Lunch

• WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Following is a statement from Emily Wilkins, president of the National Press Club and Gil Klein, president of the National Press Club Journalism Institute on the two-year anniversary of the detention of journalist Yuyu Dong by China.
• "Two years ago today, the day after the Winter Olympics ended in Beijing, journalist Yuyu Dong was arrested while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat in a public restaurant.
• Yuyu is well known in the U.S. where he was a Nieman fellow at Harvard and in Japan where he held fellowships and teaching positions.
• If there is evidence against Mr. Dong it should be presented in court, which would lead to a verdict.

• BOLINGBROOK, Ill., Feb. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ATI Physical Therapy ("ATI" or the "Company") (NYSE: ATIP), a nationally recognized outpatient physical therapy provider in the United States, proudly announces the relocation of its Kirkland, Wash. clinic to a new state-of the-art facility on 97th Lane in Kirkland.
• This move signifies ATI's commitment to delivering exceptional physical therapy services while catering to the needs of the Greater Kirkland and neighboring areas.
• In collaboration with The Greater Kirkland Chamber of Commerce, ATI Physical Therapy will mark the occasion with a grand reopening event and ribbon-cutting ceremony at ATI Kirkland – 97th Lane on Thursday, Feb. 22, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., featuring the ribbon-cutting at 12 p.m.
  Building upon ATI's mission to exceed patient expectations by providing the highest quality of care in a friendly and encouraging environment, the larger facility reflects ATI's commitment to community well-being by improving access to comprehensive physical therapy services.
• "This new facility in Washington is a testament to our commitment to improving lives and ensuring convenient access to our facilities and services," said Angela Aijian, Regional Vice President for ATI Physical Therapy.

• In 2023, HR technology provider BrightHR had some particularly interesting expenses submitted using their software utilised by 100,000 businesses worldwide and more than 1.3 million employees.
• Some of which have left us scratching our heads, stifling our laughter, and marvelling at the gall of some employees out there.
• Going the extra mile: One expense recorded a whopping mileage claim of 132,640 miles, equating to £51.12 billion.
• And it’s little wonder why, as recent findings suggest that businesses are losing over £2bn in employee expense fraud.

• In November 1975, Truman Capote, the proudly gay author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood, unveiled the hotly anticipated second instalment of his unpublished novel, Answered Prayers.
• Capote ended his days a social pariah in his former New York society circles, incapacitated by a lifetime of prodigious substance abuse.
• The story to blame, La Côte Basque, 1965, takes its title from its setting: an achingly fashionable French restaurant in Manhattan.
• However, Mrs. Hopkins was une autre chose: a sensation to unsettle the suavest Côte Basque client.
• Mrs. Kennedy and her sister had elicited not a murmur, nor had the entrances of Lauren Bacall and Katharine Cornell and Clare Booth Luce.
• However, Mrs. Hopkins was une autre chose: a sensation to unsettle the suavest Côte Basque client.

The real-life ‘Mrs. Bang-Bang’

• There was talk of the spate of burglaries that had recently occurred in the area.
• Ann, who suffered from insecurity and social anxiety, drank more than usual.
• Returning home with her husband, she washed down some sleeping pills and went to bed, not long after midnight.
• At two in the morning, Ann was woken by the sound of her dog growling.

‘What I’m writing is true’

• Regardless of whether he truly appreciated this, it seems fair to say Capote’s encounter with Ann Woodward made quite the impression on him.
• Capote’s conception of Answered Prayers, which he struggled with and talked about for decades, developed over time.
• In his monumental novel-cycle Remembrance of Things Past, Proust scrutinised the social machinations of the Parisian upper classes at the turn of the 20th century.
• Capote conceived of his project – which took shape as a roman à clef – in equivalent terms.
• What I’m writing is true, it’s real and it’s done in the very best prose style that I think any American writer could possibly achieve.
• […] If Proust were an American living now in New York, this is what he would be doing.
• What I’m writing is true, it’s real and it’s done in the very best prose style that I think any American writer could possibly achieve.
• as is generally conceded, a beautiful girl of twelve or twenty, while she may merit attention, does not deserve admiration.

Masturbation, misogyny, murder

• At the start of January 1966, Capote signed a contract with Random House for a novel titled Answered Prayers.
• However, by the time he actually sat down to write the book, he was already under a great deal of pressure.
• Masturbation, menstruation, misogyny, murder.
• Readers who thought they were getting a finely wrought piece of social critique were left scratching their heads in bemusement.
• Read more:
  In Killers of the Flower Moon, true crime reveals the paradoxes of the past

Was the book any good?

With the benefit of hindsight, I think the overwhelming majority missed the memo when it came to Answered Prayers.

• By the same token, it is clear Answered Prayers responds to (and even builds on) advances made in his earlier work.
• Gossip can serve a positive, even joyous function: it is a “social activity which produces and maintains the filiations” of community.
• To put this another way: if used in a strategic and appropriate fashion, gossip can bring people together.
• It can help to build and sustain social groupings predicated on the basis of shared knowledge (of sexual matters).
• Consider Unspoiled Monsters, the first chapter in the posthumously published book.
• If he had been absolutely factual, it would have been less believable but […] it might have been better.

Settling scores

• In part, he was looking to settle scores.
• Try as he might, Capote, who claimed his intentions had been misunderstood, couldn’t win the swans back over.
• As chance, or maybe fate would have it, he died at exactly the same age as Ann Woodward.
• Given how much they despised each other, I can’t help but wonder what Capote and Woodward would have made of such dismal symmetries.

Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.