A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

all . But you can't just build it and hope they will come . In the real world of

 furniture design , the challenge is finding someone to share the vision and hel

p make it or better yet , buy it . And that 's where the annual International Co

ntemporary Furniture Fair comes in . This 6-year-old magnet of the avant-garde t

akes place each May , filling the halls of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center

 with inventiveness and often beauty like delicate waxed tissue-paper lampshades

 imprinted with leaves and imported from England . An estimated 11,000 visitors 

inspected the works of 400 exhibitors from the Charles Eames chairs of design gi

ant Herman Miller and the sophisticated chic of Leland International 's industri

al stack chairs to curiosities made by struggling youngsters seeking their first

 glimmer of recognition . Architects and interior decorators go looking for new 

sources of custom design , manufacturers keep an eye out for new designers . Dep

artment-store window dressers and TV stylists show up to hunt for props . Among 

the reasons for enthusiasm were a chaise of recycled paper bricks by a French gr

oup , Arrgh , whose works are being launched in this country by the Landon Galle

ry in New York . Bowls , tables and an etagere made of vintage pennies attached 

end-to-end to a steel frame were the pride of Tom Sachs of Allied Cultural Prost

hetics , who said he pays suppliers 2 cents for each penny . New Yorker Gaston M

articorena was chosen New Designer of the Year . Now 25 , he has made his own li

ghting fixtures for three years and designed furniture for two , including a see

-through chair stuffed with confetti and upholstered in clear plastic and a hay 

bale on metal legs slipcovered in clear vinyl . `` I thought that my things woul

d be too funky for the average interior designer or architect , '' he said after

ward , `` but I didn't get any negative reaction . Everyone understood it . Peop

le would .. . start smiling and laughing . '' He 's off to Italy in three weeks 

to look for a manufacturer . `` I would like to work in this country , but it se

ems like it 's impossible , '' he said . Cedric Williams , 30 , a fashion design

er , turned to furniture two years ago , forming a company called Gourmade . `` 

I think furniture will be the fashion for the 1990s , '' he explains . Williams 

attracted attention from the start with a black-vinyl chair that was clearly a s

poof on Chanel . The back was shaped like a large No. 5 . This year , he showed 

tiny end tables covered with large , colorful polka dots . The excitement of bei

ng discovered can be tempered by the risk of losing an idea to a competitor . ``

 The good thing is that everybody sees it ; the bad thing is that everybody sees

 it , '' said Michael McDonough , an architect and design writer in New York who

 was careful to have a patent pending on the recycled-paper kiddie furniture he 

exhibited under the name Eco-sTuff ! McDonough incorporated alphabet letters and

 other playful shapes into chairs and tables made of Homosote . They are designe

d to be assembled , painted , drawn on and otherwise personalized by their small

 owners . `` I like the blank-slate thing , '' he explained . Two chairs and a t

able will cost $ 180 . Henner Kuckuck 's fiery `` Red Chair '' was designed more

 for an adult playroom . With its skinny , elongated back , tubular arms and poi

nty leather headrest , it looks set for takeoff on some whimsical journey . Kuck

uck , 54 , a jovial German-born sculptor turned furniture designer , works on co

mmissions through Nanna Design in Long Island City . He won awards for an earlie

r chair , which could be collapsed like a big black bag when not in use , and su

rvives on private clients ( no celebrities ) , he says . `` It 's tough . The mo

re avant-garde your design is the tougher it is . So I have a tough time . '' Bu

t , before turning to furniture , he was an artist , also not an easy calling . 

`` I chose all the worst . I like it , and that is the point . '' Tina and Franc

esco Gianesini , two industrial designers in New York , both 26 , were uncertain

 about their prospects at the fair . Going by the name G Design , they set a goa

l of finding a manufacturer for their first collection of wicker , metal and vel

vet furniture . They succeeded on the second day . A Utah company , Directions ,

 has taken on their designs and intends to get them to market by October . `` We

 're just starting out , '' said Tina Gianesini , who met her husband when both 

were students at the Domus Academy in Milan . Now they work in New York . `` We 

did this in our spare time '' between freelancing and other jobs . `` It 's just

 really exciting . We went in there kind of feeling out what was it all about . 

This was a happy ending . ''

 NEW YORK Technology made an unusual inroad into this artists ' colony . Lama , 

a French firm , was showing a platform bed that could be raised to the ceiling a

t the push of a button when not in use . The underside is designed to look like 

a ceiling and is wired with recessed lighting to complete the illusion . The ide

a was being promoted as a solution to the home-office and guest-room problems in

 urban markets . Designer Alain Letessier says about 2,000 units have been sold 

in France . `` The idea is pushing the limit of space , creating new space in an

 apartment in a very convenient way . It 's not a gadget , not a toy , '' he ins

isted . `` A lot of clients don't want bedrooms anymore . '' A 65-square-foot pl

atform costs $ 5,660 installed . Letessier has been designing tables , televisio

ns and walls that go up and down for nine years .

 By Benjamin Weiser Washington Post Service WASHINGTON Oded `` Ed '' Aboodi has 

been Wall Street 's best-kept secret : a shy , enigmatic dealmaker who rose to b

ecome a powerful adviser to Time Warner Inc. 's legendary head Steve Ross and to

 its current chairman , Gerald Levin . Aboodi reportedly received $ 51 million f

or his work in three megadeals , yet he remained largely invisible-as one Wall S

treet investment banker put it , `` the Wizard of Oz , the man behind the curtai

n . '' Then last month came the news that Aboodi had been cited for two counts o

f alleged insider trading . According to the Securities and Exchange Commission 

, Aboodi sold 20,000 shares of Time Warner stock after being warned by insiders 

that it was about to drop . The stock did then plunge by more than 10 percent , 

allowing Aboodi to avert personal losses of $ 413,700 , according to the SEC . W

hile neither admitting nor denying guilt in the matter , Aboodi agreed to settle

 the complaint , paying $ 931,077 in civil penalties and interest . New transcri

pts released here yesterday by the SEC provide more detail on the Aboodi case an

d reveal a fascinating tale of family intrigue involving Aboodi 's 29-year-old s

on , David . According to sworn testimony given to SEC investigators , David Abo

odi , a budding investment banker who had been authorized by his father to manag

e the family accounts in which the questioned stock deals occurred , insisted th

at he , not his father , had sold the Time Warner stock . When the SEC questione

d the elder Aboodi , he took the same position : `` My son David. . . .My son Da

vid , '' he repeated to SEC investigators as they asked who had made the deals ,

 saying they had not talked beforehand about the transactions . The younger Aboo

di told the SEC that he made the deals after reading several analysts ' reports 

on Time Warner , which favored such a move , and said that he did so without any

 inside knowledge from his father or anyone else that the stock was likely to di

p . Separately , the documents reveal that as part of its inquiry into the tradi

ng of Time Warner stock , the SEC quizzed Daniel Tisch , son of Laurence Tisch ,

 chairman of CBS Inc. and also chairman of Loews Corp. . The agency asked about 

a sale of 10,000 Time Warner shares the elder Tisch made through his son at the 

end of May 1991 , just before the Time Warner stock fell . Daniel Tisch told the

 SEC that his father made the `` short '' sale-selling borrowed stock in anticip

ation that it can be replaced at a lower cost after it falls in price-based on h

is judgment that the stock was overvalued and not because they had received any 

inside information . The SEC appears to have accepted their position and there i

s no indication that any case is active involving either Tisch . Laurence Tisch 

could not be reached for comment , and Daniel Tisch said he had not heard from t

he SEC since giving testimony in 1992 and had no knowledge of any active case . 

SEC officials declined to comment . For Time Warner , the Aboodi case could not 

have come at a more sensitive time . The company is saddled with a large debt , 

and has faced Wall Street speculation that Seagram Co. , which owns 14.99 percen

t of its stock , would support a hostile takeover bid or an attempt to oust its 

management . Seagram yesterday denied such speculation . After a special directo

rs ' committee assisted by retired federal judge Harold `` Ace '' Tyler looked i

nto the matter this spring , the board decided to retain Aboodi . Levin told sha

reholders at the company 's annual meeting last month that the decision was `` a

ppropriate '' and Aboodi was `` a trusted and valued adviser . '' The decision d

rew some criticism : At least two Time Warner directors were said to have expres

sed concerns about retaining Aboodi , said one source , though neither director 

would return phone calls . Another critic was Columbia University professor John

 Coffee , an expert in securities regulation and white-collar crime , who said :

 `` I am disappointed in Time Warner being able to rationalize this kind of cond

uct by someone who is settling on these terms with the SEC . '' Neither Aboodi w

ould be interviewed for this article ; and under terms of Ed Aboodi 's May 11 ag

reement with the SEC , he is prohibited from publicly disputing the SEC 's versi

on of the facts against him . `` What has been so wrenching for him is precisely

 what he cannot say , '' said one confidant , referring to the younger Aboodi 's

 statements to the SEC that he made the questioned trades . David Aboodi , a 198

7 Harvard University graduate , is vice president of the Berkshire Bank in Manha

ttan , which his father founded . He told the SEC that his father initially gave

 him authority to trade in the family accounts because `` he thought it was time

 I learned a little bit about the stock market . '' The SEC probe of the Aboodis

 was first disclosed this spring by writer Connie Bruck in a book on Ross . But 

even before that , the Time Warner adviser was a figure of controversy because o

f his role as Ross 's dealmaker . Emigrating from Israel as a teenager , Aboodi 

was plucked from an obscure accountant 's job by Ross and eventually became his 

financial guru . Aboodi also set up his own company , Alpine Capital Group , and

 later started the Berkshire Bank . He reveled in complex dealmaking . Said one 

lawyer : `` He loved doing things in Byzantine ways when they could just as easi

ly be done straight . That was Steve Ross 's style too. . . . They suited each o

ther beautifully . '' In Warner 's 1987 acquisition of Chappell & Co. , then the

 world 's largest music publisher , Aboodi 's low-key style appears to have help

ed close the deal . The negotiations were boisterous and tense , with multiple b

idders and near-chaos as Warner executives grew angrier and angrier as the price

 kept jumping until it exceeded $ 200 million , said Chappell owner James Harmon

 . `` Ed was the only one who kept his cool . He didn't scream and yell at me , 

'' Harmon said . Two years later , Aboodi played a key role in negotiating Ross 

's merger with Time . Ross was later quoted as saying of Aboodi : `` He is one o

f the most fantastic dealmakers of all time . '' He was also well-compensated : 

According to published reports , he received $ 6 million for his role in the Tim

e Warner merger ( and the company also invested $ 150 million in a fund managed 

by Alpine Capital ) ; $ 15 million for a 1992 Time Warner joint venture with Tos

hiba Corp. and Itochu Corp. ; and $ 30 million for last year 's Time Warner deal

 with US West Inc. . It was his role advising Time Warner 's board in a controve

rsial 1991 securities offering that led to his recent troubles . That spring , T

ime Warner , with the assistance of Merrill Lynch & Co. , devised an offering th

at forced shareholders to subscribe or face a substantial dilution of the value 

of their stock . Merrill Lynch executives warned Time Warner officials-including

 Aboodi , according to the SEC-that in the short term , the offering would be un

popular and likely depress Time Warner 's stock price . The SEC complaint allege

s that on May 30 , 1991 , after hearing this warning , Aboodi `` directly or ind

irectly '' caused the sale of the 20,000 shares of Time Warner common stock , wh

ich he held in personal and family accounts at Merrill Lynch . He netted about $

 2.4 million from the sale . On June 6 , before the stock market opened , Time W

arner announced the offering , and as Merrill Lynch had predicted , the stock dr

opped , by 10.2 percent . The SEC alleged that the losses Aboodi averted resulte

d from his trading on nonpublic , insider information . However , David Aboodi t

old the SEC that he , not his father , ordered the stock sale . `` It was based 

on some reading I had done in the month before , '' David Aboodi said , referrin

g to analysts ' reports that favored such a move . He said he put the proceeds t

oward what the reports said was a safer investment , preferred Time Warner share

s . The younger Aboodi 's version , however , was not supported by the Merrill L

ynch broker who handled the sale . According to an informed source , the broker 

told SEC officials that he had a `` very very vague '' and `` extremely hazy '' 

recollection that Ed Aboodi had called him and asked to sell the 20,000 shares .

