Skip to footer

Top Picks: Parquet Courts' 'Wide Awake,' the Smithsonian Channel's 'The Pacific War in Color,' and more

You can use the Ramblr app to share information about your outdoor sojourn, hear from those who are responsible for some of today’s most famous companies in NPR’s podcast How I Built This with Guy Raz, and more top picks.

  • By Staff

Unique album

When did you last hear lyrics like these from a rock band? “Swapping parts and roles is not acting but rather emancipation from expectation/ Collectivism and autonomy are not mutually exclusive.” That manifesto, hoarsely hollered during “Total Football” by co-frontman/partymeister Andrew Savage, is from the unique and unhinged Parquet Courts release Wide Awake! Conceived as a “punk record that you could put on at a party,” it is simultaneously crude, beautiful, profound, and profoundly silly. But it is memorable, and, yes, danceable! It’s a welcome offering from an adventurous crew feeling their oats to music fans who’ve been hungry for something new and different.

Record of rambling

You can use the Ramblr app to share information about your outdoor sojourn, including adding your path. But you can also look at others’ journeys to get ideas for your next expedition. The app is free for iOS and Android.

Invision/AP
Daymond John

How it was built

In NPR’s podcast How I Built This with Guy Raz, hear from those who are responsible for some of today’s most famous companies, including Ron Shaich of Au Bon Pain and Panera Bread, Steve Conine and Niraj Shah of Wayfair, and Daymond John of FUBU. A recent interview with Troy Carter of Atom Factory delved into Carter’s intriguing past work with singer Lady Gaga. You can find “How I Built This with Guy Raz” at http://bit.ly/builtthis.

Acclaimed acting

In the film Hostiles, Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, and Ben Foster are part of the ensemble cast that Monitor film critic Peter Rainer calls “strikingly good.” The western centers on an Army captain (Bale) who is escorting a Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) to the chief’s home. It’s available on DVD and Blu-ray.

AP/File

History in color

We are used to seeing World War II photos and videos in black and white, but the Smithsonian Channel has lent color to these landmark images: The new program The Pacific War in Color educates viewers about World War II in the Pacific and provides a new perspective of that time period. The program airs June 24 at 8 p.m. Note: There’s occasional crude language.

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: Parquet Courts' 'Wide Awake,' the Smithsonian Channel's 'The Pacific War in Color,' and more
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2018/0615/Top-Picks-Parquet-Courts-Wide-Awake-the-Smithsonian-Channel-s-The-Pacific-War-in-Color-and-more
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe