Wood

He went away and hewed to the line. He came back and carved a life. That's what happened when Gardena celery farmer Heishiro Otani was shipped off to an American internment camp during World War II. To while away the time, Otani whittled. A half-century later, he's still at it. But don't think for an instant that the 84-year-old is some old codger rocking on the porch, lazily putting knife to stick. He works on a grander scale. And his works have a look of grandeur.

UNDERRATED 'The Pitch' on AMC : Like a real-life "Mad Men" with far less interesting furnishings, this reality show captures the drama behind today's ad game and transcends the cliches while doing it. Sure, it's a little unsettling to consider the economics behind a show about creating commercials — one of which you actually watch by choice once the "winner" for the week's campaign is picked — but it's strangely worth it after seeing the...

What should a man smell like? This is not an inquiry to be undertaken lightly - particularly at this time of the year when the gantlet of parties, events and mixers that stretches from Thanksgiving into the new year is destined to put the fragrance profiles of near strangers beneath our noses as surely as stockings dangle from the fireplace mantle. It's a timely question for other reasons. According to the NPD Group, a market research firm, one-quarter of all annual sales in the prestige fragrance category (defined as the scents sold at the department store level and higher)

Kerry Wood arrived in the majors 14 years ago, a fresh-faced kid with No. 34 on his back, slinging fastballs at 100 mph, delivering breaking pitches that were often unhittable and striking out 20 batters in just his fifth start. On Friday, he left the game after one final, emotional appearance with the Chicago Cubs. Fittingly, "Kid K" struck out the last batter he'll ever face and retired at 34, ending a career that was eye-popping at times but hampered by injuries.

Bacon and avocado are two of my favorite foods, so when someone idly suggested smoking pork belly with avocado wood, I thought it was a brilliant idea and began searching for places to buy the right lumber. "You won't find any," warned Rashida Purifoy, a professional chef and friend who'd already been on the lookout for some. I didn't think any more about our conversation until a few months later, when I fatally overwatered an avocado sapling in my front yard. I occasionally make my own bacon in a backyard smoker and figured the corpse, which resembled a long, dried twig, might be enough to make one batch.

In baseball, as in most things, there comes a time when the time has come. Brandon Wood is there. The power-hitting infielder for the Angels will turn 25 on March 2. He starts spring training Tuesday with a new beginning, not merely a new season. Chone Figgins is gone, off to the Seattle Mariners with his career contract in his pocket. Wood isn't looking so much for a career contract as he is a career. Figgins' third base spot is open and Wood gets to be first in line. His approach to this opportunity will be music to the ears of Manager Mike Scioscia, the Angels' master of the blue-collar approach to life and baseball.

When Los Angeles designer Shawn Littrell ( www.shawnlittrell.com) read about an invasive bark beetle epidemic devastating our local forests, he was inspired to repurpose the insect-ravaged timber. Littrell's MvCvT tables (an acronym for Man vs. Climate Change vs. Trees) are made from wood slated for destruction by the U.S. Forest Service. The split-plank tables are 16 1/2 inches tall and 12 1/2 inches in diameter and are unfinished, so they generate a natural patina. Cost: $800 each. Look for the limited-edition pieces -- signed and numbered -- at Samuel Freeman Gallery at Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica; (310)

A 49-year-old man was killed Tuesday after he slipped into a commercial wood chipper while clearing brush near an avocado grove in Fallbrook, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department said. Martimiano Morales Carreon, of Rainbow, Calif., apparently was pushing brush into the chipper with his foot when he lost his balance and was pulled into the machine, officials said. His son, who was working with him, quickly turned off the machine but Carreon had suffered "major trauma" and was declared dead at the scene by paramedics.

Wood fence posts should be set into the ground at least one-third of their length, but never less than 2 feet deep.

When times get tough, Dusan Jocic takes to the woods . . . with a chisel and file. During the recession of the mid-'70s, the aerospace electronics engineer found himself with a lot of time on his hands. While hiking with his wife, Coral, he started seeing animal shapes in the chunks of wood lying about, and for the last 19 years he's been slowly liberating those hidden shapes with his hand tools.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The way these first two days have played out, the Players Championship could just as easily have been contested about 90 minutes up the highway. Call it the Frederica Golf Club member-guest. All that seems to be missing are their fellow Sea Island denizens — and who knows how many might be heading down for the weekend anyway. "We have a great crew of guys up in Sea Island," said Matt Kuchar, whose four-under-par 68 Friday lifted him alongside neighbor Zach Johnson — and "ringer" Kevin Na — after two rounds at TPC Sawgrass.

