By Belinda Luscombe

SEEN & HEARD

If the book hasn't transported you to paradise, the sound track to James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy may. The album, due out in June, uses, among other instruments, a type of flute connected to a device that touches the skin, supposedly enabling a musician's emotions to be heard. Move over, John Tesh.

If you've already read Redfield, maybe you'll enjoy mulling a Michael Milken. The financier's first book, Unconventional Wisdom, will be published in August by Knowledge Exchange, a consulting firm with a book-publishing arm that Milken partially owns. There is no sound track, but Milken does narrate the audiobook.

THANKS, BUT NO THANKS

Being a first-time director is a risky game. Even if you have ANJELICA HUSTON's pedigree. TNT contracted Huston to make a version of the cult novel Bastard Out of Carolina, although the suits at the studio knew that the subject matter--a girl who's molested by her stepfather--wasn't exactly family fare. When Huston delivered her film, gritty scenes and all, it dawned on Turner execs (particularly Ted) that they couldn't air the movie without vigorous cuts. "Her vision of the film and what we could air were not the same thing," says a TNT spokeswoman. Not wanting to offend Huston, or indeed Jennifer Jason Leigh, who stars, Turner offered it back to Huston, who will now try for a big-screen release. At least it's a novel method of getting movie financing. COMIC TOOL

Hey, STEVE FORBES, you've just blown $30 million running for President! What are you going to do now? How about acting as host on a flailing late-night comedy show that's always making fun of you? In one of those counterintuitive decisions that characterize true mavericks, Forbes, whose stage presence never exactly sparkled during the campaign, will be the host on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Says Forbes: "I wanted to see if I could do a better impersonation of me than they were doing." No sketches are yet in place, but rumor has it New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, a childhood friend who opted for Dole, may want to tune out. CHER AND CHER-ALIKE

After scoring a $20 million, three-movie deal on the strength of last year's Clueless, would ALICIA SILVERSTONE be lured back into the role of Cher for the TV series based on the film? As zif! So producers found a reasonable facsimile. A lick of makeup, a smattering of hair product and Cher is reborn in the body of 19-year-old Toronto native RACHEL BLANCHARD, right, who has been on two TV series before but has visited Beverly Hills only a few times. "I don't think it's a conscious thing to make me look like Alicia," says Blanchard, who hadn't seen the movie when she auditioned. "I wear different clothes." Whatever.