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The recent mill closings in New Hampshire’s North Country have re-focused attention on the state’s long and difficult transition to a post-industrial economy.

As towns like Groveton and Berlin struggle to adapt, millworkers – many of them immigrants or the children of immigrants - face the end of a way of life they have known for generations.

This weekend, nationally-known storyteller Jay O’Callahan brings to a Portsmouth theatre a tale that should resonate in those mill towns.

NHPR Correspondent Kevin Gardner has this preview.

On Thursday's Word of Mouth, we talk with Sarah Boxer, former New York Times media critic and author of Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web. Sarah combed the wide, vast, and often self-referential blogosphere to find the diamonds in the rough. Her book is a collection and explanation of her favorite sites.

One blog that isn't mentioned in Sarah's book just popped up in January, and it's gaining popularity at a startling speed. It's called Stuff White People Like, and it's a hilarious - and sometimes painful - dissection of white, educated, upper-middle-class culture. The site is featured on this week's Very Short List, and VSL's Sara Vilkomerson joins us to talk about it.

MC Frontalot is the so-called "godfather of nerdcore." It's a rap genre where, for the most part, white guys rap over Atari computer game beats about Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons… and the lure of Internet porn.

A new film documents MC Frontalot and his band on a tour of the United States. The film "Nerdcore Rising" is directed by Negin Farsad and debuts this weekend at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. Word of Mouth's Virginia Prescott spoke with both of them about race, technology, and being the Bill Gates of nerdcore.

Watch a trailer for "Nerdcore Rising"

Download free MP3's by MC Frontalot

(Photo by Phil Palios)

What do you get for the woman who has everything? How about a Taser with an MP3 player built-in?

New lines of personal Tasers come in pink, blue and silver, and are about the size of an electric razor. They're a hot new gift item, and Taser parties are beginning to replace the Tupperware parties of more innocent times. A personal Taser can offer a lot of protection to those who brandish it, but critics like Silja Talvi say they cause more problems than they solve. She recently wrote about Tasers for In These Times magazine, and she spoke with us on Word of Mouth.