Obituary: Writer and musician Dane Lanken had 'a thoughts filled with surprise'

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Speaking about Dane Lanken, his family and friends preserve coming again to the concept he had an unusually open and inquisitive thoughts.

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“He at all times had fascinating issues to say,” mentioned Peter Lanken, Dane’s older brother. “He and I may speak for a very long time, nearly historic stuff, geographical stuff. He had an exquisite thoughts, a thoughts filled with surprise.”

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Dane Lanken died at Hospice Cornwall in Ontario on March 3 after a battle with bladder most cancers. He was 77.

Lanken was a seasoned journalist who was an leisure characteristic author on the Montreal Gazette from 1967 to 1977, masking artists like Janis Joplin, Robert Charlebois and Jimi Hendrix. Later, he spent a few years writing and dealing as a contributing editor at Canadian Geographic journal, penning options on a wide selection of subjects, together with Canada’s Far North, poison ivy and monarch butterflies.

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He wrote two books. The primary, printed in 1993, was Montreal Film Palaces: Nice Theatres of the Golden Period — 1884-1938. In 2007, he printed Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Songs and Tales.

Lanken was married to Anna McGarrigle and so they had been collectively because the mid-Nineteen Sixties. He was additionally a musician and singer, and a longtime member of the mythic Montreal people group the Mountain Metropolis 4, which featured Kate and Anna McGarrigle in its early days. He additionally usually toured and carried out with the McGarrigles.

His final public efficiency was with the Mountain Metropolis 4 final September at Ursa, the intimate Mile Finish venue run by his niece Martha Wainwright. Wainwright additionally carried out that night time, as did Anna McGarrigle. The present was the launch celebration for the primary official album from the Mountain Metropolis 4 — a collection of archival recordings. Lanken sang on Log Driver’s Waltz, which was featured in a famend 1979 Nationwide Movie Board of Canada animated in need of the identical identify, directed by John Weldon. Kate and Anna McGarrigle additionally sang on the tune.

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Weldon and Lanken grew to become buddies in kindergarten at Elizabeth Ballantyne Faculty in Montreal West and remained shut for over 70 years. Lanken was raised in close by Côte-St-Luc on the flower farm of his Danish-born dad and mom, Uffe and Gudda Lanken.

“He was very humorous, had an amazing sense of humour, was fun-loving,” mentioned Weldon, describing his longtime buddy.

Michael Nerenberg, one other outdated buddy, met Lanken at McGill College in 1962. They have been each a part of the small however dynamic downtown people scene on the time.

“He was endlessly curious, in real awe of the workings of life, and guided by his want to know as a lot of it as he may,” mentioned Nerenberg. “He additionally had an amazing reward of having the ability to make his factors with out alienating anybody.”

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Lanken purchased a farmhouse and land close to Alexandria, Ont., in 1982, and that’s the place he and Anna McGarrigle spent the previous 4 a long time, elevating their two kids, Lily and Sylvan Lanken. He was very within the historical past of the realm and served as president of the Glengarry Historic Society for eight years. He sat on quite a few committees set as much as protect native historic properties.

“Dane modified over time,” mentioned Anna. “When he grew to become a father, he grew to become a strict father, sort of like his father. However earlier than that, Dane was one of many craziest, most enjoyable folks, and in addition as annoying as hell. He was simply so filled with vitality. He’d keep up actually late, and that’s when he did most of his work. He was simply very into every little thing. He was simply somebody who was thinking about 1,000,000 issues.

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“He was so bodily, too. If he walked onto any person’s garden, he would do a flip or a cartwheel or one thing. He was at all times in movement. I didn’t know anybody else like that.”

She reminisced in regards to the time within the mid-’60s that they hitchhiked throughout the nation and ended up in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, floor zero of the hippie motion.

Playwright and writer David Sherman first met Lanken after a efficiency of Sherman’s play in regards to the newspaper enterprise, The Each day Miracle. Lanken launched himself and mentioned he cherished the play. In a humorous twist, Sherman had taken over Lanken’s job as leisure reporter on the Gazette when Lanken left the newspaper in 1977.

Years after the play, they started having month-to-month lunches at a Chinese language restaurant in Hawkesbury, Ont., which was equidistant from their houses.

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“Dane was a man who had no ego. He by no means talked about himself very a lot,” Sherman mentioned. “I don’t know what we talked about, however we simply did. He had an amazing sense of humour. He by no means laughed at his personal jokes. He had an actual dry wit. He had a nasty limp that he simply took in stride. He led a really quiet, introspective life. I admired him. He appeared to have an amazing sense of Zen, even when he was sick. He by no means complained.”

There can be a celebration of Lanken’s life later within the spring.

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