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

A Few Late Winter Scenes in Las Vegas, NM

Fred's Lumber served Las Vegas, NM for decades. Located on Grand Avenue, the building is allegedly being renovated to become the Rough Riders Brew Pub and Pizzeria. I have my doubts. I haven't seen any signs of work. The sign promoting the new business has faded from two years in the hot New Mexico sun. Local gossips tell me that there are some issues with the project. Sigh. I hope it happens! I would love to frequent a brew pub... not to mention that we need a decent pizza joint in this town.

The lion of Lion's Park faces Grand Avenue, with the Optic's headquarters in the background. The other side of the lion sports spray paint graffiti, like the side of my garage. When will we begin to care for our town? When?

The old Roundhouse - the only other roundhouse still standing in New Mexico next to the State House in Santa Fe. It's decaying, forgotten, like many of the architectural wonders in Las Vegas, NM. I love this town with all my heart, and I want to see gems like this preserved. This is much bigger a structure than my photo can depict. It's so huge that I could only capture it in sections.

A red Santa Fe caboose welcomes visitors to the south side of town. This is the site of the old Welcome to Las Vegas, New Mexico center. Now it sits, empty, alone. I believe this will be turned into a city park at some time in the future. 

Alex Ellis Paints the Parsonage

A wood stove belches ash into a shotgun space that once housed the carriage belonging to Nuestra Senora de los Dolores' Padre Tehane. Artist Alex Ellis stokes the fire, a shelf of stacked paintings to his left, exposed layered stone behind him. The paintings almost whisper, almost shimmer, their layers of rich color deposited on old wood, on marcasite panel. The scent of melting beeswax mingles with the rising heat. Ellis stands. His close-cropped beard and simple knit cap echo his spartan surroundings - a man in holy communion with his art.

"I was meeting a lot of people who were trying to find their way." Ellis reflects on his experiences meeting other artists. "The number of directions you can come from in making an image from blew my mind. I always thought everyone was trying to be another Picasso or Da Vinci. You're goal is to make masterpieces, right? And at some point you fall flat on your face with that idea, there's nothing new you can do. I discovered it's more difficult to make something that's true, that's honest. That's where I'm at."

Ellis moved to Las Vegas, New Mexico with his husband, Kevin Tracy, six months ago, after facing the cruel gray cover of Seattle skies one winter too many. They bought the old Old Lady of Sorrows Parsonage, a compound of several dark stone buildings that was once church office and home to the two parish priests.

"This place feels really human," says Ellis. "I can feel where the people that used to live here had some good times. There was struggle, too. It's a good place to live and work as an artist. This property has been here for so long, that the city has evolved around it. The university has encrouched on both sides, so in a way there's also unresolved tension, a missing sense of placement."

The son of a physicist and a social worker, Ellis studied fine arts and theatre at Evergreen University in Washington State, a progressive school where the student builds his own curriculum and degree program. Ellis left when his money ran out, but he continued to interact with his fellow students, spending time in the school art studios and becoming part of the growing underground music and arts community.

"All I did was performance art and painting. A lot of theater. I went completely in the opposite direction from the technical. It was a light switch for me, liberating." Ellis grinned as he described his first steps as a professional artist. "I was drawing, I figured if I did four a day, I would have over 1000 at the end of the year, and some might be good. I had this whole disciplined thing going on. That's where my process started."

Today Ellis works in an artistic medium called encaustic painting. His stove groans with the weight of a heavy metal tray filled with melting beeswax and tree resin. He mixes the two with pigments collected from pastels, from oil paints, from natural sources, and spreads the mixture on wood, on canvas, on pressed flat panels. The colors seep into the surface, creating layers of light, a three-dimensional expression which can then be scored and carved with special tools. His works invite the viewer to meditate, to contemplate the complex emotions of alienation, love, birth. In one painting, a strutting peacock dances for a standing mouse, a seated deer. The mouse nearly escapes the canvas, his body alive, white, in a sea of pressed dirt.

Being a new artist in an old town can be scary, explains Ellis, but the Las Vegas community has made him and his husband feel welcome.

"We've very much felt welcomed here. When you move to a place like this, you feel like you have a big sign on your head that says "outsider." And in terms of the language and the cultural history, I am an outsider. It's been very easy to be here. The people have been very kind."

Ellis plans to integrate his art into the community in public and unusual ways, but always being mindful of his personal promise to hold the integrity of his art. He hopes to show at a local gallery in 2008.

"I would like to put my art up and around, decorate the town with it. My thing is to do an honest job, and actually make the painting that I see in my mind. After that, it's entirely up to other people to enjoy or dismiss it. I really have to stay out of the territory of judgment. My job is to do an honest job, and to make it accessible to people. It has to be visible."

Alex Ellis can be reached at almadethis@gmail.com.

