Hi, I'm Hiroshi Nakamura.

I grew up in Kyoto, where buying something meant buying it once. My father owned three pens in his life. He knew exactly why he owned each one.

I moved to San Francisco in 1998. I spent twenty years as an industrial designer — thinking about what makes an object worth making, and what makes it worth keeping. Now I'm semi-retired, and I spend that time the same way I always have: looking closely at things.

On this channel I talk about the objects I actually own and use — fountain pens, watches, notebooks, leather goods, knives, and the occasional thing I decided not to buy and why. Everything I review I have lived with for months or years. I don't cover products I haven't used. I don't accept sponsorships.

The Japanese tradition I grew up around didn't separate tools from values. How you chose something said something about how you thought. That's still true. And that's what this channel is about.

New video every week.