Swing Time

by Zadie Smith

Her theory was that a star has New York and LA in their pocket, a star can take Paris and London and Tokyo—but only a superstar takes Cleveland and Hyderabad and Bendigo. A superstar takes everybody everywhere.

Beats so fast, so complex, that you had to think about them—or see them expressed through the body of a dancer—to understand what you were hearing. Otherwise you might mistake it for one rumbling bass note. You might think it was the sound of thunder overhead.

she was not a domestic person: her life was in her mind.

She measured time in pages.

But like a lot of people whose vocation it is to change the world he proved to be, in person, outrageously petty.