 Faced with this discrepancy and the circumstantial case against him , Ed Aboodi

 agreed to the SEC deal . Keeping Aboodi may help Time Warner in one respect . A

s the board ponders Seagram 's investment , it may be without its longtime outsi

de adviser , Felix Rohatyn , who has a longstanding relationship with Seagram . 

`` The question comes up , '' said a Time Warner source , ` ` `` Who is our inve

stment banker now ? '

 HOLLYWOOD `` Fear of a Black Hat '' is designed to be a rap version of the clas

sic mock rock documentary `` This Is Spinal Tap , '' and the idea is so funny th

at for a long time the film coasts on our good will . But it should be funnier t

han it is . Writer-director Rusty Cundieff , who also stars , along with Larry B

 . Scott and Mark Christopher Lawrence , as one of the three members of the rap 

group N.W.H. , has a loose-limbed comic sense , and there are hilarious bits pok

ing through the tedium . What the movie lacks is any kind of smart , sociologica

l sense . It 's a defanged spoof . The biggest in-joke about gangsta rap , after

 all , is that its largest audience is white . Black rappers , many from middle-

class backgrounds , market the white audience 's worst racial fears . Instead of

 getting into this kind of material , Cundieff goes for more obvious ( and safer

 ) targets : Vanilla Ice types and cringing money-grubbing managers . The rap gr

oup 's numbers aren't particularly well-staged , or funny , but a few of their M

TV clips are almost indistinguishable from what 's really on the network . ( Tha

t 's the joke . ) There 's a funny interview with one of the rappers about the m

eaning of the group 's name where he goes into a long diatribe about how slaves 

weren't allowed to wear hats , and another where the group 's recurring use of t

he word butt is explained away as a social statement . The titles for their rap 

hits are the most inspired thing in the movie ( MPAA rating : R , for pervasive 

strong language and for sexuality ) , but you 'll have to see the movie or read 

something besides a family newspaper to find out what they are . The tamest one 

is `` Guerrillas in the Mist . ''

 HOLLYWOOD `` Renaissance Man '' wants to own your tear ducts . It 's got a sop 

for every audience and happy endings coming out of its ears . There 's a fine li

ne between delighting an audience and pandering to it . `` Renaissance Man '' le

apfrogs across the line . What complicates the issue is that , in snatches , the

 film does delight . Phony hokum becomes heartfelt hokum . Danny DeVito plays ou

t-of-work ad exec Bill Rago , Princeton graduate , who grudgingly takes a job th

rough the local welfare office teaching eight educationally disadvantaged Army r

ecruits at a nearby post . This `` Dead Poets Society '' / `` Corn Is Green '' s

etup always seems to work on some level movies about the inspirations of educati

on can be inspiring and the liveliest moments in `` Renaissance Man '' involve B

ill 's classroom wheedlings and back talk . Initially marking time while hunting

 for a `` real '' job , he finds himself roused to help his troops . He discover

s an improbable way to reach them by teaching them `` Hamlet . '' Screenwriter J

im Burnstein reportedly worked a job very much like Bill 's , but many of the in

cidents in the film seem trumped up . Bill 's washout students are , of course ,

 not really washouts ; they just need to be cared for . They 're like racially m

ixed Dead End Kids for the dysfunctional '90s . Most of them have sob stories : 

Miranda ( Stacey Dash ) was ditched by her mother ; Brian ( Peter Simmons ) neve

r knew his father who was killed in Vietnam ; Jackson ( Richard T. Jones ) was a

 great pro football prospect before he became injured ; Mel ( Greg Sporleder ) c

omes from an abusive family and dozes to blank out the pain . Even the soldiers 

who don't seem touched by grief or anger like country boy Tommy Lee ( Mark Wahlb

erg , aka Marky Mark ) or the well-read Roosevelt ( Khalil Kain ) or the jokeste

r Jamaal ( Kadeem Hardison ) seem stunted not by lack of aptitude but by lack of

 opportunity . Donnie ( Lillo Brancato Jr. ) starts out reading comic books and 

ends up reciting the `` St. Crispin 's Day '' speech from `` Henry V '' to his f

labbergasted drill sergeant ( well played by Gregory Hines ) . It 's an inspirin

g moment , but it would have been funnier and probably truer to experience if Do

nnie , an expert mimic , had recited the speech in his Al Pacino voice from `` S

carface . '' The soldiers get fired up about `` Hamlet '' by relating the play t

o their own lives it 's Shakespeare as therapist , as career adviser . The film 

's view of education is inspiring but also a bit bogus . It reduces great drama 

to a catalog of shibboleths and life lessons . ( This is also what the movie doe

s to its own meanings . ) And Bill 's transformation is self-serving . He comes 

to recognize that his former advertising world lacks the `` truth '' of his new 

crusade but Burnstein and director Penny Marshall plug the Joy of Learning with 

slick commercial fervor , as if they were framing an ad campaign . `` Renaissanc

e Man '' never really shows us how Bill 's brood might bring him into their cult

ure . Through them he discovers his real calling , but the educational process i

s mostly one-way his way . ( The big dance number where the students do a rap ve

rsion of `` Hamlet '' is the film 's phoniest scene . ) Bill is too busy getting

 his comeuppance in other ways : as a divorced father whose daughter wants his r

espect ; as a former draft resister who learns , from the company colonel ( Clif

f Robertson ) , the true value of the military life . DeVito is required to plod

 Bill through a lot of hare-brained paces , like the scene where he enters an en

durance test to win the respect of his students . But DeVito is remarkably good 

in the role anyway ; it seems to have touched something genuine in him . He 's t

oned down his usual bug-eyed squalling , and the result is his best screen work 

since Barry Levinson 's `` Tin Men . '' It is in Bill 's early scenes , where he

 stands humiliated before his jobless life , that Penny Marshall 's tact as a di

rector comes through best . It doesn't come through often enough , though . She 

's a graceful , intelligent director who doesn't appear to have her heart in all

 the graceless grandstanding in `` Renaissance Man '' ( MPAA rating : PG-13 , fo

r some language ) . She doesn't have the gift for shamelessness , and that 's wh

y the film , with its pileup of sentimentalities , seems so processed . She 's t

rying to engineer our emotions , but she 's smart enough to know that an artist 

not an engineer is required for the job .

 HOLLYWOOD `` The Princess and the Goblin , '' a new animated feature opening to

day , feels like 82 minutes of audio-visual junk food cloying , devoid of signif

icant content and ultimately unsatisfying . Based on the 1872 novel by Scottish 

writer George MacDonald , this fairy tale focuses on Princess Irene ( voice by S

ally Ann Marsh ) , who leads a sheltered life in her father 's castle with only 

her bumbling governess and her cat , Turnip , for company . On a walk , she meet

s Curdi ( Peter Murray ) a miner 's son , who learns that subterranean goblins a

re plotting to seize the kingdom . Curdi foils their plan with a little help fro

m Irene and the royal guards because he knows the goblins ' weaknesses : They ha

te singing and stepping on their feet is the only way to hurt them . All ends ha

ppily , although the screenplay by producer Robin Lyons leaves many loose ends d

angling . Why is Curdi the only person who knows how to defeat the goblins ? Whi

le sneaking through the underground kingdom , he discovers the Queen Goblin ( Pe

ggy Mount ) has six toes on each foot , while her subjects have only one : Why i

s this significant-sounding discovery never mentioned again ? How do the goblins

 manage to flood a castle on a hill by unleashing one underground stream ? ( Can