplicates made.”The subject of the film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month, certainly falls into the larger-than-life category that Mr. Luhrmann and Ms. Martin seem drawn to in filmmaking (like their 2013 version of “The Great Gatsby”).“The character arc of Elvis is fascinating, as is the fact that he was an extraordinary stylist who created his own look,” Ms. Martin said. “He became super famous super fast, and watches were important to him to show that he had made it.” More

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      The Music That Inspires the Watchmakers

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      Lots of artisans rely on music for inspiration, distraction and just a bit of fun.Music and watchmaking have a deep connection. Consider the “tick tock” of traditional timepieces, the minute repeater complication (a function besides the telling of time) that chimes the time on demand and the tunes played by many a pocket watch.Some watchmakers, though, say music also plays an important role in their ateliers — as inspiration, distraction and sometimes just for fun.Below, six industry professionals talk about what’s on their playlists.UrwerkFelix BaumgartnerWatchmaker at Urwerk, in GenevaThe Rolling Stones have played an important role at Urwerk since its founding in 1997, uniting Martin Frei, who designs the wildly futuristic watches, and Mr. Baumgartner, who makes them.For example, Mr. Baumgartner wrote in a email, in 2002, “we had finished the design of our new watch, the UR-103, but had barely enough money to put it into production.“We had to make a decision. Urwerk was clinically dead. It made no sense to continue,” the 46-year-old watchmaker added. “We took a break, turned on the music, the famous ‘Time Is On My Side,’ on maximum volume. We looked at each other and we knew. We found faith. We had to go to the end.”Ulysse CamusDenis FlageolletWatchmaker at De Bethune, in L’Auberson, SwitzerlandMr. Flageollet’s exposure to music began long before 2002, when he co-founded De Bethune, a brand dedicated to combining watchmaking’s heritage with new technologies.He was 7 in 1969, when Woodstock captured the world’s attention. “I couldn’t understand what was going on but I heard so much about it that I knew it was something big,” Mr. Flageollet, now 59, wrote in an email. “My elders introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Who and their music never left me.”Later, he added, “I discovered the Montreux Jazz Festival, which introduced me to many artists with very different styles such as Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Prince, David Bowie.”Kross StudioMarco TedeschiWatch designer at Kross Studio, in Gland, SwitzerlandNot all creative types in the watch world lean toward rock, though. Recently the founder and chief executive of Kross Studio has been listening to the music from the 1996 movie “Space Jam.”The reason: He is creating a tourbillon watch housed in a sculptural wood and aluminum basketball — a homage to LeBron James, star of the new movie “Space Jam: A New Legacy.”It is just one of the projects that Kross has undertaken since Mr. Tedeschi, formerly with Hublot, established the business a year ago and signed partnerships with Warner Bros. (which produced and released both “Space Jam” movies) and Lucasfilms (its visual effects division worked on “A New Legacy”) to create themed collector sets that retail for five to six figures.“I played the soundtrack through again and again,” he said, referring to the original movie.As for his own taste, Mr. Tedeschi, 36, has an iTunes library of more than 30,000 listings: “I like French music from the ’80s, George Clinton, Motown singers — that type of music is the base of my musical culture. My father played Otis Redding a lot as I was growing up.”via ZenithAlexandra MouginWatch analyst at Zenith, in Le Locle, SwitzerlandMs. Mougin, 44, repairs some of Zenith’s most complicated watches.“When I’m setting the hammers of my minute repeater,” she wrote, referring to the watch complication that strikes the hours, quarters and minutes on request, “I have to listen to the ‘music’ played by the gongs of this watch. My mind is silent, and I’m totally concentrated, with only the music played by my watch piercing this silence.”And when she is starting a restoration, she wrote, “My mind has to be clear, not clogged up with worries or questions. That’s when I mentally conjure up ‘The Funeral’ by Ennio Morricone. Admittedly it’s quite sad, but so powerful. It helps me reconnect with essentials.”She also will imagine the New Orleans classic “Iko Iko”; “Elle est d’ailleurs,” sung by Pierre Bachelet; and “Ça va ça va,” performed by Claudio Capéo.via Kari VoutilainenKari VoutilainenWatchmaker at Voutilainen, in St.