Morningside

The third time the homeless man and I made eye-contact I decided to go to the movie.

This is all on account of the fact that, apparently, I’ve gone prematurely senile. I am now in my high twenties and lock myself out of my flat at least twice a month. It’s horrifying. Before aging past a quarter of a century this never happened. Yet today, like several horrifying predecessors, I stepped out to buy groceries, heard the “SNAP!” of the lock, and realized with grim certainty that I’d exiled myself from my own abode. In fact I have a spare set of keys hidden out back for such an occurrence, but I loaned them to the plumber.

I also have flatmates, who in theory would let me back in, but again this has become common enough that I didn’t wish to press the issue. Instead I decided I would purchase a newspaper and enjoy some green tea, which has anti-oxidants and should forswear the rapid mental degradation which has plagued me of late.

So I started marching north to buy a newspaper, then remembered a newspaper stand was actually closer south, then bought a newspaper and trudged north towards a cafe, but once again remembered that a tea shop I’d been meaning to try was in fact further south. So I went there, but it was full, so I started stumbling north again. I briefly ducked into the cheese monger and bakery which are half a block from my flat.

When I popped out I saw the same bearded homeless man I’d already passed each time I’d changed course, and I noticed that he had a newspaper under his arm and his own bag of some sort. Visually, the only difference was that I am clean shaven and a snappier dresser. (When I was an undergraduate I used to volunteer at a local soup kitchen with my church on weekends. I was always astounded to discover that most of the homeless people are indistinguishable from Anthropology professors, sans elbow patches.)

That’s alright. For some time I’ve been meaning to check out the Dominion Theatre, which is half a block from my flat.

Morningside used to be littered with cinemas. Indeed my present abode was at one point such a venue. My building began life as the Silver Slipper Dance Hall, the “dance hall of ill repute” in Morningside. Later on, when the clientele were scared off or the dancers put on weight, it closed down, only to experience a rebirth as the Morningside Theatre. Either the Silver Slipper or the Morningside Theatre spawned the Old West set behind my flat.

I discovered this a day or two before I moved in– it’s literally an Old West film set located in what would normally consistute the parking lot for my building. You walk past it – house, house, parking garage, house– then turn down an alley and BAM! Saloon, Jail House, Cantina, Blacksmith. Suddenly you’re in a Clint Eastwood movie. Or perhaps one of the lower budget Star Trek episodes. Regardless, I was delighted to find that a seemingly unrelated epoch is adrift in the adjacent lot.

Anyway, most of Edinburgh’s movie theatres died out years ago. There are still several, but they’ve consolidated. The one in my neighborhood is the Dominion Theatre, which I will put in the Top Two of theatres I have ever been to.

The other contender is Warren Theatre in Moore, Oklahoma. The theatre in Moore is all Art Deco and has a balcony and bar and even fire places adjacent to the bathrooms. It’s really a nice experience.

Conversely, the Dominion Theatre in Edinburgh has morphed over the years into a sort of posh home theatre. When I purchased my ticket today, with no goal other than staying out of the wind until my flatmates came home, the young lady behind the register explained that, with my base-level ticket, I would be entitled only to “a recliner, a bottle of water and a can of Pringles.” (Who on earth goes to films without a trusty can of Pringles, I wonder?) After I purchased the ticket a young woman escorted me up the stairs and then to my specific seat, which was a stand-alone leather recliner. No fighting over arm rests for me!

Not only that, the Dominion Theatre, being an upper crust cinema, apparently foregoes all previews as well. They instead start films ten minutes late (to give everyone a chance to show up) then launch directly into the movie. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue for me, but I should note that movie previews in Scotland last a minimum of forty-five minutes. You can show up an hour late to most theatres and only miss the opening credits to your film of choice.

This was merely a low-level excursion to The Dominion. They can escalate to even crazier degrees of posh. Friends inform me that, on a Friday night, your ticket is taken by a forty-year-old in a tuxedo. If you pay for a better ticket, you get an entire couch to yourself. And with that couch you get a whole bottle of wine!

And, of course, a can of Pringles.