Ours was a private friendship and I can't think that his family members would have known to contact me. I learned of his passing by reading a news item that at a recent Canadian Press Gallery dinner, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May donated $1000 to win an auction item; dinner with NDP Leader Jack Layton, who she has repeatedly claimed has been rebuffing her attempts to meet. While May's publicity stunt was mildly interesting, it was something else in the story that leapt out and grabbed my heart like an icy hand. The auction in question was to raise funds for the Dennis Bueckert Memorial Scholarship in Environmental Journalism. It was upon reading the word "Memorial" that I learned for the first time that Dennis was gone.
I first encountered Dennis several years ago after he published a piece on the inner workings of the Green Party of Canada. Subsequent to the publication of the article, he was targeted with legal threats by the Green Party for this very piece, and was asked to publish a retraction. He asked me for help in confirming his published facts, which were easily verifiable with sources I forwarded to him. Not surprisingly, Dennis emerged as an ally in the fight by many for free political speech on the Internet in Canada, free of the threat of libel chill. He and I kept in touch from that point forward, over Canadian developments over that issue, and over issues of transparency and internal democracy in the Green Party when they were in peril.
We kept in touch regularly, and our telephone conversations and emails had a certain personal intimacy from the outset, as you will see. Not only was Dennis the only journalist that I absolutely trusted in terms of our shared values, he was a writer with immense talent and prosaic colour; Dennis Bueckert was, in fact, an artist.
Here, from our private correspondence, are some nuggets of his extraordinary talent; I have absolutely no doubt that Dennis would want me to share them. So please enjoy.
From: Bueckert, Dennis
To: me
Date: Dec 29, 2005 11:32 PM
Subject:
I will remember these precious moments in etherspace spent with likeminded strangers as if they were carved in cement. The moments, not the strangers. I always regret everything I say, the regret makes tail-endings fade gradually like the blur tool in CorelDraw! But then after I've finished regretting it I accept my fate as having said it and hope for some rebound. Surprisingly the paintings of sadness can be quite bright. The icy ravings of depression can take on a warm colour when properly permutated to the next veneer. No colour is rich if it doesn't have a thousand layers. Crazy? Certifiable. Unhappy? Absolutely. Crushed? Not quite. No more than your average human load of gravel. I crave to be walked on, like a pathway to some oasis, where seven-grain prairie dogs will feast on rampant delusions of purple prose.
To: Bueckert, Dennis
From: me
Date: Dec 29, 2005 11:50 PM
Subject:
Wow. So, you can write, eh? I bet you say that to all your sources ;)
To: me
Date: Dec 30, 2005 11:02 AM
Subject:
Glad you didn't take offence. I was feeling verbose, full of words as wilful as living critters, I imagine them as miniature pirranhas, meaner than mustard. This happens when I'm on holidays sometimes. I have this week off, what luxury. But do keep me apprised of anything that might lead to new developments in this fascinating story. Good line -- "I bet you say this to all your sources." I haven't felt so talkative in years.
Dennis, I know that you had been depressed for several years. I achingly wish that that I had reached out to you more recently, and kept you talking; and I sorely feel the loss of you on this mortal plane. I trust you are now at your oasis, content among the seven-grain prairie dogs.
