Remembering Lloyd Dykk's Wit, Generosity and Superb Prose

Someone I hope will write the definitive and exhaustive obituary on one of our city's greatest writers but it won't be me.

First, I can't really believe that Lloyd Dykk, the former Vancouver Sun and Georgia Straight music critic is dead. And second, I can't bring myself to recycle his life into the equivalent of a journalistic afterthought.

But he is gone. Lloyd died at age 67 after suffering a massive stroke, and of course will be wrapped in the shrouds of obligatory biographical factoids -- born and raised in Wishart, Saskatchewan, a National Newspaper Award winner (1994), friend to almost everyone (and an enemy to a few) in the Vancouver arts community, and you can throw in his wake many other laurels.

I can only say I knew Lloyd as a friend and as a writer's writer, someone who could pen a review with elegance and compassion, and when need be, employ a caustic wit and insight that could make one laugh out loud while searing the thickest of skins. But it was my friendship with him I valued most. When I began writing features at the Sun in the early '80s, Lloyd was one of the first and few to welcome me. In an environment chilled by puffed-up egos and stony editors, Lloyd's warm and unconditional acceptance was something I would never forget.

The night shift

With both of us working at the front lines of popular culture wars, we formed a bond. We commiserated over the dog assignments -- Ice Capades, cheesy Vegas has-beens, Elvis impersonators, interminable one-man-plays and any of the long parade of phantasmagorical kitsch that would require one of us to pen an overnight review in the paper. We conjured a black humour around the business that kept us sane -- or at least, laughing through clenched teeth.

And Lloyd was always first in line to compliment me (and others) on a piece. The guy exuded compassion.

I admired Lloyd and without realizing it had made him a secret mentor.

He seemed to write beautifully and effortlessly. He was gentle and unwaveringly nice in person (to everyone) but in print donned his alter-ego, a fair but ruthless critic of theatre, art and music whose words could praise effusively but also bury with a merciless turn of phrase that was like the lethal twist of a shiv.

This from a recent piece on Lululemon email marketing still up on my blog (and this is a mild example):

"You never know what the day will hold, especially when you try to discard it immediately into the garbage function, as I tried to do with a missive from Lululemon, you know, that bunch of creepily militant clothing shills who, in a colossal leap of credibility, have stooped to advocating Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to push their wares.

"Today I got a fulsome and definitely stupid promotion from Lululemon, saying that I could get into it for nothing, being from the media and everything. Apparently everybody else would have to pay? I fired back, 'This is a joke, right?' Within minutes I got this response from some petty functionary called Kristen or something, though her job description claimed a position far loftier than white trash gofer idiot. She said (note the sarcastic use of lower-case), 'excuse me?' My response was, 'It was a polite way of saying fuck off.'"

Refined taste, wicked humour

I admired Lloyd for a lot of reasons. He knew the complexities of classical music but his ears were tuned mostly to its emotional expression. He knew several languages. He could polish off the New York Times crossword puzzle in minutes (he once interviewed the NYT crossword creator Will Shortz). And he was a hell of a cook. Mostly, though, I liked Lloyd for his wicked sense of humor, which was often macabre, mischievous and got him into trouble more than once through a misdirected email.

As much as I knew Lloyd, there was much I didn't know. And the trouble with obits is that an obit omits -- for reasons of discretion but more from the blind spots that are inevitable with even our closest friends.

But I do know this about Lloyd Dykk: like so many who are sensitive and who refuse to speak or write from voices other than their own, Lloyd spoke from his heart. It was a heart that sadly would become broken -- by media philistines who could never appreciate his talent, but likely also from secret traumas that shadowed him from childhood.

I'll risk saying he was Vancouver's greatest writer. But I'll miss him more for simply who he was.