Short Takes

TELEVISION

Tonight's Morning After

JAY LENO may or may not be the hardest-working man in show business, but he's certainly got the hardest job. After Johnny Carson's lavishly covered farewell to the Tonight show, Leno faces the impossible task of measuring up to a legend. He did seem unusually tense his first week. He lacks Carson's easygoing charisma, and he barrels through interviews as if he can't wait to get to the end of the question sheet. But his monologues are sharper than Carson's, and he has given the show a needed coat of fresh (mostly purple) paint, with hipper musical guests (the Black Crowes) and fewer Las Vegas geriatrics. One question: How many of the people lamenting Johnny's departure actually watched him during the past 10 years?

THEATER

Pockets Full of Rue

What A.R. Gurney is for the old money set, Richard Greenberg is for yuppie arrivistes: a rueful chronicler of meaningless manners, misbegotten mores and loves gone wrong. THE EXTRA MAN, off-Broadway, focuses on a figure common to both circles: the unattached man of uncertain sexuality and undeniable charm who is always on hand for friends and in fact lives through them, sometimes in ways meddlesome or even Machiavellian. Boyd Gaines, who won a Tony Award as a saintly gay doctor in The Heidi Chronicles, balances amiability and creepiness in the role. He is ably backed by TV stars Adam Arkin (Northern Exposure), Laila Robins (Gabriel's Fire) and John Slattery (Homefront).

MUSIC

Vibrant Tapestry

The latest batch of Young jazz Turks has produced some dynamite soloists -- but few great bands. This is due partly to the high level of competition among the up-and-comers and partly to their inexperience in the art of collective improvisation. Trumpeter ROY HARGROVE, in his third Novus album, The Vibe, manages to offset both factors by teaming up with outstanding sidemen -- alto-sax player Antonio Hart, pianist Marc Cary, drummer Gregory Hutchinson and bassist Rodney Whitaker -- who stitch a vibrant tapestry around his own fat sound. At 22, Hargrove has the tone, sensitivity and power to emerge as his generation's man to beat on the golden horn. Fortunately, he also has the intelligence to share the stage.

BOOKS

A Long and Winding African Road

Last year's winner of Britain's esteemed Booker Prize, THE FAMISHED ROAD (Doubleday; $22.50), is a long, winding allegorical novel that draws no line between fact and fantasy. The Nigerian-born, London-based Ben Okri explores the spiritual interior of an African nation struggling to reconcile its traditions with modern dislocations. Sorcerers, ghosts and two-legged dogs mingle with villagers and politicians in this hallucinatory narrative that reconnects Nigeria to its origins. Okri's uncompromising vision and verbal energy carry him swiftly through 500 pages. The reader too moves along, although a little less magic and a bit more realism could have given this extended tour de force more variety and emotional punch.

CINEMA

Chillin' Out

Future film scholars will look back on 1992 and proclaim, "The glancing charm! The arcane wit! The epitome of cinematic sophistication . . . Wayne's World!" It surely seems so, considering the latest competition. In ENCINO MAN, a caveman (Brendan Fraser) thaws out in a more primitive outpost of civilization: a San Fernando Valley high school. Because his guide through California folkways is MTV's rude dude Pauly Shore, the movie has its share of chillspeak. Michael DeLuise makes a droll villain -- he's like Woody Harrelson | after a brain switch -- and for maybe 20 minutes the E.T. plot twists are endurable. After that the pain gets somewhere between mental and dental. Even Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey seems on the Noel Coward level compared with this Stoned Age outrage.