Stepping into infinity
The magic of creation, plus my weekly shareables: Eels, puffins, and my new musical obsession
A quick note to begin: I’ve closed entries into the DOGLAND research book giveaway. If you’re getting a book, I will email you in the next few days to let you know it’s on the way, and I hope to get all the books in the mail next week. If you entered but didn’t get a book this time, I’ll put you on the priority list for the next giveaway. It was a joy to hear from so many of you and I’ll definitely be doing something similar again.
Also, please keep sending questions for my upcoming Ask Me Anything for paid subscribers … just email me at tomlinsonwrites@gmail.com with “Dogland Q&A” in the subject line.
Now then: a little something about a snippet of conversation I can’t stop thinking about.
A few weeks ago I interviewed the author James Lee Burke for an episode of SouthBound. He’s one of the best, best-selling, and most prolific mystery authors of our lifetime—45 books in all, including 24 in the brilliant Dave Robicheaux series. Burke is 87 now. It’s a time when you might naturally think about endings. So I asked him if he had thought about when and how the Robicheaux series might end. Which was a way, of course, of asking when Burke himself might hang it up.
His first answer was simple: He’s not stopping.
But then he expanded on that a little. And this is the part I can’t stop thinking about.
This is what I believe, and it’s metaphysical … the only activity that we do in the same way that God does is creation. That’s it. It’s like a baptismal font. Once you do that, you step into infinity.
I’d never thought of it quite that way before.
Every morning I stare at a blank page. By the end of the day there are words on that page. Whatever is there didn’t exist before I wrote it. It is a new creation in this world.
It’s the same for a guitarist who finds a new riff, a sculptor who puts her imprint in the clay, a comedian who comes up with a brand-new bit. A creator says let there be light, and there is light.
It’s powerful and addictive.
This is one of the reasons so many of us do the work, even in those times when it doesn’t pay and we’re exhausted and every cell of common sense demands we do something else. Creativity is a magic box with no bottom. It never has to end.
It also never has to die. When I left the Charlotte Observer 12 years ago, I gave a little farewell speech. I mentioned the massive library of clip files the paper used to keep in the back of the newsroom—in journalism lingo, it was called the “morgue.” But I never thought of it that way. Just the opposite. All those clips, all those stories, and all the people who wrote and photographed and edited them: They’re immortal. They live forever, if not on paper, or even in pixels, but in memory.
I don’t know how much time James Lee Burke, the human being, has left. But James Lee Burke, the author, the creator, will never die, as long as someone else is still alive to read one of his books. When we create something, no matter how humble, we punch our ticket to infinity. Which is another thing we have in common with God.
10 things I wanted to share this week:
My latest SouthBound episode is with bestselling author Kristy Woodson Harvey, whose new book A HAPPIER LIFE just came out. We talk about storytelling, inspiration, and the Elvis-shaped squash that launched her career.
My latest for WFAE was about a politically connected charter school that apparently skipped ethics class.
RIP the Longform Podcast, an incredible resource for journalists and storytellers everywhere. Listening to the archive is like a free MFA. I was honored to be a guest back in 2019 to talk about THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM and some of my other work. (NYT)
I loved my friend Paige Williams’ piece on the incredibly lucrative world of glass-eel fishing in Maine, where the right haul at the right time can make a fisherman a millionaire. (New Yorker)
Highest recommendation for Sam Anderson’s podcast ANIMAL … I’m still laughing (and a little teary-eyed) at the episode where he goes to Iceland to save baby puffins, which somehow gets tied in with an Icelandic death-metal band. (NYT)
Eli Saslow, the best reporter in America, tells the story of how Trump conspiracy theories entangle even a Republican election clerk in a tiny Nevada town. (NYT)
Our latest TV binge: BALLYKISSANGEL, an Irish series from the ‘90s about a British priest who comes to a small town loaded with quirky characters. Definite NORTHERN EXPOSURE vibes. (Britbox)
R.E.M. has meant so much to me over the years that it was especially nice to see them together again for a CBS interview ahead of their induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, where they played as a foursome for the first time in almost 30 years. I’ve always thought that one of the best things about them was that, no matter who wrote one of their songs, they split the song credit (and the royalties) equally. All for one and one for all.
Nick Hornby has a newsletter, and that lands in my wheelhouse almost as much as R.E.M. does.
An incredible find from Nick’s newsletter: Monica Martin’s “Go Easy, Kid,” which I somehow missed when it came out but am now totally obsessed with. It sounds like the showstopper from some great unwritten Broadway musical. People are going to be listening to this a hundred years from now. It’s that good. There are many versions on YouTube, including the original track and one with a chamber-music ensemble, but my favorite is this duet with James Blake:
Chills.
Have a great week, everybody.
Oh my goodness, I love that song! I have never heard her before. Thank you.
Your conversation with James Lee Burke was inspiring and uplifting.