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"fragile candy, soft and hard shell, capturing its affect in an art lozenge. Swallowable. .... affect is captured, the feeling, packaged."
It's a personal bias - associating sumi with chintzy prettiness, a touristic souvenir art. "takeaway objects of little import but hold significance. ...tchotchkes are transactional objects made for the transference of the buyer's desire. The souvenir acts as a placeholder for tourist's urge.. likely some vestigial expression of our sexual selection's wiring, which is why so many of them are cute. "