Nocturnal Carp Invasion

For one beautiful weekend, the alley between 9th street and 10th street was swimming with a school of luminous, silver carp.  Thank you True/False.

Corner Camera

Photographed with a very questionable FM-2 at the corner of a poetically empty alleyway on a night whose weather and details I can no longer recall.  This might still be there, but it has probably been painted over since then.

Downtown Alley (undeveloped)

I've always been fascinated by this particular alleyway in Columbia.  The entrance to it, with the clapboard-style barbershop flanking the right hand side, is beckoning.  Especially at night, when the interior of the barber shop glows reassuringly, and a couple meager street lights illuminate select patches of brick and pavement far down the yawning alleway.  My great grandfather was a barber in the small Missouri town of Latham, down near California.  Somewhere at home my dad still has the set of whet stones that he used to keep sharp the tools of his trade.

Corner of Seventh and Alleyway

The uniquely-rounded corner of Chong's Oriental Market and a beckoning alleyway on a deserted, summer night, downtown Columbia.

Alley bicycle

I saw this ten speed lurking seductively in the entrance to an alleyway last night.  It was cunningly side-lit, as if it were inhabiting a film noir.  Summertime in Columbia.

Choir Window Epiphany

I was in the alley between Columbia Photo and the church on Ninth street when I heard music.  Not from a stereo or a club, but coming from beneath the ground.  Somewhere beneath my feet a church choir was holding a Wednesday night practice.  I have walked by this window dozens of times, noting the painted music on the panes, but never making the connection.  It was something of a Dickensian moment, to hear choral singing on a January night, too see shadowy figures moving about behind the warmly lit, leaded window panes of a church basement.  All the while sliding slowly down the icy alleyway towards Eighth street.

Alley cigarette, Thursday night

A smoke break in the alley behind Broadway.