Elements song by Tom Lehrer, updated

(Also posted on Facebook)

I've been working on memorizing all the chemical elements (long story) and I've always liked Tom Lehrer's classic song. It was written in 1959, though, so it doesn't include the elements discovered and named since then. There are several updated versions online that add an extra verse, but I didn't see one that rhymed! That's a major drawback in a memorization song. So I made my own update. Probably someone, somewhere, has made a rhyming one too, but I think my version works pretty well.

Here are Lehrer's original six verses, an update of his final two lines, then a new verse and new closing lines. If you're not familiar with the song, it goes to the "Modern Major-General" tune from Pirates of Penzance. (And here's a video with Lehrer singing a slightly modified version.)

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,

Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.

And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.

These WERE the only ones of which the news had come to Harvard,
But we have to mention sixteen more that later were discovered.

There's tennessine, oganesson, meitnerium, moscovium,
And dubnium, darmstadtium, nihonium, flerovium,
[Deep breath and get ready to pack in those extra syllables]Copernicium, roentgenium, rutherfordium, livermorium,
[Now you can relax]And hassium, lawrencium, seaborgium and bohrium.

The seventh row is finished in the periodic table,
Further elements will be manmade and terribly unstable.

Books, Facebook, NaPoWriMo

Well, life got in the way of that reading challenge. I still hope to catch up on posting some good books I've read. Meanwhile, I have finally joined Facebook after putting it off for years, which may actually encourage me to post more here too.

And it's April, which means it's National Poetry Month, and this year we're trying NaPoWriMo again. I'm planning to post a poem per day, and A. may post some too. They'll be on our writing blog (link in the sidebar).

Reading challenge books 6-10

Challenge: Read a book you can finish in a day.

Wonder by R. J. Palacio - A children's book about a boy born with a genetic condition that affects his appearance. When he switches from homeschool to a private school in 5th grade, there's a lot of adjustment necessary for him and the other students. A very positive book. (There is some mild profanity.)

Challenge: Read a book you own but have never read.

The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest - A collection of very old Welsh stories. I wanted to read it because when I was young, one of my favorite series was the Prydain chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, which used names and ideas from Welsh folklore. The stories can get a little tedious in places, but it was interesting in a historical context.

Challenge: Read a book with a color in the title.

Blackout by Connie Willis - A time-travel novel with historians from 2060 getting trapped in 1940s London during the Blitz. The detail is amazing and makes the 1940s world seem very real. This is the first of two books and ends with nothing resolved. (Moderate profanity warning.)

Challenge: Read a book with more than 500 pages.

All Clear by Connie Willis - The conclusion to Blackout. Much more satisfying as the loose ends are tied up and things become more hopeful. The thing I like about this book is the underlying message that everyone can become a hero by doing their best, helping others and determinedly facing whatever challenges life presents them with. (Moderate profanity warning.)

Challenge: Read a book based entirely on its cover.

The Outsmarting of Criminals by Steven Rigolosi - The cover resembled the old PBS "Mystery" drawings by Edward Gorey and led me to pick the book up at the library. It's about a woman who retires and moves to a small town, hoping to take up a career as an amateur detective, and promptly finds a body in the basement of her new house. The premise is fun and the writing style is enjoyable and humorous, but in the last fourth of the book the plot became quite unbelievable and left me vaguely irritated with most of the characters. Lesson: Maybe don't read a book based entirely on its cover.

Reading challenge books 4 & 5

Challenge: Read a book originally written in another language.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (translated from Italian)

A surreal set of short chapters about Marco Polo describing different cities (or the same city) to the emperor Kubla Khan. The writing ranges from beautiful to creepy, with a few off-color references.


Challenge: Read a classic romance.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

It was really fun to read an Austen book I'd never read before. Even better, I had never heard anything about the plot at all, so it was all completely fresh. I had heard the name of the main character, Fanny Price. The book is about how she goes to live with her rich uncle and aunt, where she's treated as an inferior, and what happens when an unprincipled young man decides to woo her.

Reading challenge book 3

Challenge: Read a book you started but never finished.

Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

I started this one a few years ago but only read about 50 pages, so I was glad to have an extra push to read the whole thing. It's a collection of short biographies of United States senators who showed exceptional courage in standing up for what they felt was best for the nation. Most of them were ridiculed and threatened, and many were forced out of politics. So the book is both a history lesson and a reminder of the importance of moral integrity even in the face of pressure.

Reading challenge book 2

Challenge: Read a book that scares you.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Not only is the writing creepily effective, but the ideas themselves are scary, though important. Do we all have evil inside us? Is it a separate part of us? Can we control it? When we indulge it and it starts getting strong, how do we stop it? How responsible are we for what our Mr. Hyde side does?