FC: A Open-Source Apology to Lawrence Lessig

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[This will be the last in The Lessig Series for now. Mr. Lessig and Mr. Van
Der Leun have been fencing via email which I am not including. Also Simson
Garfinkel (simsong () acm org) has a generally favorable review of the book in
his latest Boston Globe column. --DBM]


Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 12:14:18 -0500
Subject: On Secondly Looking Into Lessig's WebSite
From: Gerard Vanderleun <gerard.vanderleun () generalmedia com>
To: <declan () well com>


           A Open-Source Apology to Lawrence Lessig

Well, may the Baby Jesus log-me-on-and-flush-my-buffer! There *is* a
discussion area lurking on ³What-Declan-Doesn¹t-Get-Dot-Com²  -- AKA:
Code*Is*Law*. The area is indicated with the terse but elegant
post-modernist construct ³discuss.² But whether that¹s an order
(ŒStipulated: That Government is Best Which Governs Most. Discuss!¹), a plea
or a question remains forever drowned deep  in that lower-cased and
unpunctuated bog in which many hapless web-designers wade.

I deeply regret the error of my ways, hereby issue a full retraction,  and,
as a means of atonement, I have this morning clicked through every link on
the site and balanced my checkbook while paging through the complete
archives of The Drudge Report.

I came. I clicked. And I was dumbfounded.

For when I clicked on the fateful link  ³basic books² and followed that down
to the publisher¹s Lessig page, I knew in a single scan that for sheer
blather I was far outclassed by the rolling logs of praise heaped upon Code
before publication. As blather goes, it is World Class, nay, say rather...
Galactic Class!

The festschriftesque praise that trips lightly from the tongues of these
discerning scholars is not only a testament to the book, but can indeed
serve as the book condensed.

A few of the phrases that leap off the monitor and burn through the pupils
of the eyes to be etched forever in the mind are:

         ³ Larry Lessig compellingly demonstrates .... quite simply,
            the best book "
         
        "... brilliant, ground-breaking analysis ... essential reading"

        "... fascinating and provocative  ... brave new world .²

        "... sweeping, powerful, brilliantly lucid .... full of ...
          galvanizing heresies."

        "Graceful, provocative, witty, and unpredictable ...
          a masterpiece  ....²

        " ... one of academia's avant-garde thinkers about
         cyberspace and the law."

        "Lessig's exposition reads like a Stanley Kubrick film."

        "Lessig penetrates the cyberfluff...."

        "... the most important book ever published about the Internet."

        ³... an astonishing achievement. ...²

        ³... a paradigm-shifting work...²

        ³... dark, exhilarating ..the most important book of its generation²

        ³...  lucid and insightful way ...  essential reading."

        "Lawrence Lessig is a James Madison of our time ...²

Compelling, ground-breaking, brilliantly lucid, insightful *and* lucid,
academia¹s avant-garde, astonishing, paradigm-shifting, like a Stanley
Kubrick film, and James Madison!

It just doesn¹t get any better than this.

I had a little trouble picturing Lessig Œpenetrating the cyberfluff,¹ but
once I shook the more obvious and disturbing primary images out of my mind I
found I could repeat that phrase six times swiftly and still remain calm.

Reading praise such as that, well ... what can one say except ³Salieri!²

I couldn¹t decide whether to click onto Amazon or dive to the bottom of my
sock drawer and see if my library card was still current.

So I went back to the site and read again the generous excerpts and the bio
and the other motes of datum and data until, at last, at long last, I grew
inspired. And, hence, herewith...


On Secondly Looking Into Lessig¹s WebSite

Much have I clicked on in the realms of blather
And many drooling sites and web-rings seen.
Round many dot-gov URLs have I been
Which lawyers  in fealty to the dollar lather.
Oft of one deep mosh-pit  had I been told
That vulpine Lessig ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never scan log-rolling so serene
Till I heard Lessig¹s blurbs blurt loud and bold:
Then felt I like some vested geek at Microsoft
When a new government agent swims into view
Or like ŒBillions Bill¹ when with grasping hands
He star'd at Jobs¹ Gooey--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
And planned to buy a second house in Darien.






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