Shining – "Fisheye" (2010)

One, three, seven, five!

One, three, four, nine! 

Fisheye, fisheye!

A couple of years ago, an aging rockfish at the Vancouver Aquarium had his left eye removed because it had cataracts.

"Then," according to the Washington Post, " the bullying began."  Pretty soon, the rockfish was "starting to look a bit ragged and beat up."  It had loose scales, and kept to the bottom of the tank where it lived – in essence, hiding out.

Scientists at the aquarium saw that the other fish in the tank were picking on the one-eyed rockfish.  They noticed that it was missing its left eye, and so they attacked it from that side – its blind side.

Former Washington Redskins QB Joe Theisman suffered a gruesome injury when New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor sensed the weakness of the Redskins' left tackle and blitzed Theisman from his blind side.

Michael Lewis's book about left tackles, which he titled The Blind Side, opened with an account the Taylor-Theisman encounter.  It was a great book, and might have been a great movie . . . except someone got the bright idea of casting Sandra Bullock in a prominent role:

The best example of how males of the human species behave when they sense weakness in other males is what happens when a gentleman d'un certain âge escorts a much younger female to a party or a club.  The younger males – fancying themselves to be stronger and more virile – start to circle the couple, intending to separate the more mature male from his toothsome young companion.

It requires prompt and decisive action on the part of the elder man to establish his dominance over a younger rival.  One way to do that is to wreak physical havoc – perhaps deliver a swift kick to the 'nads.

But the most successful tactic for an older man who is faced with competition from younger men is to pull out his wallet and flash a thick wad of Benjamins backed up with an American Express black card.  That is usually enough to put an appreciative smile on the face of his frisky mademoiselle and send his callow young rivals home with their . . . um, tails . . . between their legs.

Of course, rockfish don't have Amex cards.  They don't even have wallets.

But the aquarium's head veterinarian was up to the task.  He gave the rockfish a prosthetic eye like the ones that are used by taxidermists when mounting trophy fish for showoff anglers.

Click here to watch a video about the rockfish surgery.

The rockfish's potential bulliers couldn't tell the difference between the fake eye and a real one, and no longer perceived the one-eyed Sebastes caurinus as a vulnerable weakling.  

"He's up in the middle of the tank," the happy veterinarian said.  "He's using the whole water column.  He's moving around in a normal way and interacting, looking like a happy fish."

Copper rockfish (Sebastes caurinus)

Rockfish (who are known as striped bass in my part of the world) can live to be 80 or even 100 years old.  

But most don't make it that long . . . because rockfish are delicious!  Click here for some tasty rockfish recipes.

If you've read this far, you should click on this link, which will take you to a Washington Post story about how zookeepers in Colorado used radiation therapy on a 40-year-old African penguin who had cancer.  

Two weeks after her treatment, the patient – a female named Tess – was reunited with her 33-year-old mate, Mongo.  (Awwwww!)

Shining is an avant-garde band from Norway that started out as an acoustic jazz quartet but has evolved into a larger and louder progressive-metal sort of group.  

"Fisheye" was released in 2010 on Shining's fifth studio album, Blackjazz.  

The song is a newer version of the seventh movement of the so-called "Armageddon Concerto" (original title: "Nine Nights in Nothingness – Glimpses of Downfall"), which was jointly composed by members of Shining and the Norwegian metal band, Enslaved.

According to one Norwegian critic, the "Armageddon Concerto" was inspired by Norse mythology, doomeday cults, and science fiction.  It describes the end of the world, the post-apocalyptic environment, and the birth of a new world.

Here's "Fisheye":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: