Skip to footer

Top Picks: Laura Veirs' 'The Lookout,' the podcast 'Circle Round,' and more top picks

The Fishbrain app can help you find a new spot, discover where fish are biting, and record what you’ve caught in the past, the second story about a marmalade-loving bear comes to DVD and Blu-ray with 'Paddington 2,' and more top picks.

  • By Staff

Comforting music

Singer Laura Veirs and her husband, Tucker Martine, make beautiful music together ­– literally. The Lookout, Veirs’s luminous new collection of wise and bittersweet songs, was produced by Martine, his ninth at the helm for his wife and creative partner. This time out, Veirs eloquently ruminates on the joys and challenges of parenthood, on the haven of marriage in these chaotic times, and on our duty to keep watch on a planet under siege. Martine’s reverb-rich production wraps Veirs’s gorgeous melodies in a warm blanket that feels comforting from first track to last. She has a truly original voice at the top of her craft.

Fishing guidance

Now that spring is here and you can go fishing again, the Fishbrain app can help you find a new spot, discover where fish are biting, and record what you’ve caught in the past. The app is free for iOS and Android.

Invision/AP
Bobby Moynihan

Family folk tales

WBUR’s podcast Circle Round brings together different family-friendly folk tales from across the globe. Actors including Bobby Moynihan and Cheyenne Jackson make the stories come to life. Find it at http://bit.ly/circleroundpodcast.

4-k Tour

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center released a virtual tour of the moon, Tour of the Moon in 4K, which provides more insight into the area we may think we know. One highlight is seeing the bottom half of the Apollo 17 lunar lander, which is still on the moon. Find the video at http://bit.ly/tourofthemoon.

Warner Bros. Pictures/AP

Paddington returns

The second story about a marmalade-loving bear comes to DVD and Blu-ray with Paddington 2. Ben Whishaw voices the title character. The movie is “a film for the whole family that, for a change, really is for the whole family,” Monitor film critic Peter Rainer writes. “What’s more, there’s no hint of forced manipulation or condescension. I smiled all the way through it.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Top Picks: Laura Veirs' 'The Lookout,' the podcast 'Circle Round,' and more top picks
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2018/0504/Top-Picks-Laura-Veirs-The-Lookout-the-podcast-Circle-Round-and-more-top-picks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe