![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/colin08.jpg\" "\\"colin08\\"")
<\/a>Our surveillances are so sophisticated. Who\u2019ll be the fly on the wall at your company Christmas party?<\/p>\nSome things, perhaps, we shouldn\u2019t be allowed to see. I\u2019ve just seen one of those things\u2013something PETA might very well call a snuff film for fish.<\/p>\n
What do fish think in their silvery brains? Did you ever think they could be so sympathetic, so nearly human, they could almost make you cry?<\/p>\n
The internet clip I\u2019m talking about is squidoo.com\/underwater-ice-fishing-cameras#module154021950, but it should come with a warning.<\/p>\n
Fish are hypnotized by the bait, which moves and bounces on screen, and you find yourself bonding with them. \u201cDon\u2019t do it!\u201d Or even, \u201cNot you!\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s so much like writing. There\u2019s a sense of probing across invisibility through a medium\u2013the elegant loneliness of a single line, with the hope there\u2019ll be a nibble on the other end. Do you know what I mean? I can\u2019t see you as I write this, but I sense you\u2019re there.<\/p>\n
The disturbing thing is, the fish don\u2019t just look at the bait, they consider it at length and then look at each other, as though asking for input. They flirt with the idea. They stare at it and dream. Attention Merry Madness shoppers with your free wine refills: Have you ever felt yourself falling through the glass while window shopping? You take the bait, then shoop<\/em>! You disappear instantly, out of range of the underwater camera.<\/p>\n Three fish are caught in this \u201cmovie,\u201d and I feel their loss far more individually and personally than I ever did watching tearjerkers like Robocop III<\/em>.<\/p>\n Another secret: The fish you expect to bite the bait isn\u2019t the one who does. He stops, evaluates, makes a few passes. The bait bounces insouciantly. Then, from out of nowhere\u2013you might as well say from away<\/em>\u2013a new fish slides in, some poor bass in a Yankees hat. There\u2019s a pause and, shoop<\/em>!\u2013he\u2019s pulled out of view. Or is it a she?<\/p>\n You can buy the Aqua-Vu AV500 fish camera with ice pod for $300 from amazon.com (again the connection with the written word). It\u2019s in-stock and ready to ship for the holidays. Gift wrapping is available.<\/p>\n I call the company at Crosslake, Minnesota, and the rep warily agrees with me that it\u2019s like looking through someone\u2019s darkened window.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been in business since 1997,\u201d she\u00a0 says. \u201cI\u2019ve used one, and the first time I saw what was under the ice, I thought how could this be real? Because they\u2019re just there<\/em>. It\u2019s amazing. You wonder, how can they not notice this device?\u201d<\/p>\n The camera, you see, is designed to look like a fish. Then it\u2019s all Drag Me [up] to Hell<\/em>. As far as I know, no human models are under development.<\/p>\n December 2011 Our surveillances are so sophisticated. Who\u2019ll be the fly on the wall at your company Christmas party? Some things, perhaps, we shouldn\u2019t be allowed to see. I\u2019ve just seen one of those things\u2013something PETA might very well call a snuff film for fish. What do fish think in their silvery brains? Did you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[41],"class_list":["post-4975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-december-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4975"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14485,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4975\/revisions\/14485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"