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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!
Smoking Gun?,
Arguments,
Quest to Prove Authorship,
First Publication,
Clement Clark Moore's Poetry,
Fictional Account of Henry's Authorship,
The Attributions are Changing!!!
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FAN LITERARY 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
Smallville
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!
Paul and I have made 500 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.
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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.
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:
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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.
Using the songs in music videos was irresistible.
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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.
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
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STILL A CHILD:
I simply refuse to grow up! I love being a child and having a sense of wonder at the world around me.
And I love to surround myself with friends who never really grow up either. With Tricia I marvel over
William Shatner, and with Lyn I analyze Starsky and Hutch's police procedures.
With Paul, of course, I still play house after 41 years.
Life is good.
Joseph Warren, class of '58
My Autobiography at age 13
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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.
The Aquinas Class of 1962,
Richard's Love Letters
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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.
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Near 6th ggf's estate, now a zoo
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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
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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.
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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.
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
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FAVORITE THINGS:
Paul! We've been married 40 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.
Vidding,
Vidding near Cove,
Night Blooming Cereus,
Favorite Art
The Most Exquisite Bathroom!
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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!
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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, to which he eventually moved. 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
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I feel like a hummingbird
darting from flower to flower. There is so much to taste and delight in that I barely
know which flower to sample next. But following mother's good advice from childhood,
I'll just keep flapping and hoping to someday taste them all. After all, so much
of the joy comes from the journey rather than the destination.
L'Envoi
