When Monica Vakiner received her cancer diagnosis, it felt like her world turned upside down. Today, she is 16 years cancer free. As a survivor, she has spent a lot of her time supporting other people living with or affected by cancer – because as she says, “no one should face a chronic illness alone.”

For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we bring you Monica’s story, recorded in 2019 when she was still working at the Cancer Resource Center. 

You can check out our other audio portraits at www.thisithaca.org. 

Credits

"THIS is Ithaca" is produced by Marietta Synodis and Florenz Gilly.

Music

Kovd Lask, Chilvat, Kallaloe, Beignet, A Little Powder, SG Transmission, On the Move, These Times, Shutter and Vanish, Undying, Carolina Carboy

All tracks by Blue Dot Sessions

Jingle

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

If you’ve ever walked the streets of Ithaca, there’s a good chance you’ve met Eric Lovett, a happy-go-lucky guy wearing a stylish hat, often seen pulling a lawnmower behind his bicycle.

Sadly, Ithaca lost Eric on November 27th at the age of 63.

This episode is a tribute to him: a musical soul, an advocate of humor, and a fixture in the Ithaca community.

Thank you, Eric, we are lucky to have known you.

Production

Marietta Synodis and Florenz Gilly

Editing

Florenz Gilly

Music

Red City Theme, Convoy Lines, Pigpaddle Creek, Plum King, Welcome Home Sonny, Danver Count

All tracks by Blue Dot Sessions.

Sounds 

BBC Sound Effects

Cover Photo:

Nico Marks/Unsplash

These days, the world seems to run on coffee. For many Americans, they can’t start their workday without it.

As a barista at Gimme Coffee, Samantha Mason did exactly that: fuel the workforce. But when an issue came up at work, she was forced to make a decision: either quit or fight to improve her working conditions.

Sam chose the latter.

Read more about Gimme Coffee’s transition to a worker-owned co-operative model: https://ithacavoice.com/2022/07/a-labor-of-love-gimme-coffee-becomes-a-co-op/

Marietta Synodis and Florenz Gilly

Florenz Gilly

Careless Morning, Lina my Queen, Shade Ways, Grumpalo, Diletone 11, Plasticity, Gin Bohème

All tracks by Blue Dot Sessions.

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

"All day every day", city employee Tony Diehl sets out to empty and maintain the lollipop-style parking meters that line the streets of downtown Ithaca. Slowly they will be replaced by newer, solar-powered meters or made obsolete by smartphone apps. Slipping from the analogue into the digital age. The times they are a changin’.

You can check out our other audio portraits at www.thisithaca.org.

Marietta Synodis and Florenz Gilly

Florenz Gilly

All tracks by Blue Dot Sessions.

In order they appear:

Pintle, Tan Mountain, Golden Grass, Plum King, That Wide River, Hash Out, Arizona Moon

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

By pure chance, young economics student Phil Shapiro discovered the Alternatives Library inside Cornell's Anabel Taylor Hall and chose it to become the venue for his live show for WVBR radio. For more than five decades, Phil continued doing shows there, thirty Sundays of every year. There must be a reason why his audience, which he claims to be one of the best, most engaged live audiences in the world, has remained loyal to Bound for Glory all these years. We spoke to Phil in the summer of 2019 about his path to becoming host of North America's longest running live folk radio show, and learned about the magic formula for building community: music, tradition, and a shared space to gather and come together. 

Special thanks to Hoot & Holler and Kora Feder who kindly gave permission to use excerpts from their live performances for our podcast.

Bound for Glory has been on hiatus since 2020, but you can still tune in to 93.5 FM on Sunday nights from 8-11pm to hear archival shows. For more info on the show and upcoming broadcasts, visit their website at boundforglory.org.