Action film screenwriter Skip Woods has put himself where the action is in L.A. — the bustling Hollywood Hills West area — with the purchase of a hillside house for $2.004 million. The sleek contemporary, built in 1951 and extensively updated, features a dramatic two-story entry with a skylight and chandelier, high ceilings, walls of glass, a bar, a fireplace, four bedrooms and three bathrooms. A deck off the master suite has city views. A glass-walled deck over the driveway creates a carport.

Actor Jesse Metcalfe has sold his house in the Beverly Crest area for $2 million, according to the Multiple Listing Service. The Mediterranean main house and guesthouse have 2,500 square feet of living space, including four bedrooms and 31/2 bathrooms. Built in 1999, the house features stone fireplaces, plank wood floors and wood-beam ceilings. A stone hot tub sits on a hill above the home, which is surrounded by lawn and steppingstone pathways. A starburst pattern adorns the stone driveway.

Any discussion of Tar & Roses must begin, as your dinner probably will, with what is probably its simplest appetizer, a concoction of popcorn tossed with brown sugar, lardons and chile, like a bowl of Cracker Jack with chewy cubes of bacon instead of peanuts. (Why can't there be chewy cubes of bacon and peanuts? That is an excellent question.) The popcorn falls solidly into a genre new in Los Angeles cooking, something we may call an elevated bar snack, a staple of the many, many gastropubs that have come to dominate casual dining here over the last couple of years.

Nick Watney answered what he referred to as a wake-up call at the Wells Fargo Championship by taking the lead. Tiger Woods might need one after missing the cut. Watney had gone nine straight rounds on the PGA Tour without breaking 70 and had failed to crack the top 10 in all nine of his stroke-play tournaments this year. He worked hard to change that, and it paid off Friday with an eight-under 64 that gave him a one-shot lead over Webb Simpson going into the weekend at Charlotte, N.C. A two-time winner last year, Watney had failed to crack the top 30 in a full-field event this year, and missed the cut in New Orleans for his first weekend off at a tournament since July.

Some coaches don't like to have their teams undefeated headed into the big game of the year. Too much pressure. Some fighters are said to be so obsessed with the zero at the end of their record they are reluctant to take the super fight. Damaged legacy. And then there are horses, who really don't lounge around the stables whinnying about such things. So that leaves all the talk about Gemologist's undefeated record to his owners. "We were at the Wood [Memorial]

State health officials have shut down the Koppers Co. wood treatment plant in Oroville after tests showed that hazardous levels of toxins were released during an explosion there last week. Thirty-six parts per billion of total dioxin equivalents were found at the site, where 9,000 pounds of pentachloropenol, a wood preservative, burst into flames last Monday, said Dave Willis, deputy director of the state Department of Health Services.

American Canopy Trees, Forests and the Making of a Nation Eric Rutkow Scribner: 407 pp., $29 Every book has its quirks. In the case of the newly published history "American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation," the prevailing eccentricity is that it's not primarily about trees. The leitmotif of author Eric Rutkow is wood, chiefly how North American virgin forest gave rise to a new nation, and how the U.S. has reduced that resource from close to a billion acres of ancient woodland to what is now more like 750 million acres of often young trees.

ELDON, Iowa - Beth Howard sits at her kitchen table on a Sunday morning and pulls back the curtain to peer at a group of rosy-cheeked youths taking pictures on her front lawn. They pair off to stand side by side in the pose familiar to millions - the dour farmer with a pitchfork, the unsmiling woman beside him in front of the white house. No one notices the woman in flannel pajamas sitting inside. "People seldom know that people live here, much less that there's someone watching them from the other side of the curtain," says Howard, who rents the house made famous in Grant Wood's painting "American Gothic.

American Canopy Trees, Forests and the Making of a Nation Eric Rutkow Scribner: 407 pp., $29 Every book has its quirks. In the case of the newly published history "American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation," the prevailing eccentricity is that it's not primarily about trees. The leitmotif of author Eric Rutkow is wood, chiefly how North American virgin forest gave rise to a new nation, and how the U.S. has reduced that resource from close to a billion acres of ancient woodland to what is now more like 750 million acres of often young trees.