Scrimshaw

Dozens of rare abalone scrimshaw carvings were stolen from a Monterey Peninsula museum at a state reserve, park officials said. The collection of 48 carvings vanished in the middle of the night last week from a museum at the Point Lobos state reserve near Carmel, according to park ranger Dave Schaechtele.

Dozens of rare abalone scrimshaw carvings were stolen from a Monterey Peninsula museum at a state reserve, park officials said. The collection of 48 carvings vanished in the middle of the night last week from a museum at the Point Lobos state reserve near Carmel, according to park ranger Dave Schaechtele.

Question: I recently purchased "Up and Down California" in good condition for $90 from a book dealer and wondered if I got a good buy.--E.G. Answer: The book "Up and Down California in 1860-1864" by William H. Brewer (Yale University Press, 1930) is coveted by book collectors. According to Los Angeles book dealer Jeff Weber of Zeitlin & Ver Brugge, its current value, if in good condition with the dust jacket intact, is $150.

Trying to complete the same Coolmore Lexington Stakes-Kentucky Derby parlay they did four years ago with Charismatic, owners Bob and Beverly Lewis and trainer Wayne Lukas got the first half home Saturday with Scrimshaw. Making his first start since finishing fourth in the Hutcheson Stakes two months earlier at Gulfstream Park, the 3-year-old Gulch colt earned himself a spot in the Derby in 13 days with a three-length victory in the $363,675 Lexington at Keeneland.

"Even a klutz can do it," says Howell Thomas--which seems unlikely, but there you are. On the heel of Thomas' steady hand is a bottle less than 3 inches long; inside the bottle is an exquisite, detailed scale model of a sailing ship, more than 2 inches long. The masts of the ship are easily three times higher than the neck of the bottle is wide, and therein lies a tall tale. It took Thomas 12 years to make his first ship-in-a-bottle.

Trying to complete the same Coolmore Lexington Stakes-Kentucky Derby parlay they did four years ago with Charismatic, owners Bob and Beverly Lewis and trainer Wayne Lukas got the first half home Saturday with Scrimshaw. Making his first start since finishing fourth in the Hutcheson Stakes two months earlier at Gulfstream Park, the 3-year-old Gulch colt earned himself a spot in the Derby in 13 days with a three-length victory in the $363,675 Lexington at Keeneland.

INEVITABLY, SCRIMSHAW calls to mind the whaling days of Nantucket and New Bedford and brings with it echoes of Melville's "Moby Dick." It is a term of American origin applied to craft work made aboard ship, usually a whaler, in a variety of materials, including marine ivory, baleen, even wood. The great years of American whaling were from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s. There were interminable hours of boredom on the voyages that lasted as long as three or four years.

The masthead lookout kept vigil for the spout of a whale, while the little wooden bark from New Bedford, its sails drawing well, rolled over the easy swells of the South Pacific. There was activity on board, but not of a kind that filled casks with oil. The men were busy scrimshawing, an activity that passed the time between long stretches at sea when there was no catching and trying out whales.

"The Jewish Heritage in American Folk Art," an exploration of a facet of folk creativity organized by the Museum of Folk Art and the Jewish Museum in New York, is on view at the Hebrew Union College's Skirball Museum through April 27. The exhibition consists of about ceremonial and secular objects from 1720 to the present. The earliest generations of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish settlers, few in numbers, tended to assimilate their cultural patterns with those of the local population.

What the heck is folk art anyway, and why do we keep aggravating ourselves with the question? We don't go around wringing our hands and moaning, "What is folk music?" It's that stuff with the fiddles and banjos. Whatever folk art is, there is a wunnerful new exhibition of it that just opened at the County Museum of Art. Titled "An American Sampler," it lays out 120 signs, decoys, carousal critters and cigar-store Indians without surgeon-general warnings. Then there are quilts and scrimshaw.

Whether there will be additional entrants in the Kentucky Derby two weeks from today will be known after today's $325,000 Coolmore Lexington Stakes at Keeneland. The Grade II at 1 1/16 miles is the last chance for eight 3-year-olds to prove they merit a trip to Churchill Downs. For trainer Wayne Lukas, success in the Lexington has led to more of the same in the Derby. Charismatic won at Keeneland, then won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

What the heck is folk art anyway, and why do we keep aggravating ourselves with the question? We don't go around wringing our hands and moaning, "What is folk music?" It's that stuff with the fiddles and banjos. Whatever folk art is, there is a wunnerful new exhibition of it that just opened at the County Museum of Art. Titled "An American Sampler," it lays out 120 signs, decoys, carousal critters and cigar-store Indians without surgeon-general warnings. Then there are quilts and scrimshaw.

"Even a klutz can do it," says Howell Thomas--which seems unlikely, but there you are. On the heel of Thomas' steady hand is a bottle less than 3 inches long; inside the bottle is an exquisite, detailed scale model of a sailing ship, more than 2 inches long. The masts of the ship are easily three times higher than the neck of the bottle is wide, and therein lies a tall tale. It took Thomas 12 years to make his first ship-in-a-bottle.

NO CREATURE UNDER the sun--not the ant, not the honeybee, not the Type-A personality--is busier than the big, fuzzy, black-and-yellow bumblebee. Compared to the bumblebee, those other creatures are so lazy and indolent as not to deserve mention in the same sentence. That is because of one key fact: The bumblebee heats its body through exercise. A bumblebee cannot fly until its wing muscles reach about 86 degrees Fahrenheit. It does best at about 95 degrees.