My Tiny Vegas: Las Vegas, New Mexico News, Stories, Photographs, and More!

Folksinger John McCutcheon at WLV High School this Saturday night

A bearded man lightly plucks a deceptively simple arpeggio on his guitar. His voice carries a coat of cannon oil, carries the echo of guns set aside for one December night. The melody is vintage John McCutcheon - tight, rhythmic, with gentle curves around minor corners. The lyrics are poignant, peaceful, the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 on the Western and Eastern fronts of World War I.

"One of John's many gifts is story-telling," says Pat Leahan, director of the Las Vegas Peace and Justice Center.  "One of his best known songs, Christmas in the Trenches, is a true story about how soldiers on opposite sides of the war come together on Christmas Eve, transcending boundaries for that one night.  It's a powerful story told in a beautiful and poignant way by John."

McCutcheon will play a benefit concert for the center and the Rio Gallinas School this Saturday, January 12. His visit is being sponsored by the United World College through the Bartos Institute Constructive Engagement of Conflict program.

"John is a great example of an artist who brings people together," notes program director Naomi Swinton. "We're very proud to host his visit and wanted to share his music and message with the larger community. West Las Vegas High School was kind enough to host the concert and help with the dinner arrangements and logistics."

McCutcheon discovered the power of music at the age of fourteen. He bought a cheap mail-order guitar, but couldn't afford lessons.

"Guthrie's songbook was the only music book the public library had," reminisces McCutcheon. "I sang my way through it, learning the guitar chords as I went. Because it was arranged alphabetically and not in chronological order or by theme, I would sing a love song, then a funny song, then an anti-war song. It was a real lesson in how to approach your job as a writer. Writers write about everything."

A Grammy Nominee of seven times, McCutcheon has recorded more than thirty albums. He considers "Mightier than the Sword" one of his favorites.

"I co-wrote the album with some of my favorite authors. It was an audacious project to take on. None of the writers - from Barbara Kingsolver to Poet Laureate Rita Dove - had ever written songs before. These people are literary heroes of mine, I have read and admired them for years." McCutcheon paused. "I was invited to finish some of Woody Guthrie's songs as part of this project, and just holding those bits of paper in the National Archives was daunting. This was the man who started me on this path."

McCutcheon writes tuneful pieces that appeal to both adults and children. His arrangements are often just an expert folk guitar and solo voice, highlighting the power of the words fronting the music. In addition to themes of social justice, his songs include "Happy Adoption Day" - which celebrates the day an adopted child joins his or her new family - and  "The Principal" - a song that carries a positive attitude and upbeat tune, teaching children that they are strongest when they unite and work together.

"Some people think that art is reactive. There's a quote from Bertolt Brecht  that I had on my wall for thirty years that said 'Art is not a mirror held up to society, but a hammer with which to forge it.' I've always felt as though the job of the artist was to pay attention, and to tell the truth," says McCutcheon. "When we believe something, we feel it, and we struggle with it in much the same way that true believers struggle with their faith in God. You can't prove that God exists, you can't prove that you love someone, but you can live it, demonstrate it. I'm convinced that people will go much further on what they feel instead of what they know."

The concert promises to be a fun-filled community event, starting with an enchilada dinner at 5 p.m. McCutcheon considers himself an old-fashioned "regular guy," one who works toward building community in as many ways as he can.

"I tear up at the National Anthem every time at every baseball game I attend," laughs McCutcheon. "When I write, I know that I'm writing for a community of people. I'm not an art for art's sake guy. I write because it's my way of grappling with the world in all its beauty and ugliness. Whether it's writing about my son losing his first tooth or an amazing event that happened during Christmas Eve during the fist World War. And to do it as skillfully and assessibly as I can."

John McCutcheon in concert at West Las Vegas High School, Saturday, January 12. Dinner at 5 p.m., concert at 7 p.m. Tickets are available for sale at Semilla Natural Foods Store, the Las Vegas Peace & Justice Center, and the Rio Gallinas School, as well as through Rio Gallinas parents. Tickets are $15 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under and include the enchilada dinner. For more information, please call (505) 454 4228.

