A piece of my mind

In 1987, the U.S. Patent office issued patent Patent No. 4,666,425 to Chet Fleming for his "Device for perfusing an animal head." In short, a means to keep a head alive once it has been decapitated. And while the patent says "animal head", the illustration looks like the back of a person's head, or at the very least, a primate. It's pretty clear what Chet was really looking to do.

The dream of keeping someone alive after being decapitated has had a long, if less than illustrious history. Movies such as "The Brain that Would Not Die", "Reanimator", and Futurama's famous heads in jars are those that first spring to mind. In point of fact, since the 1830's, less than reputable scientists have been working on the idea with less than stellar results.

Personally, I'm a bit of a traditionalist, and think it's even cooler to just have a brain in a jar. I am, of course, not talking about just a brain in a jar sitting on a museum shelf or as a temporary location before Frankenstein transplants in into a new skull. I'm talking about a living brain. There's just something inherently cool about that. H.P.Lovecraft's Mi-go kidnapped people's brains and kept them in jars. Star Trek's "The Gamesters of Triskelion" had the world controlled by disembodied brains. The Atomic Robo comic has arch-villain Baron von Helsingard as a brain in a jar controlling a robotic war machine. Mad Scientist Helen Narbon rules an alternate future as a brain in a tank.

So, what I've really wanted to do for a number of years now is to build a brain in a jar prop. I picture it being a very steampunk affair with an antique glass specimen jar, a Jacob's Ladder supplying the spark of life, a steam-powered bellows pumping air into the fluid, a telegraph signal used by the occupant to communicate with the outside world. Oh, and not just a brain but eyes as well, to give that full effect. I have a plastic model brain but no matter what I did, it was going to look like a plastic model.

Then I found on line, Adventurers Emporium in England that sold rubber brains. I'm sure if I looked around I could have found a domestic source but I ordered it right away. It arrived today with the customs label reading "One Rubber Brain." That's funny.

It's going to be just right once I find the proper jar and start putting it all together. I handed it to Euphorbia and she could only hold it for a few moments before it creeped her out enough that she had to have me take it away.

Score.