Marietta Synodis and Florenz Gilly

Florenz Gilly

Kora Feder, Hoot and Holler (now Golden Shoals)

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

Picture 25 women chatting over wine and swapping–no, not Tupperware–but sex toys. This is how Christine Barksdale started her business. Today, over a decade later, Barksdale is running a women-centric, sex positive store off Route 13 in downtown Ithaca. Sitting with her between whips and lingerie, we learned how an episode of Oprah inspired her to open a store and that every vibrator has a distinct sound. Can you hear the difference?

Stay up-to-date on new episodes, exclusive visual material, and fun stories by subscribing to our newsletter. Or, by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There you can see the faces of all the folks we’ve interviewed, in one scroll.

Florenz Gilly and Marietta Synodis

Tango Rosino, Bossa Boa, The Criper, Zulia Conspiracy, Um Pepino, Entwined Oddity, Basketline

by Blue Dot Sessions

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

Whether on the back of a horse during a snowy day or through the streets by foot, Holly Horner tries to be outside as much as she can. Naturally, Holly chose to be a city carrier, delivering mail to businesses in bustling downtown Ithaca, as well as to houses in the more residential areas of town. We accompanied Holly while she was carrying out mail from her right-seated postal truck. Sitting down with her, she told us about the seasonal changes of mail traffic in a college town, the pitfalls of her job and what skills she had to learn for doing it right.

Always stay up-to-date on new episodes, exclusive visual material and fun stories by subscribing to our newsletter. Or, by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There you can see the faces of all people, that we've interviewed, in one scroll.

Florenz Gilly and Marietta Synodis

Let Go Gecko, Highway 94, Cradle Rock, That Horse Ithica, Scraper

Some sounds were taken from freesound.org. They were all published under a CC-License—as is our podcast.

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

What’s a typical day in the life of a mayor of Ithaca? For Svante Myrick, who’s been mayor since 2012, it requires coffee. Lots of coffee. In this episode Svante tells us how he ran for office as a recent college grad, his thoughts on sidewalks, and the one thing most people want to talk to him about.

Special thanks to the Annie Sherman from the mayor’s office.

Florenz Gilly and Marietta Synodis

Borough, Flashing Runner, Pedal Rider, Vienna Beat

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

Tucked in the north side of Triphammer Marketplace is The Mall Dry Cleaners, a family owned and operated business since 1970. But what exactly happens when you get your clothes dry cleaned anyway? And who does all that work? We go behind the carousel of clean shirts to find out what really happens at the dry cleaners.

Gratitude to Daniel Wood, Tina Haviland and Debbie Cook for telling us about their lives and work. Also, thanks to owner John Gorsky who didn't hesitate to participate in our project, as well as to Nancy Morse for setting things up.

Florenz Gilly and Marietta Synodis

Bauxite, Dangerous Swing, For We Shall Speed

Gitanas Mojadas

All four titles are available under a Creative Commons-License. And so is our podcast.

Mosaic Foundation, The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie

What’s the road to becoming a rockstar? For Casey Harris, who is legally blind, it all started by tuning pianos. Now the 34-year old performs around the world as the keyboardist for the alt-rock band X Ambassadors. In this episode, Casey tells us about growing up in Ithaca, how his brother Sam and him would always fight as kids and how they nonetheless started making music together; also, what every newcomer band should consider when they want to be taken seriously.

On September 24th 2021, X Ambassadors will release their new album "Beautiful Liar". The interview was conducted in the summer of 2019 at Casey's house in Ithaca, NY.

Florenz Gilly and Marietta Synodis

Permission to use X Ambassador's original music was kindly granted to us for free by Kobalt Music Publishing [BMI].

Songs used:

All songs written by Adam Levin, Samuel Nelson Harris and Casey Wakeley Harris (X Ambassadors) as well as former band member Noah G Feldshuh.

Both piano pieces in the beginning and in the end of this episode are recordings by Casey Harris. The "raw, stripped-down, acoustic version of 'Unconsolable'" was recorded on a "Big Ugly Yellow Couch" (See video here.)

With special thanks to Terra Simon, Bill Reed and Ann Markwell. 

The Fall Creek Brass Band, Richie and Rosie, Ross