Electric Light Parade Turns Las Vegas, New Mexico On

by Birdie Jaworski

Snow swirled around around the darkened street lamps during last year's electric light parade. Las Vegas families bundled in heavy coats and scarves waited along Carnegie Library park, faces red from the biting cold. Floats made from ranch flatbeds, from carefully waxed pickup trucks loaded with twinkle light-encrusted twisted wire crawled the parade route, accompanied by holiday music. Sara Martinez, 9, grabbed the mittened hand of a friend and leaned into the street, as if her anticipation could pull Santa's sleigh closer.

"Look at the pretty angel!" Martinez pointed to a stately creature made of chicken wire wings and tiny white lights. The sparks flashed in unison, one beat behind a boombox shouting "Joy to the World." A teenaged boy dressed in a puffy down jacket and a green elf's cap tossed miniature candy canes into the crowd. Martinez raised her free hand and snagged a treat. She shrieked with joy. "I caught one!"

The first electric light parade occurred in the summer of 1972 at the Disneyland park in Anaheim, California. The first parades didn't carry a holiday theme; they rolled along Disney's 2000-foot long Main Street displaying two-dimensional shapes of Disney's most beloved creatures bedecked in elaborate layers of lights. Several points along the route were "trigger zones," locations where radio-activated signals would cause the floats to pulse in time to show tunes. Disney workers had to push or pull those early floats. Heartland visitors to the theme park were captivated by the otherworldly visions and soon electric light parades with winter holiday themes popped up in hundreds of small towns across the country.

Eighteen years ago the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce adopted the tradition, creating a yearly tradition loved by the community. This year the parade theme is "Home for the Holidays." The city utilities department will unscrew the street lights the afternoon of December 8 in order to let that evening's procession move through darkness.

Local schools, businesses and organizations spend weeks building their floats, designing them with the theme in mind. The Chamber of Commerce offers gift certificates for the best floats. Judges take their place early in the parade route and score floats for theme, beauty, and creativity. Displays can only be lit by the tiny lights usually seen wrapped around Christmas trees, but even with such a constriction, participants show incredible flair with intricate tableaus celebrating the season. Marching bands, hands wrapped in fingerless gloves, play holiday favorites as battery-operated lights wind around their uniforms. Santa brings up the rear every year, waves and watches his high school elves toss wrapped peppermints to the crowd.

Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Diane Ortiz is excited about the community participation in this year's parade.

"We have fifteen floats from local schools, organizations, and businesses in addition to all the school bands. We even have a Mariachi group from Highlands and one from Pecos. It's always a great family event," explains Ortiz.

The electric light parade snakes through the historic districts of the city, passing down 6th street, up National, finally parking along Bridge Street. Santa will disembark and hand out small gifts to children at the Plaza Park. The parade begins at 5 p.m. as the sky grows dark.

Las Películas brings the power of film to Las Vegas

by Birdie Jaworski

Las Vegas Committee for Peace and Justice member Pat Leahan stood under the Serf Theatre marquee and waved a stuffed envelope with an angry flick of her wrist. A neon green tracking sticker covered the return address, but the last three letters in Albuquerque Mayor Chávez's name were still visible.

"He's a hypocrite! You heard him in that film! He promised he would allow peaceful freedom of speech, but it happened again on September 15."

Leahan's voice shook in frustration, shook with anger at the recent raw memory of a peaceful anti-war protest disturbed by police baton. Leahan was a woman transformed by the power of film, by the scenes of poets marching against the war, against the unfair suspension of a poetry coach whose simple transgression was allowing his students to speak with honesty, with the belief their words mattered. Committing Poetry in Times of War brought Leahan's emotions to the surface, connected her recent experience as a peaceful protester to that of those who marched in Albuquerque four years ago.

"We're bringing Hollywood to Las Vegas," said Ryan Smith of Cypress Film Labs, one of the sponsors of last weekend's second annual Las Películas film festival. "We're here to celebrate the language of film. Film has the power to move you, to make you see the world in new ways."

