Catherine’s Reviews > A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance > Status Update

“It is perhaps a fool’s errand to ask Beyonce to accent your show if you want it to remain your show.”

“When I am not from a place, I am often a dead giveaway. I take pictures of everything. I read local newspapers with a look of delighted confusion on my face. I sometimes forget to turn off Google Maps, meaning that my phone sporadically offers a loud burst of driving directions from my pocket.”

“How I would wait on Napster while download progress on his albums ticked off about one percent every thirty minutes.”

“A people cannot only see themselves suffering, lest they believe themselves only worthy of pain, or only celebrated when that pain is overcome. Cornelius had a vision for Black people that was about movement on their own time, for their own purpose, and not in response to what a country might do for, or to, them.”