anna sent me a link to watch local movie buff/historian matias bombal's 2018 documentary of the history & loss of the alhambra theater.  it was a one-day-only kind of event replete with a secret password to watch the docu on vimeo.  & i watched it.  with pleasure.

because i am a geek for all things about movies & cinema, & i am a nerd about my home town, i am always thrilled to learn about their histories.  the alhambra theater was fashioned in moorish design located on alhambra blvd [renamed for the theater] that opened in 1927.  it was a grand, beautiful movie palace that was common for its time.  the grounds were lush with garden walks & reflecting pools & plaques on the walls with quotes of poetry by omar khayyam & others.  one of those plaques was spared & stands in proud triumph against the ravages of neglect & time along with a wall with a water feature.  i see this wall & fountain & plaque all the time in the parking lot of the safeway supermarket.

my family, like most families, were regular movie-goers.  i was born in the late 1960s.  i grew up with television.  i fell in love with horror movies by watching the local tv horror host bob wilkins'  creature features.  & because wilkins was a glasses wearing stogie chomping square-looking nerd i confused him with woody allen for the longest time!  but it was going to the movies, the hard tops & the drive-ins wear i truly fell in love with movies.  we went to nearly all the theaters & drive-ins in our town.  except for the alhambra.  i don't remember that theater at all.

probably because it was closed & torn down in 1972 to make way for the safeway supermarket.  i was just five years old.  even if my parents took me to the alhambra i wouldn't have a memory of it.  still, watching bombas' documentary makes me regret what we have lost.  those grand movie palaces, & they were palaces with all the trimmings, are of another epoch.  they will never be built again.  as one person in this documentary said we live in a technological driven era.  today our media diets are predicated by our devices & streaming platforms.  

& yet, i think perhaps the alhambra could've been saved.  certainly it would have gone thru decades of neglect.  still, as i was watching this history the alhambra i kept thinking of the fox theater in oakland.  it too was built around the same time.  the fox was also of like moorish fashion & suffered from long time neglect.  but it was lovingly restored in 2009 & is now a top venue for live music.  the alhambra also could've been so brought back to life.  i love live music.  anna & i have been to the fox theater many times since its grand reopening.  the alhambra is just two streets away from me.  walking to a music venue from my house would have been priceless.  besides, the restaurants & music venues of midtown are just a few streets further away.  all within 10-15 minutes walking distance. 

and but anyway, that's all fantastical daydreaming.  their are vestiges of the grand alhambra theater such as the name of the streets & the moorish designs of nearby surviving buildings.  that wall with the water feature with the plaque of a omar khayyam poem remains.  besides, i love having a grocery supermarket at a five minute walk from my house.  even if we are moving toward online ordering & home delivery i like the privilege of the supermarket so close by.  

i couldn't not register the changes in how we consume media.  nearly a hundred years ago the alhambra wowed audiences by showing a short with sound.  the theater was built for sound.  then the theater progressed to showing films in color, 70 mm etc etc, until finally in the 2021 i am watching a documentary about the long gone alhambra theater on a streaming platform with my 15 inch laptop monitor & headphones.  even george jetson couldn't have imagined such a progression.  i kept thinking that as we gain in technology & power we lose some things too.  such as the slower pleasures of a double feature at a movie palace designed to look like a moorish castle in spain.  don't ask me to choose which era is better.  that's a fool's errand.  the past is never as good as we think it is & the future is rarely as scary as it seems.  just different times is all.  as for the future i am still waiting for my promised jet pack.