Somewhere down in my miles deep Denim rabbit hole I stumbled upon some youtube videos by a guy named Mike. His channel is The Iron Snail. He’s a bit of a caricature, but one that I have more in common with than I don’t. 

He talks about denim and boots and all kinds of pretentious hipster consumerist wanna-be-authentic bullshit, and he tries to sell it to you. Everything has affiliate links and blah blah blah fuck you Mike. Just because they’re all things I know a lot about and like doesn’t make his presentation, howeer elegant it is, is any less capitalist and gross. You are not immune to propaganda or advertising, and his is an insidious sort. Fuck off, Mike. You weird scab. 

One thing I did like about his presentation is that in a few of his earlier videos, instead of sitting in a studio talking about how you’d be more cool and girls might like you more if you had a heavier pair of Japanese denim jeans, he walks around a forest telling you about why girls might like you more if you had a more expensive pair of Japanese jeans. 

It felt like walking around a park with a friend. Had his presentation and goals been a little less transparently profit-driven, I might’ve liked it more.

It got me thinking about my own aspirations of content creation. I don’t want to do it to advertise junk, and while it’d be nice to make some money I can’t really imagine that happening, so I’m not going to think about it. This is content I want to make because I want to make it. 

I find it funny that the only things he’s passionate enough about to share on the internet are things you can buy on the internet.

Granted, Ebay makes it pretty easy to pick up damn near anything, but still, the things I like the most are one-of-a-kind with great big backstories of strangeness and intimacy behind them. So it got me thinking, might that be an interesting channel? Might those be stories worth sharing? 

I could choose a thing from my shelf or my cabinet or my bed side and I could talk about. Most of these things I could talk about for hours and hours. From their personal history with me, to their history in, well, history. 

Here is a list of 100 objects I could talk about for an hour each:

