<p> MISS UNIVERSE PAGEANT (CBS, April 15, 9 p.m. EDT). Dick
Clark and Leeza Gibbons are this year's hosts, and new onscreen
technology will show viewers up-to-the-minute scores as the
contestants are winnowed. What is this, a beauty pageant or a
game show?
</p>
<p> PROFIT THE EARTH (PBS, April 16, 8 p.m. on most stations).
Public TV launches a yearlong campaign of environmental
programming with this hour-long special that examines
free-enterprise solutions to the pollution problem.
</p>
<p> THE OUTSIDERS (SUNDAYS, 7 p.m. EDT, FOX). TV has discovered
a new genre: working-class romanticism. First came Elvis, with
its nostalgic retelling of the King's early rise from
blue-collar boredom to Top 40 stardom. Now Francis Coppola has
turned his 1983 movie about Oklahoma teenagers (based on the
S.E. Hinton novel) into a lyrical, lovingly crafted TV series.
Class conflict is the theme: the three Curtis brothers,
scraping along together after the death of their parents, are
part of a wrong-side-of-the-tracks crowd known as the Greasers.
Their snooty, letter-sweatered antagonists are called the Socs
(that's So-shes). The show pushes its James Dean angst a bit
hard ("What do I got? Nothin'! Just another greaser goin'
nowhere"). But the milieu is sharply etched, and rarely have
the disaffected been so affecting. The best drama series yet
from TV's hottest network, Fox.
</p>
<p>BOOKS
</p>
<p> DECEPTION by Philip Roth (Simon & Schuster; $18.95). The
master deceiver again teases his fans with a fictive fan dance
about a writer named Philip who may or may not be having an
affair with a married woman who may or may not be a character
in a novel in prog ress. The woman he lives with doesn't buy
it, but readers who appreciate first-rate talent will be
thoroughly taken in.
</p>
<p> OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO! by Dr. Seuss (Random House;
$12.95). Eighty-six-year-old Dr. Seuss continues to rhyme with
reason in book No. 43, an illustrated philosophy lesson about
bouncing back that contains the sage advice, "Be sure when you
step./ Step with care and great tact/ and remember that Life's/
a Great Balancing Act."
</p>
<p>THEATER
</p>
<p> GET ANY GUY THRU PSYCHIC MIND CONTROL OR YOUR MONEY BACK.
The title may promise the impossible, but it captures the
playful tone in this tale of Southern sisters who dream about
Nashville stardom and of the men who derail them. At Act I
Arena Theater in Framingham, Mass.
</p>
<p> PRELUDE TO A KISS. The best play yet in response to AIDS
never mentions the word but asks whether love is really forever
when the young, beautiful person you married is suddenly a
dying old man. Writer Craig Lucas and director Norman Rene have
an off-Broadway winner, on its way to Broadway, and Mary-Louise
Parker is the most fetching dizball leading lady since Judy
Holliday.
</p>
<p> OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. The robust, raunchily funny depiction
of a hostile corporate takeover drew the limo-and-luxury
investment bankers off-Broadway and is now on tour, currently
in Chicago. If, in the changed economy, this is no longer a
bulletin from the front, it's at least an instructive look back
in anger.
</p>
<p> FEAST OF FOOLS. Clowning through the centuries, British-born
Geoff Hoyle is by turns a medieval jester, a fly-eating
Arlecchino and two dueling waiters. Imaginative and skillful
physically, if a bit labored verbally, Hoyle peaks in an
inspired bit of off-Broadway lunacy proving that, when it comes
to dancing, three legs are better than two.
</p>
<p>MOVIES
</p>
<p> THE HANDMAID'S TALE. Set in a political and sexual
dictatorship of the near future, this anti-fundamentalist fable
carries a heady pedigree: screenplay by Harold Pinter from the
Margaret Atwood novel. But a fine cast is zombified under
Volker Schlondorff's drab direction.
</p>
<p> HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Running into Henry is
like winning a satanic lottery; you die, at random. John
McNaughton's icy essay in depravity, made for peanuts in
Chicago four years ago, forces the moviegoer to stare into the
face of evil.
</p>
<p> PRETTY WOMAN. Pretty ugly. 'Nuff said.
</p>
<p>MUSIC
</p>
<p> COWBOY JUNKIES: THE CAUTION HORSES (RCA). The Junkies are
still laying down their special blend of Thorazine country--slow, dreamy and spiritual--but the novelty's worn dime-thin.
Not so fresh as last year's exemplary debut, but the band still
has mystique to burn and mystery to spare. Wait till next year.
</p>
<p> THE NOTTING HILLBILLIES: MISSING...PRESUMED HAVING A
GOOD TIME (Warner Bros.). Mark Knopfler, of Dire Straits, and
three mates of similar musical inclination cook up a relaxed
set of old-time guitar music and dusty folk. A sort of
after-hours version of the Traveling Wilburys, with a solid
Knopfler original (Your Own Sweet Way) nestled among the
well-roasted chestnuts.
</p>
<p> JAZZ PIANO (Smithsonian Collection). A four-CD (six-LP)
compendium of outstanding keyboard artists recorded between
1924 and 1978. Virtually every American jazz pianist of note--42 in all, ranging from Jelly Roll Morton to Keith Jarret--is represented in these 68 solo tracks. As if a gold mine
of great music were not enough, the scholarly notes by Dick
Katz, Martin Williams and Francis Davis make this a must-have
