NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS:
In early 1999 I first heard that Henry Livingston, my 5th great grandfather, had written the famous poem I had read as a child. I pooh poohed the notion as too absurd to be real, but remembered the story while getting a tour to the grave of another ancestor, Sidney Breese, who had left a poem on his tombstone. Upon hearing that story, my tour guide explained that, as the rector of Trinity Church, he was the one in charge of leading the candlelight procession to the grave of Clement Moore. My life turned left that day, and I've had the most joyous time finding brand new research areas to explore ever since.

On 20 Dec 2003, I led a candlelight reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas near the very spot where it was written! Amazing!

LITERARY MUSIC VIDEOS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST

Song Videos   Downloadable Videos   List of all videos

Alias   Blake's 7   Boston Legal   Buffy   Cadfael   Christmas
Due South   Forever Knight   Get Smart   Harry Potter   House
Lord of the Rings   Man from Uncle   Miami Vice   Professionals
Quantum Leap   Sherlock Holmes   Star Trek   Star Wars

Characters on TV Shows or Movies:

Star Trek   Alias   Blake's 7   Cadfael   Forever Knight   Get Smart
Gettysburg   Hiram Holliday   Lord of the Rings   Sandbaggers

Since 1985 I've made literary music videos. These strange beasts use the lyrics of a song as poetry to be interpreted in the context of TV or movie video. Listen to Frank Sinatra's I Did It My Way in your head. Now see Captain James Tiberius Kirk. That's a literary music video! I've made over 450 of them because I love the emotional power they give to ideas, and the fun of working within a tight box.

Interested? You can read more about how I got started and the equipment I've used, or read excerpts from Henry Jenkins' book, Textual Poachers. Alternatively, watch the development of a Forever Knight music video, 'Dust in the Wind.'

We've chosen to put up our music videos in two qualities - soso and pretty great. Soso videos are in mp4 format; pretty great are in mpg. At the bottom of each page of music videos for a single fandom you'll find a technical section talking about what software will play which format. Lines with gold backgrounds describe the larger mpg format videos.

MUSIC OF THE 18th CENTURY:
While researching Henry Livingston as the author of Night Before Christmas, I became extremely frustrated by his fascinating music manuscript. 200 pages of songs, and I had no idea what they sounded like. My cousin, Steve Thomas, was kind enough to make the book available to me, and my next problem was to figure out how to turn those notes on the page into something other than lovely graphic arts. I can't play an instrument. The solution was David Webber's Mozart program. With Mozart, I was able to transcribe the book, and with Mary Jane Corry's help, I learned how to fix the mistakes Henry had made in his handwritten scores.

FAVORITE SONGS OF HENRY'S IN MIDI
Farewell to Lochaber	Read      Listen
Sweet Passion of Love	Read      Listen
Dans Votre Lit	Read      Listen

Did you hear those little trills and quick runs of notes? Those are called 'ornaments,' and are a shorthand to a musician to embroider the note to which the ornament is attached. They confused me greatly at first, until I found a book explaining how Bach had taught them to his children. Since I couldn't try them out on an instrument, I transcribed each of them so you can find out what each symbol means.

Notation in Bach

THE DUENNA:

Several of the songs I loved best in Henry's music manuscript came from a light opera of Richard Sheridan (written about 1810). I became obsessed with hearing more of them, but I couldn't find any recorded version. So I was once again forced into transcription mode. I found a bookstore in London that was selling a vintage publication and, finally, could hear the music. It was worth all the time it took to transcribe each page, note by note. I hope you love it, too. A chorus midi sound comes in while the song would be sung. FAVORITE DUENNA SONGS IN MIDI   When Sable Night   Had I a Heart   Thou Can'st Not Boast FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEOS TO THE DUENNA Alias   If a Daughter You Have Starsky&Hutch   Give Isasc the Nymph Sherlock Holmes   How Oft, Louisa Using the songs in music videos was irresistible.

WRITING:
Mother raised me with the idea that I could write because it was in my genes. She had the same explanation on why I should be able to create art. I fought long and hard against the idea, with a physics major at University of Chicago for the first 3 1/2 years of college, and a career in computer language design.

But, as should have been expected, mother won in the end. I switched my college major to the history of art (ancient), and everywhere I went in computers, I seemed to end up writing the books, or creating the publications. While grieving over mother's death, it seemed the only way I could express that grief was in words, and I began writing fiction in the underground world of Star Trek fandom - disguising her death as Kirk's. Dating Game, available online, was written to honor the editor of the story, Jessica Daiginault, one of my personal heroes. Except that she would have preferred going after Kirk, not Spock.

