Anyone who's read Larry Lessig's books, including the most recent and my favorite, Free Culture, has probably already read the New York article by John Heilemann, called The Choirboy, about Lessig's personal history of abuse, and his quiet (until now, I guess) fight for justice for others at the Boychoir School. And again, in typical Lessig fashion, not just for a single individual, but to fight against an idiotic law that could protect institutions from crimes as heinous as years of institutional sexual abuse.

I decided to visit his blog, to follow up on the aftermath of the article. Another posting there, however, caught my eye "support hyperion":

Hyperion was sued by Dr. Lionel Sawkins, who had created a performance edition of four works by Lalande. The British court has now concluded that a performance edition, even one that does not claim to be an "arrangement," is copyrighted. Apparently, the "sweat of the brow" in producing the performance edition was enough to create an "original" work.

It's amazing to me that here I sit, in 2005, writing an entry praising "my favorite lawyer" (or technically, law professor), while I also write about how much, as a "still-embedded-in-my-marrow" composer, I can find real tangible proof that musicologist-swine are indeed lower on the totem pole of mankind, below idiots, criminals, loud tenor sax players who play solos twice as long as they should, and people who text message on their cell phone while driving.

My heros don't have capes, but giant brains. Or, like Lessig, many of my musical heroes have giant foreheads, or a rumor of having twelve toes.