Sunday Salon -- Songs for Now

Weather: Overcast, foggy, potential for rain. A very grey day.

Songs for Now:

Proud to Live in Minnesota by Tim Sparks

Streets of Minneapolis by Bruce Springsteen

Won't You Be My Neighbor? by Lady Gaga "We need Mr. Rogers at this time." (The second half of the video is the whole song.)

Lift Us Up: A Song for America by Bethany and Peter Yarrow. An oldie but a goodie for this time.

Soldier of Fortune by Marie Gauthier. Think of the ICE agents as she sings compared to Roman soldiers crucifying Jesus and the Nazi Gestapo hauling people off to sure deaths in concentration camps.

🠞And this song. Follow this link to Facebook to hear Philip Labes sing "Jesus" about how Jesus was an immigrant and now he is being deported from our country and our hearts. 

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And a poem about now:

* If you don't recognize the name of the poet, Amanda Gorman is the woman who read a lovely, hopeful poem, "The Hill We Climb," at President Biden's Inauguration.

A new word for now: from "There is a Word for What is Happening in Minneapolis" by Gal Beckerman, published in The Atlantic, Jan. 30, 2026.

"The fight against ICE in Minneapolis defies easy categorization. Is it activism? Protest? Political opposition? Resistance? None of these terms quite captures what we are seeing: people putting their bodies on the line to care for immigrants and impeding the operations of a paramilitary force in their city. My colleagues have come up with their own, apt ways to describe it: Maybe this is “neighborism,” or a movement for “basic decency.” I like the way an elderly couple named Dan and Jane, in one dispatch, explained their motive for joining the effort: “humanist.”... The word that comes to mind is dissidence...Dissidence is not revolution; it is is not political opposition. It's something much more elemental. It emerges  in environments where power -- usually government power -- tramples on the basic conditions of life as people know and value them. We recognize what that means in Minneapolis: People do not like to see their neighbors terrified and rounded up. They do not like to see masked men with guns acting with impunity. They do not like their children being afraid to go to school...The movement that has arisen on the city's frigid streets is about defending what any reasonable American would call "normal" -- the expectation of a life without the threat of violence and coercion."

 Books read in January (hyperlinks to my reviews):

• Worth Fighting For: Finding the Courage and Compassion When Cruelty is Trending by John Pavlovich -- essays on motivation for Christians (not Christian Nationalists!) to keep fighting for justice. My first book of 2026. 4 stars.
• The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende -- Two stories of children separated from parents, one because of the Holocaust, the other through cruel policies of separating families at the border. Their stories coalesce. A book club selection. 5 stars.
• Wreck by Catherine Newman -- a woman, Rocky, is navigating through her life after the death of her mother and the diagnosis of a serious disease. She's a wreck. 5 stars.
• So Far Gone by Jess Walter -- An audiobook with Don. A man who has hermited himself away from the world is called upon to help his grandchildren and find his daughter, who is married to a man deeply involved in the Christian Nationalist movement. The book has serious themes, but is quite humorous. 5 stars.
• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy -- a memoir by a favorite author of The God of Small Things. Her life and this memoir is also very wrapped up in Roy's relationship with her mother, Mary. Another audiobook with Don. This was the #1 best book of 2025. I see why. 5 stars from both of us.
• A Passage to India by E.M. Forster -- a classic set in India in the 1920s. this is my first classic of the year and my first Forster book. 4 stars. (Review pending.)
• The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali -- an epic tale of two girls/women who become friends in childhood and remain so throughout their lives as Iran goes through political turmoil. A powerful story. A book club selection. 4.5 stars. (Review pending.)
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans -- a story told through letters, emails, and notes. We get to know a woman, Sybil, through the letters she writes and receives. Another book club selection. 4.25 stars.
• Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach -- The funniest science writer alive. I've read several of Roach's books and always enjoy them. This book however was a little over my head in places. An audiobook-with-Don selection. We just finished it yesterday to avoid the looming deadline at the library. 3.5 stars. Don rated it 3 stars (he doesn't do fractions). (Review pending.)
• Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid -- Two female astronauts fall in love but it is the early 1980s and they cannot be open about their relationship. I really liked the space information. I gained some new thoughts. Audio. 4.5 stars. (Review pending.)

Currently reading:

• Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy -- A family on a remote island, caretakers of the planet's seed bank. A strange woman who washes ashore. A storm on the horizon.

Up Next:

• Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler
• Detransition, Baby by Terrey Peters
• Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

I'm not sure the first half of the last line of our national anthem rings true today:

"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave". 

Everyone is not free in America anymore, but that means we all need to embrace the second half and be BRAVE for what is ahead.

This week let's all find ways to show our "neighborism!" I love you all, dear readers, and wish you a peaceful week.

-Anne