1. The Inari shrine fox sculpture I stole from Kyoto Japan.
   
2. The calligraphy box I bought from an antique shop called “l'enfer vert.”
3. My coffee cup from Romulus Craft.
4. The hand-painted mason jars full of ultra-hot salsa from Lame Side Of The Road Farm in the Northeast Kingdom.
5. The notebook Paul had custom made in Spain.
6. My pile of love letters.
7. The pipe I commissioned from a craftsperson in Italy for my thirty first birthday
8. The Irish hip flask engraved with a “From A” I bought for my thirtieth birthday.
9. My Hasselblad 500c.
10. My Leica M3.
11. My Fujifilm 645zi.
12. The chore coat I bought in a Japanese run Americana vintage shop in DUMBO and have spent approximately 300 hours repairing by hand. 
13. The tooled leather belt Colin made me.
14. The other tooled leather belt Colin made me.
15. The green task lamp I got at Barge Canal and didn’t install for 6 years.
16. My pair of Overalls.
17. My red toolbox.
18. My sig p229.
19. My Chiappa Rhino 20ds.
20. My sandals from Champlain Leather.
21. My Romulus Channel bowl.
22. My Romulus ramen bowl.
23. My Romulus water mug.
24. My broken Romulus water mug.
25. My broken Romulus coffee cup.
26. My favorite pair of chopsticks.
27. The little textile handkerchief I found on a park bench in Japan.
28. My Grandfather’s Mary shrine.
29. My spanish charm cross.
30. My ebony cross.
31. My walnut cross.
32. The weird bendy piece of marble I stole from the sculpture department of the Maryland Institute College of Art.
33. My diana camera.
34. My camera strap.
35. My ACRNM bag, unless I sell it. 
36. My Hermes 2000 typewriter (the same one Gibson used to write Neuromancer)
37. My box of letters.
38. My Romulus Teapot.
39. My Queen City Drygoods wallet that I’ve had since highschool.
40. My Queen City Drygoods sketchbook cover I’ve had since highschool
41. My 45RPM indigo hoodie I’ve had since highschool.
42. My copper Ystudio fountain pen.
43. My blacking’d Ystudio fountain pen.
44. The ivory and ebony obelisk necklaces I made over a decade ago.
45. My 1940s rolex watch that Paul gave me. 
46. The old beat-down carhartt jacket I’m repairing but not done repairing. 
47. My old pair of round spectacles that my dad wore before I was bron that I’ve replaced with rose-colored lenses. 
48. The cinzano ash tray from my mothers collection.
49. My tooled dogleash
50. My length of Shaker tape.
51. The greenwood chair I made in Tennesse after breaking up with my girlfriend. 
52. The white oak Morris chair I built in college. 
53. The cherry end table I built in college.
54. The cherry round-table I built in college and gave to my grandfather and then was given back when he passed away that now holds books in my bedroom. 
55. The wall cabinet I made in college that’s now a liquer cabinet. 
56. The bench and table I built in my living room last winter. 
57. The firewood shed I built this past fall before Roby was born. 
58. The knife David Roby carried across the country when he was a teenager then gave me. 
59. The knife Davic Roby bought in France and carried around for years then gave me when his birthday gift for my 16th birthday didn’t work.
60. The Navajo puzzle box David Roby gave me for my sixteenth Birthday which broke so he gave me his French switchblade
61. The photograph of Colin Bennet that David Roby took some time in the 80s to advertise his leather shop. 
62. The photograph David Roby took of his friend kissing a famous photographer who later died of a heroin overdose. 
63. The membership coin David Roby Gave me for my 31st birthday.
64. The secret stash bolt David Roby gave me for a birthday I can’t remember but he said he could have attended my parents wedding if he had one because you can get heroin across the border in something like that. 
65. The blueprint of 47 maple street I have hanging on my wall.
66. The Imperial Japanese flag I have hanging on my wall.
67. The pre civil-war tapestry I have hanging on my wall that was the first piece of art Abby and I bought as a couple, we thought it was really really expensive, it was $200 and it had been our favorite piece of art for a decade. 
68. My blacking’d mechanical pencil from Ystudio.
69. My large brass mechanical pencil that holds weirdly large lead.
70. The little box my father drew a funny face on.
71. The pirate box I made with my father and still remember from Montreal.
72. The piece of elephant Ivory Colin gave me. 
73. The piece of wood carved to look like a piece of cheese dipped in wax that I stole from shelburne farms.
74. The fancy kettle that can’t be used on the stove that I thought was very beautiful but is useless that they sold at Maglianero café.
75. The eccentric lathe turned Mary I carved in College.
76. The cross I made out of Australian cyprus in college. 
77. The octagonal table I made out of walnut and holly wood in college that Abby uses as her Shrine now.
78. The cue ball David Roby stole from a bar some place I don’t remember.
79. The small black salt cellar from Romulus that I used as a ring box to propose to Abby. 
80. The Ottoman I had upholstered with fabric woven by the woman who used to live in the house I grew up in. 
81. The big piece of quartz Jack and I dragged out of the wood last summer. 
82. The big A-frame Jack and I used to drag that piece of quartz out of the woods last summer. 
83. The Dante knock-off pitcher that Rich gave me after I left AO glass for good. 
84. One of the Glassybaby cups I made while at Glassybaby, I’d have to borrow one because while I made like 10,000 during my tenure I kept none. 
85. The two maple stools I made while I worked with François Chambard.
86. The brass smoothing plane I pined after for years and finally got when I moved to Plainfield.
87. The pile of 4/4 cherry hardwood I bought for $1,700 when I moved to plainfield (it’s worth like $20,000 at least, or it was before I started digging into it.)
88. The piece of Lignum Vitae hardwood I kept, I gave the other one to Jack as a wedding present. 
89. The piece of Ebony hardwood I bought in Annapolis Maryland, they sold it by the pound. 
90. My Lee Nielson wood chisels.
91. My Lee Nielson spoke shave.
92. My muck boots.
93. the little gold cross my mom was baptized in that I wear every day.
94. The cornicello necklace I wore for a while.
95. The big brass pencil sharpener, the same type of one that I turned into a ring on a lathe for Will Homer.
96. The Romulus cup painted with flowers in green and red that I had to convince Jeanne to sell me. 
97. The big heavy Romulus mug, the first thing I ever bought from them in highschool.
98. The silver ring Abby commissioned Jacob Albe to make for me. 
99. The Gold ring I commissioned Jacob Albe to make for Abby.
100. My special fork that used to be my mom’s special fork.

...I can keep going...

101. The cane I made when I had gout that one time.