24-Hour Playwriting Project at UWC

This weekend, the Kluge Auditorium at the United World College will swell with frustration, laughter, and time-driven panic as sixty students and members of the Las Vegas community stare at blank sheets of paper, willing words to coalesce from the high altitude, from a few props and sheer hope. Theatre Arts Instructor Tim Crofton maniacally grins as he explains the 24-Hour Playwriting Project.

"This is our fifth annual program. We gather at 8 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium with nothing but a few props," laughs Crofton, "and by 8 p.m. Sunday, we present the world premiere of ten brand-spanking new plays. We always have a riotously good time, guaranteed."

Overnight playwriting projects have been produced in major cities across the world, often to both critical ridicule and acclaim. Typically, attendees are given a short list of props, situations, and lines that must be included in the play. For example, at a recent 24-hour event in Toronto, writers had to include an unusual phobia, an ice cream truck, a guilt trip, and the line "What do you intend to do with my shoes?" in their finished play.

Crofton refuses to hand over the eclectic short list for this weekend's event with the exception of one item - a fortune cookie.

"The point of the project is to stretch the limits of your imagination and will. We can't be giving out the list ahead of time." Crofton paused for dramatic effect. "What I can tell you is that the list of required props and lines will make you laugh and nervously sweat at the same time."

Participants will begin writing at the stroke of 8 p.m. Saturday, and have exactly twelve nerve-wracking hours in which to write their ten-minute scripts.

"There are no limitations as to what the play can be about," explains Crofton. "It can be in any format or genre. You can write a comedy if you like, or a monologue, a drama. I'm always surprised at the incredible creative gems that come out of this event."

At 8 a.m. Sunday, the plays are handed to waiting directors, who quickly read and cast the scripts, moving straight into a chaotic twelve-hour rehearsal. Actors, directors, and stage hands must rehearse, learn lines by heart, collect props and costumes, and organize sound and lighting in time for the world premiere of their play, exactly 24-hours after the first meeting.

"It's a huge challenge for all involved," Crofton says. "The process forces focus from the playwright to the director to the actor to the stage manager. Some folks take on multiple roles throughout the evening. It's almost terrifying. There will be no procrastination luxury."

The public is welcome to attend the performance at 8 p.m. Sunday.

"Expect the unexpected," is Crofton's advice. "You never know what the writers are going to cook up."

The fifth annual 24-hour playwriting project commences 8 p.m. Saturday January 12, at Kluge Auditorium, UWC, with a performance in the auditorium at 8 p.m. Sunday, January 13. Call Tim Crofton for more information at 454-4229.

Mount Calvary Cemetery, Las Vegas New Mexico

I uploaded a new photo album of scenes from Mount Calvary Cemetery. You may also enjoy my short story about the cemetery, Shattered.

Green Machines

The chile roasters in front of their rotating wire basket.

My lungs filled with the heavy air of roasting green chile as I waited my turn at the gas pumps.  Gabriel continued filling the pump of some tired local elementary teacher. She slumped in the seat of her beat Ford Escort as if five minutes of fuel were twelve hours of good sleep. I waved, and she bid me hello. I realized she wasn’t sleeping; her closed eyes meant rapture.

"Cómo estás, Birdie! You smell the chile? It’s finally Fall.” She reached outside her window and waved a plastic bag of cinnamon-laced biscochitos my way. I accepted a cookie, took a bite.

"Hey, thanks. I love chile season.”

The end of September in New Mexico means chile, means waxy green pods stuffed in burlap bags at the local grocer. The new, bright red ristras can be seen hanging from balconies and porches, and men man caged machines where the green chile harvest is turned over shooting flames to produce a blistered skin.

Chile is so important to New Mexico that it’s been declared the state vegetable, even though scientists call it a fruit. Most people credit Juan de Oñate, the Spaniard who founded Santa Fe in 1609, with bringing cultivated chiles into our area. He spread the tiny dried seeds of chiles he carried from Chihuahua along his route, with native farmers, with mission monks, with the hope he would return to vibrant fields of fragrant spicy peppers.

The old monks roasted chile in the same manner we do today – over fire with a continuous flipping and tossing of pods so that they are evenly blackened. You can see these roasters at various locations around town – at Lowe’s, at Wal-Mart, on Bridge Street where a quiet man smiles at me as he turns his wire machine. Sometimes I pause and watch him, watch his wiry arms load new green chile into the 55-gallon basket turned on its side, watch him close the hatch, rotate it over a fire fueled by canisters of propane. He concentrates on the chile as it spins, his brown eyes closed in rapture as if his meditation coaxes them to life, to the daily communion of red or green we take at each meal.

I watched two cousins spin green in front of Lowe’s on Mill Street. They chatted with their customer as the broken black skin fell from the wire basket into a trough below the flames. Greg Luhan spoke to me as Orlando Luhan fiddled carefully with the cage, made sure his customer’s chile burned even and true. Greg shrugged his shoulders when I asked him how long he cooked chile.

“Just a month. It’s a job, you know?”

He laughed, as if roasting chile was a small thing, something unimportant. His black hat covered his eyebrows, made him seem mysterious, a chile Ninja. But his dark eyes gave away his emotion, his connection to these long green pods.

“It smells so good.”

I let my words smile for me, let him know I loved his work, loved the way the sky rose with the scent of our ancient land. He smiled, too.

“Yeah. It smells good.”

More photos of Las Vegas, New Mexico uploaded!

I uploaded a handful of photos to my LVNM photo album. Enjoy!

A few more Las Vegas, New Mexico stories

I have published many real-life true stories that take place in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in other venues. You may enjoy these:

Run Frankie, Run!
I sell Avon and chase my pot-bellied pig through town!

Richer than the Sum of My Skirt
What it's like being dirt poor and living in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Popcorn, Cash Bar, Loose Change

My brother-in-law pressed a button on his laptop. The screen faded to black. My sister and I sat cross-legged on the hotel bed as the screen flickered to life, spat shadows of the Manhattan skyline, the Statue of Liberty against our bare legs. Rain hit the window beside us, hit it hard, but I didn’t notice the thunder. My eyes were riveted to the screen, to the video images of airplanes out of control, and my ears grabbed the narrator’s nonchalant recital of alleged secret documents. The rest of my extended family rested from a huge reunion dinner.

“Birdie, this is Loose Change.”

Scott’s voice cut into the movie. He pressed the pause button and looked at me under a shock of blond hair.

“This documentary asks questions about 9-11. The people who put it together think it was an inside job, you know, White House sanctioned.”

I didn’t speak. I didn’t want to say what my mind thought. That’s nuts. You’re crazy. Crazy. I remembered the moment I first heard the planes struck the towers, remembered the frantic attempts to call Angela, call Scott, make sure they weren’t near the World Trade Center. My calls went unanswered, dial tone dead. It took hours to find out they were safe, still at home a few miles from Ground Zero. No wonder Scott was obsessed now, a man trying to defend his New York family.

The movie resumed. Jagged music kept time to jagged photographs while a man kept beat with stark words, unloading fact after strange fact. My mind reeled as the film showed evidence of hijackers still alive, of airplanes that couldn’t possibly have hit the Pentagon, of missing people, missing metal, buildings that collapsed in ballet perfection. I left the family reunion with a deep distrust of everything. Everything. Even the walls seemed to sprout agency eyes.

A week later I fired up my computer. My internet search handed me one rational explanation for the 9-11 events. Then another, quite different. My mind couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t stitch the pieces into a quilt that kept my brain warm. The truth must sit in the middle, sit on the fence the way it always does, a turtle with a hidden head, withdrawn legs, I thought. This country was built on truth, on the ideals of freedom and justice. We’ll discover the details, hold someone’s feet to the fire. Maybe we already do with our nation’s actions in Afghanistan.

This Sunday the New Mexico Green Party holds its monthly progressive movie matinee. Loose Change. 3 pm. Plaza Hotel. I spotted the flier at the entrance to the health food store, Semilla and recalled the first Green Party movie afternoon I attended, a couple months earlier, when I sat in a front row and munched salty popcorn, a frosty margarita in one hand. The lights dimmed, and the projector spun a disjointed tale of oil and waste. The Green Party spokesman didn’t ask for donations or blind faith.

“Just watch the movie and decide for yourself,” he said.

This Sunday I’ll be a Rough Rider at the Plaza Hotel, a woman in a movie seat with popcorn and a stiff drink. I still don’t know what to make of Loose Change, but in this weekend before the anniversary of 9-11 I want to be somewhere. I want to know the truth.

This story was published in the Las Vegas Times on October 1st, 2006.

Salsa Lessons

I stared at the newspaper clipping hanging on my fridge every time I reached for milk. Free Salsa lessons every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. on the Plaza! I almost didn't attend. Babysitters aren't cheap. But the paper taunted me, whispered dreams of a man who would pull me too close, be dangerous with his arms and legs, lead my hips from the dance floor while his breath blew blue flames above my head. I found myself shuttling my young boys to a neighbor's home while I zipped up the back of a sexy black dress and buckled my best heels.

I left my aging green convertible behind the Plaza Hotel. Two young women in low-slung jeans smoked cigarettes, swapped a square compact back and forth. They leaned against a Camaro, wide hips splayed in provocative gestures, dark eyes painted with blue shadow and lined with more mascara than I use in a year. Tiny beaded roses dotted their hair, and I felt underdressed, old, missing the necessary traditional background of ground pork tamales and complicated saints.

