Such is the electric opulence of Las Vegas, my erstwhile home, that one can forget how vast quantities of power and water are required to keep the city in its customary orgasmic brilliance.
Enter the Colorado River–which kisses the southern edge of the Silver State and keeps Las Vegas alive.
Of course, long ago, when the southwestern states divvied up river resources, little did they imagine that a city of 2 million high-maintenance souls would emerge in the pitiless Desert cauldron of the Las Vegas Valley.
But emerge that city did, replete with mod cons and then some. And then along came Global Warming in the shape of an ongoing drought.
Add to that trenchant opposition to water extraction from rural counties…and you end up with the present situation: a regional water system under severe stress, as evidenced by the dramatic “bath ring” in Lake Mead pictured above.
You can read an article I just wrote for the NRDC’s Smarter Cities website on this topic, as well as listen to a portion of an interview I conducted with Pat Mulroy, the Las Vegan charged with meeting the city’s water needs, by clicking the link below:
Here’s an original story I told at an Open Mic in the Linenhall the other night. The standard was really high among poets, storytellers, and songwriters.
If there is an Open Mic event near you, I urge you to go: you never know what you will discover.
If you are in or near Las Vegas in early June, I hope you can make it to the production of my new play Last of the Vegas Magicians, directed by Ruth Pe Palileo, and produced by Butcher Block Productions.
The protagonist, a retired conjuror called Victor Goodbody, is living out his last days in a Las Vegas Valley hospice. Having been relatively unsuccessful in life and love, he has come to delude himself that he is in fact a real magician:
By the power of magic alone I raised not only the City of Las Vegas–but also the Volta Hotel and Casino–eighth wonder of the world and eclipser of the first pyramids of Old Vegas. With only words from the Lore Books and the force of my Will I raised a Stratosphere and a Forum. Volcanoes rose and fell at my command…even statues moved.
For Victor, electricity and digital lifestyles are an abomination, and he raves and rages against modern Las Vegas with wild (and, I hope, entertaining) abandon. As his illness progresses, his Doctor and Nurse play out the roles of figures from his past, allowing Victor to come to some sort of terms with the loss of his mother and his lover.
Here’s the schedule, with all performances taking place at the Las Vegas Little Theatre:
Video of the talk I gave the other night in Westport, at Ignite the West. Great fun, great people, and a really good forum to hatch new ideas. Thanks to the organizers, Steve and Dermot, for a great opportunity.
If you are in Leinster this week, check out my short play Sing Hibernia, appearing on Tuesday as part of a BIFE Director’s show in Bray. The piece was originally produced by Painted Filly Theatre in Temple Bar a few years back and I am delighted to be able to see it again.
My short play, Sing Hibernia, staged in 2008 by Painted Filly Theatre in Dublin, appears in the current issue (#23) of Nevadan literary journal, The Red Rock Review.
DEE: Sing Hibernia? The maidens will no doubt spreadeagle themselves on every known crossroad. Has your spoon wilted or what? Do you be forgetting that I am Dee, most high consumer of skincare products from the laboratoires of Lake Geneva? Dee, decked out every waking hour like the nest of a magpie in designer labels so exclusive they have yet to be knocked off? Sing Hibernia how are you?
NAOISE: And do you forget, Dee, that I am Neesh most honoured of Tribunal solicitors, who did his J-1 in Cape Cod and travelled once to Machu Pichu after college, and drives a turbocharged Audi TT morning, noon, and night? Begone with your spoons, wicked woman! It is babies you are wanting from me and the promulgation of the marriage banns in national newspapers on two consecutive Mondays! I have your measure!
Though usually available, if memory serves, in all Nevadan bookstores worthy of the name, the journal is currently changing distributors so, if you want a copy, send a $5.50 check (payable to “Board of Regents”) to English Department J2A, College of Southern Nevada, 3200 East Cheyenne Avenue, North Las Vegas, NV 89030.
My short play “Hibernian Exit” recently featured as part of 100 Minutes 2009 which ran for twelve performances at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Dublin.
Thanks are due to the director, Will Irvine, and especially the actors, Aidan Jordan, Claudia Schwartz, and the amazing Lorna Quinn.
The play concerns an extraterrestrial intervention in the affairs of a country battered by financial crisis and skyrocketing unemployment:
ADMIRAL: Let me guess…you want me to rescue this little band of Celts, is that it? And how do you suggest, young Meindroid, we get this shower of saints and scholars across six dimensions and up the back arse of a galactic wormhole?
MEINDROID: We could use the Moving Statues strategy, your welcomeness.
My play Grace of the Median, a comedy of Hiberno-American errors, got a public reading, with actors, in the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, on July 19th:
I am an Irish rock. Whoever treads on me–Norman or Gael, peasant or prince, child or crone–is all one to me. Civilization itself is but five minutes old in my day-long life; the British Empire, the Irish Republic, Eurovision, the blink of an eye…
It was a really useful exercise for me: I cut quite a bit of the text as the week progressed and have since, as a direct result of feedback, inserted 2 new scenes, made innumerable microcuts, and plan to redraft before I submit the play for a full performance.
The event was produced by Painted Filly Theatre Company, directed by Louise Lowe, and featured a great cast: Christopher Samuel Carroll, Derval Cromie, Mark Gordon, Brian McGovern, Sarah-Jayne Quigley, and Lorna Quinn. (Thank you to all–and to any of you that came on the day.)
Image: ‘The Road to Ragged Mountain’ by Chris Seufert on Flickr
My short story “Ursula’s Ghost” is in Crannóg Magazine‘s summer issue (affording me the great pleasure of reading it at the launch event in Galway). The piece is a spooky little number about a returned emigrant with blood on her hands…
Was she thinking of the man she had just killed? No. She was back living in Ireland after twenty years away in America and, perhaps to take her mind off things, was idly flicking through the changes she had found.
What had she noticed? The cracked pavements, with their teeming weedlife, for one; washing lines and lace curtains; the smell of rain and the sight of rust; the smokers stooped about doors; the Slav and English accents everywhere; the stone and the grey and piped music and yes the damp, the mist, the rain.
Such is the electric opulence of Las Vegas, my erstwhile home, that one can forget how vast quantities of power and water are required to keep the city in its customary orgasmic brilliance. 
Here’s an original story I told at an Open Mic in the 
Here’s an original story I told at an Open Mic in the 
If you are in or near Las Vegas in early June, I hope you can make it to the production of my new play Last of the Vegas Magicians, directed by Ruth Pe Palileo, and produced by Butcher Block Productions. 
If you are in Leinster this week, check out my short play Sing Hibernia, appearing on Tuesday as part of a BIFE Director’s show in Bray. The piece was originally produced by Painted Filly Theatre in Temple Bar a few years back and I am delighted to be able to see it again.
My short play, Sing Hibernia, staged in 2008 by Painted Filly Theatre in Dublin, appears in the current issue (#23) of Nevadan literary journal, The Red Rock Review.
