This NYT photo essay on wagashi is cracking me up -- elegant portraits of sweets with cats:

Sweets as Poignant as Poetry

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From Soshitsu Sen's Chado: The Japanese Way of Tea (1979):

The charcoal is arranged in a set pattern in the container. The long, white sticks are charcoal made from azalea branches and painted with gesso. The black charcoal is made from any of a variety of woods (20).

The artisan who crafts the scoops will usually give a specific poetic name to each, such as "Outgoing Boat," "Incoming Boat," "Spring Wind," "Firefly," "Demon's Arm," and so on (26).

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... when you see a New York Times piece about the fish market's imminent move ...

... and your first reaction is, "Oh, saints and gills, that's going to complicate what I might yet get around to writing."

And your second reaction is to swat away the hordes of plotbunnies suddenly swarming around your ankles with each new paragraph.

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