As for the art, I had switched my computer career at IBM Research from language design to multimedia, and I learned about graphics from the artists illustrating my videos.

That mix of fiction and art came to its inevitable conclusion when I took a class in screenplay writing in Maine. Screenplays were the most perfect art form I'd ever imagined. They had all the "box" aspects of a music video, while requiring incredible control to write just enough to excite a group of collaborators, but not enough to trespass on their own contributions to a movie. I went "by the book," and the book came through. My first screenplay was read by 16 agents, and 6 offered to represent it. I still haven't sold a screenplay. A long story.

For now, I'm just writing Henry. I have a small illustrated book on Henry's writing and the Night Before Christmas poem out through Locust Grove, and a larger, agented biography.

And then there's the poetry. Mother was right. Again. Writers litter my family tree. But the deepest emotional impact on me has come from finding my father's poetry, and the poetry column in which he and my 17 year old mother courted. Those pages foresee the tragedy that was still in their future, and it breaks my heart.

Fan Writing,   Poetry,   Publications,   Father's Poetry,   Mother's Poetry

WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN:
Being a packrat, I've kept an amazing amount of my childhood and adolescence, and a chance inquiry brought memories back of that long-ago, 17 year old me. So I thought I'd bring her back to life - high school, family and, of course, Richard, to whom I was engaged when I was 17. His love letters bring that whole time flooding back. And the 1961 Yearbook of the St. Thomas Aquinas Dominican High School, in Chicago, brings back memories of uniforms and saddle shoes and funny little hats.

A YOUNG MARRIED LADY:
I was only 19 when I married Bruce Nelson, my physics lab assistant at U of Chicago. Bruce was, and is, a good man to whom I'm grateful for five years of marriage at a very early age. He came from a wonderful family, and is gifted with interests that range from high-energy physics to art to sports cars to photography to a love of nature. I couldn't have been luckier.

When we married, I was in my sophomore year of college in physics. In the last half of my 4th year, I was done in by Schroedinger Equations and switched into the History of Art, Near Eastern Ancient, taking an extra year to graduate. It was a wonderful year of fine art classes in the same studio where my mother had studied in the early 1930's. And it was in that last year of college that I finally fulfilled my dream of working at the Adler Planetarium. That is, until they caught me. I was a Republican election judge in a Democratic patronage job. Sigh.

HISTORY:
As might be expected from my passion for genealogy, and my bent toward research, I've developed a rather late interest in history. Because of my undergraduate studies at University of Chicago, my interest tends to be in original sources - books and papers. Owning them, whenever possible! Enjoying copies from research centers when originals aren't possible. The collection we're building mostly centers in New York. Of course, I do tend to see history in terms of my ancestors. But, whatever works.

  7th great grandfather, colonial governor of NJ,
  6th great grandfather's work in wine production,
  5th great grandfather in the Revolutionary War,
  5th great grandfather's letters to and from Washington,
  5th and 4th great grandfathers entertain Lafayette,
  4th great grandfather at Valley Forge,
  3rd great grandfather's first, second, and third railroads,
  2th great grandfather and his brother help start the Military Association of NY,
  great grandfather, a special judge advocate at the Lincoln Assassination Trial

  An 1802 book on Medical Electricity - it's all online

FAMILY and FRIENDS:
Family
Though mother left father when I was only 6 weeks old, she brought me home to her parents, and gave me a wonderful life. Mother was loving, imaginative and thoroughly crazy in the very best of ways. I can't remember her voice without hearing the laughter underneath it. A world without her in it still seems fundamentally wrong. Grandmother was pure emotion - and everyone within a half block of her knew what she was feeling. She loved without holding back anything. If there was a problem in the neighborhood, nana was first on the spot to offer comfort and help. Grandfather - daddy - was the foundation of the family. Strong, quiet, dignified and loving, he could actually make me believe that listening to my multiplication tables was one of the high points of his evening. Daddy was a signals engineer and inventor, who spent far too much time in faraway places. One of the wonderful family stories was of Thomas Edison asking daddy to come to New Jersey to teach him about train signals. Daddy spent one week there sleeping on a cot in the lab, when he wasn't being awakened with another question by Edison. Daddy left at the end of the week thoroughly drained, and Edison knew everything daddy knew.

