Sounds like a trick question, but what do the Duchess of Windsor and Paris Hilton have in common?  D. Porthault’s heart-dappled Coeurs bed linens.  “Paris had the classic pink version when she was a child, and I had the Étoiles pattern of blue stars,” says fashion and accessories designer Nicky Rothschild, Hilton’s sister.  She selected the same rosy print—a 1950s commission for the Baltimore divorcée who romanced English king Edward VIII and later added to Porthault’s line—to brighten daughter Lily’s nursery, right down to the custom-made crib bumper.  “We even have matching heart robes,” Rothschild continues, “and Lily has enough Porthault dresses in the closet to last until she’s six.”  Mitchell Owens  See pictures at https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/the-legacy-of-d-porthault 

Dialectic or dialectics, also known as the dialectical method, is at base a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned methods of argumentation.  Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and the modern pejorative sense of rhetoric.   Dialectic may thus be contrasted with both the eristic, which refers to argument that aims to successfully dispute another's argument (rather than searching for truth), or the didactic method, wherein one side of the conversation teaches the other.  Dialectic is alternatively known as minor logic, as opposed to major logic or critique.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic 

WORDPLAY  Your command is my wish.  The tunnel at the end of the light.  Imitation optimist.  Solution in search of a problem.  Thistmus (holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas).  You must be Cain because you sure aren’t able. (from Young Sheldon TV show). 

Behind the neo-gothic facade of the Day & Meyer, Murray & Young building is a system of steel vaults once used by New York’s social elite.  Day & Meyer’s client list goes way back to the Jazz Age, with names like Vanderbilt, Guggenheim, William Randolph Hearst, and, more recently, Whoopi Goldberg keeping items in its “storied” halls.  Numerous celebrated impressionist works of art from public and private collections around the city have been inside the vaults of the “Day & Meyer” building on the behalf of famous art dealer Joseph Duveen and Georges Wildenstein.  Other notable valuables include writer Norman Mailer’s archive, among other things.   https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/day-meyer-murray-young 

Inside the 1928 Storage Facility Where the Rich and Famous Still Keep Their Stuff by Diane Pham   Called the Day & Meyer, Murray & Young Warehouse, this beautiful piece of architecture was designed by Moores & Dunford, a top design firm from a bygone era.  The structure was built to include a system of tracks and freight elevators that would allow workers to move the facility’s one-ton storage vaults, called Portovaults, with ease.  According to a piece published in Times back in 2011, “The innovation [at the time] was that it could be delivered to the door of a client on the firm’s armored Diamond T truck, loaded, locked and then returned to the warehouse.”  They add that “Inspection was also engineered to be a pleasant experience.  Clients could wait in that handsome lobby while their Portovault unit was taken down to a heated room in the basement.  There, they could rummage through their things in comfort. ‘No hunting around in a cold warehouse,’ an ad promised.”  See pictures at https://www.6sqft.com/inside-the-1928-storage-facility-where-the-rich-and-famous-still-keep-their-stuff/ 

From the outside, the three Ways House Hotel looks like a typical bed and breakfast in Britain’s Cotswolds region.  Made out of the local golden stone and engulfed in ivy, it was built in the late 19th century as a doctor’s house.  Nothing about its distinguished exterior hints at the pudding extravaganza that happens here every Friday night.  The Three Ways House is home to the Pudding Club, an institution with a self-proclaimed mission of preserving the “great British pudding.”  Since 1985, dozens of dessert-lovers from around the world gather weekly to gorge on a feast of traditional British sweets, presented with pomp by the hotel’s resident Pudding Master.  On one night, the event began with 60 people piled into the lounge, clutching glasses of mimosa-like buck’s fizz.  A blackboard displayed the order of service:  one necessarily light main course, followed by seven different puddings.  Pudding is a word with many definitions.  In North America, pudding refers to a thick, smooth, custard-like dessert.  But in Britain, a pudding is a dish traditionally made with suet, or hardened animal fat, along with flour and fruit for sweetness.  Then, it’s steamed for several hours.  This type of pudding can be sweet or savory, and thanks to their inexpensiveness and simplicity, they’ve been a British favorite for centuries.  But the word can also apply to dessert in general, and there’s more than steamed pudding on the menu at the Pudding Club.  The Cotswolds area is known for eccentric activities, such as Morris dancing and the perilous custom of cheese-rolling.  The Pudding Club fits right in.  But its origins are relatively recent.  In 1985, fed up with the sad dessert trolleys so common in hotel restaurants at the time, the then-owners of Three Ways House eschewed the typical black forest cake and fruit salads.  Instead, they got a group of friends together to eat inordinate amounts of pudding.  These Friday night feasts became tradition, and so the Club was born.  Lottie Gross  See pictures at https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/british-pudding 

Gearing up for its 17th edition, Animal Planet will air Puppy Bowl XVII (also premiering on Discovery+) during which 70 adorable (and adoptable!) puppies from 22 different shelters will compete on Team Ruff or Team Fluff, in hopes of hoisting the "Lombarky" trophy.  During the epic three hour face-off, rescue pups will chase, drag, and tug doggie toys around a miniature football field into the end zone.  Puppy Bowl XVII will air February 7th at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT, ahead of Super Bowl LV between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs, which kicks off at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT on CBS. 

As an added bonus, viewers can tune into the hour-long Puppy Bowl XVII Pre-Game Show at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) with correspondents Rodt Weiler, James Hound, and Sheena Inu offering pup insights and casting predictions of which team will take home the Lombarky Trophy.  The fur-ocious battle will air live on Animal Planet, and is also available to stream on Discovery+ for subscribers of the streaming service.  Isabelle Kagan  https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewedcom/2021/02/02/how-watch-2021-puppy-bowl-discovery/4352422001/ 

Celebrate the Super Bowl with food.  The Original Cuban Sandwich
Columbia Restaurant Recipe:  A Tampa treasure!  The “Mixto,” as it was known in the beginning, was created in the 1890s for the cigar workers as they walked to and from work.  The sandwiches underwent changes as immigrants from different countries came to Ybor City.  See recipe at https://www.columbiarestaurant.com/The-Columbia-Experience/Recipes/Cuban-Sandwich 

The Kumquat Festival is an annual celebration held in late January in Dade City, Florida focused on the kumquat, a small tart citrus fruit usually eaten whole, with the skin on, and used in marmalades and desserts.  Nearby St. Joseph, Florida is known as the kumquat capital of the world, according to Kumquat Festival brochures.  2021 sees this festival move to March.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumquat_Festival  Kumquat desserts are celebrated in the Tampa area where they grow particularly well. 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2322  February 5, 2021