All Things Considered

Thousands of homes and farms in Mississippi remain underwater, and residents are bracing for the river's crest later in the week.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace checks the depth meter on his small boat motoring through a flooded neighborhood in Vicksburg. The reading: 71/2 feet.

Pace and his deputies patrol this and other inundated parts of town, making sure looters stay out. He points to the top of street signs that stick out of the water: Mary's Alley and Williams Street.

British author Robert Penn has ridden a bicycle almost every day for the past 36 years. He owns six bikes — for summer riding, winter riding, everyday commuting and everything in between. But not one was exactly right. Penn needed the perfect bike.

I blame it on My Big Fat Greek Wedding. That winsome little bridal blockbuster hit its stride in May of '02 and played straight through to Labor Day, establishing that 15-year-old boys weren't the only audience who'd go to summer films. Since then, wedding comedies have been a reliable -– and reliably annoying — hot-weather staple, almost always playing predominantly to women, with men attending dutifully as dates, much as they do at weddings themselves.

Marvel Comics hero Thor smashed his way to the top spot at the box office this past week, but author Ben Thompson says you don't need to go to the multiplex to appreciate the Norse god of thunder.

The original Norse myths provide plenty of excitement on their own, Thompson says. "There's one time, these giants were pissing off the gods, so he disguises himself as a goddess, and goes to some, like, giant feast that they're having," he gushes. "And then, he throws off his costume and just wastes the entire dining hall with a hammer."

If you passed Raphael Saadiq on the street, you might wonder whether you'd stepped back in time. He wears tightly fitted suits, skinny black ties and thick, black-framed glasses. He makes music that almost seems like it's from another era, so it's no surprise that he's increasingly seen as the standard-bearer of old-school American R&B.