-Sulpice, SwitzerlandA variety of music entertains Mr. Voutilainen, 59, and his 10-member workshop team. They tune into local radio stations in Switzerland’s Val de Travers that might be playing “jazz, classical, popular music,” the independent watchmaker said. “It’s background music, creating a relaxing mood.”And when it’s not so relaxing? “It’s a common decision when it’s time to change the station,” Mr. Voutilainen said.Personally, “I listen to everything, to classical, to jazz, to Louis Armstrong. I’m not difficult,” he said, adding that he also likes “Italian pop music, like Zucchero. I do also like the Canadian singer Garou; you can hear the passion when he’s singing.”Johann SautyEric GiroudWatch designer at Through the Looking Glass, in Confignon, SwitzerlandDifferent music fits different projects, Mr. Giroud, 59, wrote in an email. “In the research of ideas or concept I will listen to soft and introspective music,” like Debussy’s piano concertos or Nils Frahm, he wrote. “When sketching I listen to music more rhythmic and almost disturbing in order to leave my zone of comfort (Nick Drake, Isaac Hayes, etc.)”And creating 2-D or 3-D drawings? “Titles arranged by Claus Ogerman, for example, or Kruder & Dorfmeister,” he said, referring to the German arranger and composer and the modern Austrian remix specialists.Music is so important to his creations that “every year I make a compilation of the music that had accompanied me during the year in the form of a CD that serves as a greeting card,” he wrote.Just this creative watchmaker’s way of spreading the inspiration of music. 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      Watches and Music: A Harmonious Match

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      As the former lead guitarist for Anthrax, Daniel A. Spitz understands the fundamental link between music and timekeeping, something Swiss brands also have embraced.In the late 1990s, when Daniel A. Spitz was a student at the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Program (better known as WOSTEP) in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, he visited the Audemars Piguet factory in nearby Le Brassus.“I was trying to explain to them, ‘Do you have any idea how much disposable income and how many watch collectors there are in music?’” Mr. Spitz said on a recent video call from his home in Gun Barrel City, Texas, about an hour’s drive southeast of Dallas. “‘If you collaborated with musicians, how many more people would have an awareness of what a really good timepiece is?’ They just looked at me as if I was nuts.”Oh, how times (and tunes) have changed!Over the past few years, many Swiss watchmakers, including Audemars Piguet, have struck partnerships with artists, D.J.s, award shows, music festivals and even recording studios that underscore the fundamental link between music and timekeeping. (Let’s not forget the Italian word “tempo” comes from the Latin “tempus,” meaning time.)It’s a topic Mr. Spitz is particularly qualified to address. A former lead guitarist for the pioneering thrash metal band Anthrax, he left the group in 1995 to become a watchmaker, a passion he attributes to a childhood spent tinkering with Swiss timepieces at his grandfather’s watch and jewelry store in New York’s Catskills region.Mr. Spitz performing with Anthrax in 1991. He left the band four years later.Lisa Lake/Getty Images(He did return to Anthrax from 2005 to 2008 for a reunion cycle, then quit music for good. “My carpal tunnel syndrome inhibits me from playing for long periods of time,” he said.)The carpal tunnel syndrome has not stopped Mr. Spitz from designing and building about three custom wristwatches a year, with prices starting at $128,000, and a waiting list approaching two years. Making one complete watch at a time has allowed him to avoid making repetitive tasks with his hands, he said, but when there was a problem he would just stop and work on something else.As he riffed on the intrinsic link between music — particularly his brand of heavy metal — and high-end mechanical watchmaking, he emphasized the focus, precision and ambition that both fields require. “When you want to become one of the best guitar players on the planet, you lock yourself up in your room for years and you play and you play and you play — you have to figure it out,” Mr. Spitz said. “It’s the same in watchmaking.”As for the Swiss, the connections have struck a chord — look to just a few recent sponsorships, themed collections and even product collaborations.In 2019, Audemars Piguet became a global partner of the Montreux Jazz Festival (a role formerly filled by the Swiss brand Parmigiani Fleurier). That same year, the watchmaker introduced a music program to support rising music artists and to create music experiences for audiences around the world.Before the festival’s 55th edition concluded on July 17, the brand continued that mission by presenting a live performance by the Montreal-based hip-hop duo the Lyonz, staged in the foothills of the Swiss Alps around Montreux.The American watchmaker Bulova, owned by Citizen Watch, staked its claim on the mainstream music industry in 2016, when it signed agreements with the Recording Academy and the Latin Recording Academy to create and distribute watch collections featuring the logos of the Grammys and the Latin Grammys.Bulova sponsored the Grammy Brunch in 2020, which featured a performance by Cari Fletcher.Charley Gallay/Getty ImagesIt even has made special-edition Grammy watches for first-time winners featuring dials made of the same custom alloy used for the ceremony’s gramophone-shaped award, a substance called Grammium.“It’s not just about selling a watch,” Jeffrey Cohen, Bulova’s chief executive, said. “It’s about selling a vibe or a feeling.”Even though the pandemic generally made it impossible to enjoy that vibe at live events, plenty of brands created virtual music experiences throughout 2020 and the first half of 2021. Bulova, for one, continued its three-year-old “Tune of Time” video series spotlighting emerging musicians, established in partnership with the Universal Music Group. And Zenith teamed with the electronic music D.J. Carl Cox last fall to organize a private D.J. set on Zoom for about 50 clients in Mexico.“Clearly, you’re not getting the same outcome when you’re doing it online,” said Julien Tornare, Zenith’s chief executive, on a recent phone call. “You miss the atmosphere, you miss the real sound, you miss the interaction with the artists. But between doing nothing and this, we went with this.”The inner workings of one of Mr. Spitz’s watches.JerSean Golatt for The New York TimesFor the Geneva watchmaker Vacheron Constantin, which in 2018 signed a long-term agreement with Abbey Road Studios, the London recording site made famous by the Beatles, the pandemic was trickier to navigate. “It definitely put a hold on client experiences,” said Laurent Perves, the brand’s international commercial director and chief marketing officer.Before the pandemic, Vacheron Constantin used the recording complex as an event space (like celebrating the debut of its Fiftysix collection in 2018). More intriguing, however, was what the brand did with its La Musique Du Temps collection of chiming watches introduced in 2019: Vacheron arranged for the sound engineers at Abbey Road to record each timepiece’s unique sonic print, “so if one day clients want to have their watches serviced, we can reproduce the exact sound,” Mr. Perves said.That kind of project is a more sophisticated endeavor than just a sponsorship to raise a brand’s profile, said Silvia Belleza, the Gantcher associate professor of business at the Columbia Business School in New York, where she studies how consumers indicate status to one another. “If you can show why there’s a connection between the measurement of time and the music or sound,” she said, “it’s not only placing the brand name close to an event or cultural activity, you’re actually creating a story.”But, do any of these collaborations actually sell watches?“The objective here is to bring something additional to our clients in terms of experience, content, access and storytelling,” Mr. Perves said. “Spreading the message and educating people on what we do is important to us.”(The executives may not be saying it, but of course that kind of community building is a pillar of the industry’s modern sales strategy.)Although if watchmakers wanted to determine the return on their investment, it’s doubtful they could.“I’m not going to lie — it’s very difficult to quantify,” Ms. Belleza said. “It’s not like you have a shop at the music event and you can count how many watches you are selling. The return is more about awareness, visibility, connection with high-end activities — not the number of watches sold in the short term.”Mr. Spitz designs and builds about three custom wristwatches a year.JerSean Golatt for The New York TimesInstead, watchmakers who create sensory experiences powered by music — even, or especially, when the music doesn’t match the brand’s image (cue Mr. Spitz’s Anthrax hits, like “I’m the Man” from 1987) — may form long-term connections with existing clients and pick up new customers along the way.Take it from Lee Garfinkel, an advertising creative director who has used music throughout his career, often unexpectedly.In 1995, he created a television commercial for Mercedes-Benz with Janis Joplin singing “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz” on the soundtrack.“At first, the dealer group went crazy,” Mr. Garfinkel said on a recent phone call. “‘Why are you using this screeching woman singing about my cars?’ But in my mind, it was a great way to help people wake up and realize there was something new and different happening.” More

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      5 Things to Do This New Year’s Weekend

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyweekend roundup5 Things to Do This New Year’s WeekendOur critics and writers have selected noteworthy cultural events to experience virtually.Dec. 31, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETDanceMaking the Old NewKenneth Shirley of Indigenous Enterprise in a scene from a short film that is streaming on the Joyce Theater’s website until Sunday.Credit…Danny UpshawSince September, the Joyce Theater has been offering a free virtual fall season that is as good as some of its best in-person ones. The secret has been surprise and an avoidance of the usual suspects. If that is a little less true of the latest batch of videos — available through Sunday at joyce.org/joycestream — the variety still provides plenty of spice.The connecting theme might be “tradition reimagined.” Indigenous Enterprise captures the beauty of Native American dances in urban settings. Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo revives parts of the 19th-century ballet “Paquita” with an all-male cast. Streb Extreme Action does daredevil stunts with huge machines; it’s like a carnival side show performed by cool astronauts.Vanessa Sanchez and the group La Mezcla, from San Francisco, mix modern tap and zapateado to celebrate the women of the Zoot Suit Riots of the 1940s. And Rennie Harris Puremovement shows once again how hip-hop can convey both can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it flash and hard-to-watch grief.BRIAN SEIBERTKidsBon Voyage to BoredomA scene from “Journey Around My Bedroom,” an interactive production that will livestream on Zoom through Jan. 10.Credit…New Ohio TheaterA room can be a refuge, but without an easy exit, it can also feel like a jail. For the Frenchman Xavier de Maistre, it was both: While under house arrest in 1790, he wrote “Voyage Around My Room,” a tribute to the creativity his imprisonment unleashed.Now de Maistre’s work has inspired New Ohio Theater for Young Minds’ first virtual presentation, “Journey Around My Bedroom.” Written by Dianne Nora and directed by Jaclyn Biskup, with songs by Hyeyoung Kim, this whimsical 35-minute play emulates Victorian toy theater, in which puppeteers manipulated cutouts on a tiny stage. (Myra G Reavis did the inventive design, assisted by Ana Maria Aburto.) Traveling in a failing dirigible, de Maistre visits Xavi, a contemporary girl who discovers that her own room offers hidden adventure.The production, which livestreams on Zoom Fridays to Sundays through Jan. 10, includes audience participation and a post-show discussion. Children can also follow the journey, though less interactively, in an on-demand video Jan. 11-Feb. 11. Tickets to gain access to these performances are pay-what-you-wish and available at newohiotheatre.org.LAUREL GRAEBERArtTime to Ponder Time ItselfClodion’s “The Dance of Time: Three Nymphs Supporting a Clock” will be the topic of discussion on Friday during the Frick Collection’s “Cocktails With a Curator.”Credit…Claude Michel and JeanBaptiste Lepaute; via Frick Collection; Michael BodycombWhen the Frick Collection introduced its virtual series, “Cocktails With a Curator,” its deputy director and Peter Jay Sharp chief curator, Xavier F. Salomon, described the program as a way to show how the museum’s pieces are “relevant to issues we’re facing today.” That’s especially true for the artwork featured in the next episode: “The Dance of Time: Three Nymphs Supporting a Clock,” by the 18th-century sculptor Clodion with the clockmaker Jean-Baptiste Lepaute. Looking back on 2020, the passage of time has never felt so complicated.There’s also nothing simple about “The Dance of Time.” The three terra-cotta nymphs holding up a globe-encased clock are either witnessing the passage of time or represent it themselves. To find out more, make a metropolitan (or the mocktail alternative, a ginger ale hot toddy; both recipes are on the Frick’s website), and tune in to the museum’s YouTube channel on Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern time to hear Salomon discuss the timelessness of this unique timepiece.MELISSA SMITHPop & RockSummerStage Is Just a Screen AwaySoccer Mommy and her band performed for SummerStage Anywhere in November. The show is available to watch on YouTube.Credit…via City Parks FoundationWhile its recently renovated stage in Central Park sat idle this past season, SummerStage — the nonprofit organization that typically floods the five boroughs with live outdoor music — sprouted roots in virtual space. Its season of free online programming, SummerStage Anywhere, is now complete, but is archived on their YouTube channel for latecomers to enjoy.Offerings are wide-ranging, crossing disciplines, genres and generations. Soccer Mommy, an indie-rock darling, performed her first and, so far, only full-band show in support of her latest album, “Color Theory.” ASAP Ferg joined Fab 5 Freddy, one of hip-hop’s elder statesmen, for a conversation about creativity in the face of racial injustice. Gloria Gaynor and her band revisited hits from her disco heyday (including, of course, “I Will Survive,” a song that has special resonance these days). For those of us yearning for a time when we can once again spread our blankets and take in the sounds at Rumsey Playfield, this series provides a nice stopgap.OLIVIA HORNClassical MusicCatch Up With ‘Density 2036’Claire Chase recently released four full-length CDs for her ongoing “Density 2036” project.Credit…Karen ChesterPreviously, listeners curious about “Density 2036” — the ambitious, 23-year commissioning project that the flutist Claire Chase started in 2013 — have needed to stake out her concerts. (While Chase recorded her interpretations of a couple of the earliest works at the beginning of the project, studio renditions seemed to have taken a back seat to live dates in recent years.)Now four new full-length CDs, released by Corbett vs. Dempsey Records, allow a global audience to catch up with the first half-decade of Chase’s initiative. (They’re also available digitally on Bandcamp.) Highlights abound in each set, thanks to a range of composers that includes Marcos Balter, George Lewis and Pauline Oliveros. And one particularly striking stretch on “Part IV” features a version of Tyshawn Sorey’s “Bertha’s Lair” (with the composer heard on percussion alongside Chase). That fancifully vigorous piece is directly followed by a distinct yet similarly percussive work: “Five Empty Chambers” by Vijay Iyer.SETH COLTER WALLSAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More