One of the comforts I've found in genealogy has been in the extended family that keeps growing with the years. But over this last year I've learned that the loss of these wonderful cousins can be very painful, too. It's hard to open yourself to the pain of losing people by loving them, but there really isn't any option. All you can do is to try to make sure that the memory of these wonderful people isn't completely lost. And that's my job.

And then there are all the family I've grown to know and love, that lived and died so very long ago. There I feel I have a purpose, too. To try to pull the human being out of the statistics, and bring that person back to life for others to know and care about, as well.

A Song Nana Sung     Nana and Mother's Book of Academic Nudes

Friends
As for friends, I can only say that I am tremendously grateful for the lives that have intersected mine. They've brought fun, and laughter, and comfort and thoughtful discussion. And even when we can't be together, they still stay close in my heart. This webpage brought me a very special gift a few years ago. Dennis Majerski, the boy I loved when I was 6 and he was 3, found my page of friends and got back in touch. And with him he brought Rene, his mother and my second mother. Now that's how I like to go fishing! You bait your hook with love, and reel in real love.

PETS and BIRDS:
All of my children have four feet and fur, and my only sadness is that their lives are so very short. I can never return to them the gifts they have given me, but I'll never stop trying.

We lost Illya at midnight on February 3, 2008. He was lying on my chest as we watched Man from Uncle and he went quickly and was never in any pain. For almost 18 years he was a good and loyal friend, and he's much missed. Every black object on the floor hits us for a moment as being Illya. And I'm always feeling one leash is missing when I walk the other two. We carried him everywhere for the last four months of his life, and he was bribed every day to keep him eating. He rejected turkey breast and hamburger unless it was part of our dinner, so he had an elegant diet and was spoiled rotten. We're glad for every day that gave us.

Our vet refused to do a blood test on our other dogs while we helped Illya through those last months, but we've now learned that our middle dog, the one sitting on the page left of my lap, now has failing kidneys, too. But Waverly is pain sensitive and screams at every prick, so how we would ever be able to do subcutaneous injections someday, as we did every day with Illya, I try not to imagine. But both of the white ones are thankful that their diets have stayed so good that now Paul is trying to steal their dog food. When they can spare a chicken breast, he gets chicken salad for lunch. So we go on.

My husband Paul is only grateful that I haven't figured out how to convince all the outdoor animals that it's much nicer inside the house. So he lets me put out heat lamps in the winter for the wild cats, and stock feeders to try to make the world a little less stressful for a lot of the small ones. We'll sometimes have 8 or 9 skunks eating under the bedroom window, and I only wish I was able to recognize them for the individuals I know they are.

We feed the birds on a platform almost against the bedroom window. It might not be ideal from their point of view, but it makes for good photography. I spent the first year of my retirement from IBM standing in front of that window, behind a video camera. Think about logging almost 50 videotapes by trying to note the second when 3 birds appear versus 4, so that you can directly find the footage later for video production!

Favorites? The oriole trying to bash its way through the kitchen window. The small bird making its way around the sleeping large bird to eat out of a greenhouse feeder in the winter. The first baby emerging from the birdhouse, fluttering up to the roof of the house. (Then the battery went dead!)

Henry,   Skunk,   Red Squirrel,   Wavy

FAVORITE THINGS:
Paul! We've been married 37 years now, and I wake up grateful. He's a good man. I hired into IBM Research to give him someone to commute with from MA to NY. I couldn't bear to move to NY, so we lived in both states. When I switched from computer languages into video and multimedia, Paul switched with me, and built a half million dollar video studio around my multimedia magazine. Sometimes, I'll admit, we worked together at the top of our lungs, but nana always taught me to be comfortable with emotion. Working together 24/7 turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to us. Paul is better than good at almost anything he does. He's made music videos, morphed our friends into aliens, and tried to photograph fireflies with me at night. His photos are amazing, although I doubt his claim that his skill with graphics comes directly from getting his PhD at MIT, rather than from his time at University of Chicago. But I can think of few things I could have accomplished in life without his help and support. Together we can do anything!

And we recently proved we still enjoy being together by surviving a three month trip in a motor home!

What else do I love? Just about everything! Books by friends like Edith Layton and Joan Wolf. Stained glass, crafts, TV shows like Star Trek and movies like Lord of the Rings. Paul and I have put fountains around the backyard, created a bathroom which is an inverse-spatial sculpture, and travel around the country by car, since we also share a fear of flying.