The music caught my attention first, grabbed my ears and slung them like gunfire onto the gazebo floor, the sound of accordian and guitars from a black boom-box. Unsure couples faced the young instructor, lifted feet and hands in almost unison and moved with the unpredictable wave of wind through an oak tree. My heart couldn't contain the rhythm of boots against floor. I wanted to fuse with them, to be the music, be a worn guitar, a woman's stacked heel, wanted to melt into the cement beneath me in some strange captured surrender. The sound turned to whisper and the dancers rested, breathed one shot of air together.

"Excuse me, Miss? May I have this dance?" A man stood before me, the tip of his chin reaching the exact center of my forehead. "Just be warned, I haven't danced in some years."

He apologized as a delivery truck idled along the Plaza perimeter, setting the floor to rumble, the music CD to skip a beat. The dancers idled, too, moved legs in practice shuffle and arc.

"That's ok. I'll probably step on your shoes." My eyes studied his cream-colored shirt, the way it draped a body thick with muscle. I could feel his heart beat through his jacket, down his arm, into my right hand, chaotic, aware. He wore boots and a bracelet made of twisted leather.

He smiled at me, his hair thick with gel that smelled of amole. "Please don't worry. We can be useless together."

I liked the words he used, the way he hid something behind them. Couples shuffled into position as our instructor counted beats. My partner snaked his hand behind my back in a delicate wave as if he were afraid of breaking me into tiny pieces. I heard him suck the air through my hair, breath the scent of my skin, and I felt my body respond in the ways dance promises.

My feet slid back, then forward, forgotten steps from some class six eons ago, but my partner kept me steady. His frame covered mine, led mine, pulled me from the scratched floor to a dancehall in heaven, or hades, I didn't know which. I closed my eyes, my thoughts, tried to understand the pattern of light and emotion we demonstrated in sidewinder grace for strangers who circled the Plaza.

I watched my partner walk to his car at the end of class. His body cast a shadow like Godzilla against the slats of the gazebo. The third-quarter moon stared at me, seemed to send me a message, something like laughter, something only the celestial can understand, something like love.

Free Salsa Lessons every Summer Wednesday night at 8 pm on the Plaza. Go. You won’t be disappointed.

Downtown Beavers

Our river harbors secret miracle workers. You can't see them when you cross the simple blue and white bridge that connects the east and west sides of Las Vegas. They labor in the muddy water that follows the north pathway, behind overgrown brush and discarded beer bottles, in the ripe space between our fractured sections of town. Beavers. A colony, as the naturalists would say.

I chatted with a friend as we examined used merchandise at the Salvation Army store.

"Have you seen the beaver dam? It's huge!" I pointed toward old town, as if we could see through six blocks of tired asphalt.

He looked at me thoughtfully through the patch of black hair that fell into his left eye.

"I didn't know we had a beaver dam."

I didn't know about the beaver dam, either, until I happened upon it. Our beavers are quiet - almost invisible - citizens. They gnaw the swollen trunks of water-laden trees in the dead of night, and lace bark and branches together to form a solid home. Their dam stretches in a lazy S-shape across the Rio Gallinas, connecting east and west, holding back a large, still pond filled with algae and decaying reeds. Water striders skim the surface like figure skaters. Plump bullfrog tadpoles hug the edges and look for shelter between silted rocks while they grow strong legs.

The stored water behind the dam is haven to indigenous plants and animals, especially during times of drought.  Native Americans call beavers the "sacred center" of the land because their relentless efforts make habitats for fish, turtles, frogs, and birds. The natural sediment that builds in beaver ponds forms meadows over time, fertile wetlands and grassy areas called "Vegas." Our town owes its name, its existence to generations of these natural engineers.

If you walk along the Rio Gallinas' north pathway, you can see the dam just a few hundred yards from Bridge Street. It snakes across the river in an elegant arc, with many hidden exits and entrances. The complexity and strength of the curving dam is surprising. The beavers follow the curve and corner of the land during construction. Water never flows over a beaver dam. It flows through it like a sieve, holding back just enough liquid to form a pool, adding much needed moisture to the ground.

Our beavers don't mind company if you are patient and quiet. They dip and dive among the reeds, sometimes surfacing with a wriggling fish. They continue with their business as bullfrogs leap from rock to stump, emitting guttural croaks as they zap flying insects with extended tongues. Beavers mate for life, and sometimes two soulmates will float close to the water's edge, look you over with intelligent brown eyes, their flat tails just below the surface.

In these days of Level Three Water Restrictions we can learn a thing or two from our furry wetland experts. Beavers use teamwork and cooperation to build their dams. They don't care about east and west, new and old. They work with the landscape, with what Mother Nature provides, and incorporate the best of their ecosystem in their designs in order to build a strong and lasting home.