Smith's business partner, Elias Eversole, gestured toward the small stream of filmgoers filing into the recently reopened Serf. "Northern New Mexico has a strong film tradition. This isn't just about being an extra in a big budget movie. We're giving the public a chance to see films from around the world as well as films from our own backyard."

The Serf's muted murals of painted cowboy and indian flickered with orange light as each film began. Loops of film pulled from an old spool flanked by two vases of yellow mums decorated the stage beneath the screen. Aside from the two movies shown at the Fort Union Drive-In - Red Dawn and Easy Rider - Los Zafiros, a documentary about a Cuban singing group shown Friday night, was the most attended screening with an estimated fifty viewers enjoying the music-rich show.

"By early Saturday afternoon, we already matched the attendance of last year's event," said Eversole.

Small pockets of people traded sunlight for the theatre's womb every few hours during the festival's three days. Two middle-aged women sat dead center in the Serf, their heads moving in unison, sadly shaking in sympathy and distress as Standing Silent Nation documented the story of a poverty-stricken Lakota family whose industrial hemp crops were systematically destroyed, year after year, by overzealous narcotics agents. Images of struggling family, of young children chasing horses, chasing life, overlapped the edges of the worn screen.  Though the crop contained no usable amounts of THC, the active drug in cannabis, yellow-vested agents carrying loaded weapons trampled the carefully cultivated plants. Shot in the muted greens and browns of the South Dakota reservation lands, Standing Silent Nation asks the viewer to consider questions of sovereignty, poverty, the right of a people to meet their own needs in ways that empower and enrich.

Las Vegas resident Antoinette Fox discussed the film with friends in the lobby of the Serf.

"I completely support what these people are trying to do. Industrial hemp is a great resource. It just makes sense. I appreciate the festival organizers showing films like this, films that make you think."

The Serf echoed with whoops and angry chatter during Il Inmigrante. Shot in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Mexico, the documentary examined the Mexican and American border crisis by telling the story of Eusebio de Haro, a young Mexican migrant looking for water, who was shot in the back, killed, by an angry Texas man.

"Can you believe this? What's wrong with our world? He's a human. Don't call him an alien," cried one filmgoer as the Texas sheriff pointed to a map of de Haro's fated journey.

The crowd rustled in sadness and anger as Il Inmigrante ended. I paused in the isle. A teenaged girl asked for a page from my notebook. I tore two sheets, handed them to her. The final credits ticked along the screen. The girl pulled a stubby pencil from her purse.

"I saw Committing Poetry this morning. And now I saw this movie. Can these things happen in Las Vegas? I don't want to think these things can happen here. I'm going to write a poem before I forget what I saw. I don't want anyone to forget."

The reel ended, sputtered, sending shatters of night against her face. She began to write.

People's Flea Market

I added a Las Vegas, New Mexico People's Flea Market Photo Album to my site.

Each weekend, Las Vegas holds a "People's Flea Market." As the name suggests, it's a Communist's delight! It's both free to attend and free to set up your own table of treasures-for-sale.

Located on Grand Avenue just north of the Mills Ave I-25 Exit every Saturday and Sunday during the year (except when we get heavy snow), you can find antiques, saddles, ground dried red chile, junk, bunnies, goats, decorative rock, and more!

I will add to the photo album each weekend. Sometimes you see the strangest things!

2007 Las Vegas, New Mexico Synergy Fest

Melody Park, smack in the middle of New Mexico Highlands University, was home to the third annual Synergy Fest this past weekend.

The Synergy Fest is a celebration of alternative energy. Several Solar Energy experts brought solar collectors and sun-powered cars, fans, and other small electronic devices to help educate the public. Two stages - one on each side of the park - brought local music to the event, and locals danced the afternoon away in the beautiful spring grass.

Event Photos:

Two boys enjoy the pie-eating contest!

Everyone pitches in to build a geodesic structure at Melody Park.

Dancing on the lawn to Albuquerque band, Wagogo.

Huge, tubular Hula Hoops were a huge hit at the Synergy Fest. A Rio Gallinas student borrows my hoop for some fun!

Solar energy companies set up booths to help educate the public.

Rio Gallinas School's rummage sale offered gently used snowshoes, highchairs, stereo equipment, books, clothes, and toys.