RECIPES:
I've always loved food, but I came late to cooking. I can still see grandmother standing in the kitchen doorway laughing and bending the rubber cake back and forth. At least we all learned to laugh. First thing I put into my new kitchen was an attic fan to empty out the smoke when I burnt something. Did you know that you can wash charcoal off potroast? And mother was no help. My idea of comfort food is her refried spaghetti. You cook the pasta, cook the hamburger, then put them back together in a frying pan with catsup and fry them dry.

But food became another of my passions, and I have a wondrous group of friends who contribute to my downfall with group meals, where we try to find the perfect recipe for pralines or key lime pie or Creme Brulee. Our dinners will frequently have themes, such as a dinner emphasizing cherries - black cherry jello and a thin-sliced ham with cherry sauce or pasta with dried cherries. Or glorious pears blended into sweet potatoes, or glazing a cheesecake.

Food! Besides tasting good, it brings back such memories!

POLITICS:
I admit it. I'm a Republican. And I've been one since the age of 5, when I discovered that I liked the letter "R" better than the letter "D". Grandmother claimed she needed me in the voting booth to help her read directions, then let me tell her for whom to vote. That also contributed to an early interest in politics. Being a Republican in a family of Democrats wasn't as tough as might be expected, since my family was big into intellectual freedom. I worked for Richard Nixon against John Kennedy in 1960, but the party made me work for two local Republicans. Attending their luncheon before the election, I learned a vital lesson. Never meet the politicians. That year I had my grandmother vote straight Republican and two Democrats. I must admit that I reached my Republican limit when living in the Republican town of Ridgefield CT. That year we worked for George McGovern. Mother was probably right again. I am "Mary, Mary Contrary." We currently live in MA so, again, I'm a proud Republican. Part Libertarian. Part Conservative. All grateful for the luck of the draw that had me born in the U.S.A.

What I look for in a politician is honor. There aren't a lot of them out there, I know. George Washington was one. Abraham Lincoln, another. Dwight David Eisenhower, a third.

GEORGE BUSH:
Absolutely Right-On! Article About W
Right now? It has to be George Bush. Both of them, actually. They're good men, if not that great of politicians. I value their honesty, and their courage under attack. We were blessed that one of them was our president in those dark days after 9/11. And, yes, I DID buy the Carrier Bush doll! Besides, they descend from Gilbert Livingston, which makes them cousins!

GENEALOGY:
It seemed that the best way to discover father as a person was to read his poetry. The problem was finding it! Being rather goal-directed, I got into genealogy with the purpose of finding some relative who might have received a book of my father's poetry. I had little to go on - an obituary of his mother, some old pictures, letters begging mother to come back. The obituary mentioned that grandmother was the daughter of Henry Burnett, and was descended from Henry B. Gibson of Canandaigua NY. That and the fact that her pallbearers included two generals and the governor of Colorado! So off we went to Canandaigua. As we drove down Gibson Street, we started to wonder. It was. After that it was just one shock after another. General Henry Burnett turned out to be one of the special judge advocates at the Lincoln Assassination Trial. His father had had one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. Henry B. Gibson was one of the richest men in western NY (no, it didn't go down our line), and his 2nd railroad was merged with others to form the NY Central.It just got more outrageous from there.

The study of genealogy has explained, though, how my risk-adverse family could have produced a risk-taker like me. Which means I don't feel like quite the cuckoo I did. I so much wish I could have told mother. She would have laughed.

General Henry L. Lansing
Two of General Lansing's homes still exist, and we've had a chance to wander through them. One is in Canandaigua, where Henry and Catherine Gibson first lived. The Buffalo house no longer exists, but we found a book in the Buffalo Historical Society that describes the estates on the main drag. General Lansing isn't mentioned in the book but, when I check his address in the census against the map in the book, the large estate is his!! We did find his summer home in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The trick turns out to be a familiar one - the name of the house has been changed from the name he gave it to the name given by a subsequent owner. The house is on a large piece of property across from the military parade ground. It's huge and beautiful and for sale at a price we choked at. But at least we got a tour!

General Henry L. Burnett
Newest News! The General is now being played at the Ford Theater by one of the Park Rangers!

The General is being adopted! Thanks to Michael Bennett, and the Ellis Camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, the General's grave in Goshen NY is now being maintained. And thanks to my cousin, Blaine Kimball, we now know what was written on the General's stolen plaque, and may be able to get a new one made!

Historical Marker,   Family Tree,   Surnames,   Livingston Genealogy,   Bios