January 8, 2006

So when I woke up from the dream (see my two most recent posts if you don’t know what I’m talking about), I instantly realized that the thing to do to give my life meaning would be to knit a brain.

Out of curiosity, I googled “knitted brain,” not really expecting to find anything.

And what came up was–I am not making this up–the Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art. O world, I thought, I cannot hold thee close enough!

I emailed the curator at once, asking him for the contact information of the creator of the knitted brain so that I could get the pattern from her.

Within hours I got an email from her, saying that, alas, she hadn’t written a pattern, but she was beginning to wish she had, because I was the second person to ask about this in the past week.

The mind boggles.

I was consumed with both an intense desire to meet the person to whom I had been so synchroniously connected and a deep and abiding hatred of my rival. And then I started wondering, how many more of us are there?

But mostly I just wanted somehow to acquire suddenly a complete understanding of writing knitting patterns, because she sent me more photographs, and this is what the knitted brain looks like (click on the images to see a larger view):

Note the zipper in the corpus callosum above.

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31 Responses to So when I woke up from the dream

  1. mak says:

    And somehow my only reaction to this seems to be, “Of course. This makes perfect sense.”

    Reply
  2. Well, duh.

    Reply
  3. Jonsin says:

    Even if you’re one in a million there are six thousand other people just like you.

    Reply
  4. Rich says:

    Whats the purpose of the zipper in a brain?

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  5. Well, my understanding is that the corpus callosum is more or less what holds the two hemispheres together. When people have split-brain surgery (a drastic but effective treatment for severe epilepsy), it’s the corpus callosum that gets mostly snipped away. So the zipper kind of makes sense.

    Reply
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  7. Scott says:

    People like you? I somehow doubt that. You, sir, might possibly be too creative for your own good. But I like it. 🙂

    Reply
  8. Jeff says:

    Those pictures are making me a little bit ill. Now I know why I’m not a doctor or a knitter.

    Reply
  9. David says:

    Those photos have the alarming ability to not only put me off my lunch, but also my wardrobe.

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  10. Jeffrey says:

    Knitted brains? I miss your days of aerobics, cheer squad, and casual sex.

    Reply
  11. sep says:

    I KNEW it was multi-colored! No one could convince me it was just “grey” matter. Thanks!

    Reply
  12. Scott: I bet you say that to all the boys.

    Jeff and David: Actually, they kind of make me hungry.

    Jeffrey: You and me both, buddy.

    sep: I think it’s gray only in boring people.

    Reply
  13. Franklin says:

    I think mine is made out of fun fur. Except it’s not much fun.

    Reply
  14. Mush says:

    While they’re disturbing, I guess they’re no worse than that knitted uterus they had over at knitty.com. Ugh.

    And are you quite sure they’re knitted, and not crocheted?

    If I needed to model body parts, I think I’d choose Play-doh over yarn. (This in an effort to make you and your six thousand brain-knitting new friends feel suitably obscure and superior.)

    Reply
  15. A friend of mine actually knitted the uterus from knitty.com, and it looked kind of fabulous.

    Reply
  16. Andy says:

    I would like to comment but…I have no words…

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  17. Michelle says:

    Okay, am I the only on who wants to know which Sidney Bristow wig you were wearing in the dream?

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  18. Ruby says:

    Faustus, I don’t know how to knit, but seeing the your knitting over the years and your dream of a knitted brain made me go out and buy some yarn. Now I don’t know what to do with it. I just showed the enlarged pics to my bf and he’s looking at me as id I’m weird, lol!

    I want to knit this! Too bad she doesn’t have the pattern.

    Now I too want to know, what wig were you wearing????

    Reply
  19. Paul says:

    Good gracious. What an interesting use of knitting. What next? The different lobes of the liver? 🙂

    Paul

    Reply
  20. Mush says:

    and it looked kind of fabulous.

    I don’t have anything against knitted uteruses, truly. I bet it was fabulous.

    Google is also fabulous.

    Reply
  21. MzOuiser says:

    If I had only seen this prior to the holidays! It would have made a perfect gift for a certain Clinical Neuropsychologist I know.

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  22. Yasmine says:

    My boyfriend went to Hong Kong and brought back a squishy rubber penis, but a knitted brain is so much sexier. I want to get me one of those!

    Reply
  23. I’ve made the knitted uterus from Knitty–I made a cheerful multi-color version for my aunt, after she had a hysterectomy.

    I would think that this brain could probably be done using a bunch of knitted i-cord, then gathered back on itself. I may have to try…

    Reply
  24. christophe says:

    For a while there – was drawn to the pictures and did not realise that you hadn’t knitted the brain – I went totally nuts, because the idea that you had learnt to knit a brain overnight… well, let’s say I was going to fly you over to Belgium to help me out a bit.
    Great post though… Some people really do have odd hobbies…

    Reply
  25. Alan says:

    I’m not really sure why but these knitted brains reminded me of a website devoted to dogs dressed in bumble bee costumes. I did a search for it and couldn’t find it apart from this one:

    http://www.kooldawgtees.com/dog_costumes.html

    Reply
  26. Laura P says:

    the knitted brain is pretty cool, in my opinion. It reminded me of an artist named Tom Friedman, particularly a grusome self-portrait he made entirely out of construction paper.

    Reply
  27. I cannot believe that is for real, how perfect. The big WOW factor for sure.

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  28. hey is this the new form of modern art?

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  29. Some unusual, but original creations of knitting…. beats traditional hats and scarfs thats for sure.

    Reply
  30. Masry Lisa says:

    I can think of a few people who would be improved by this.

    Reply
  31. Joel Derfner says:

    Only a few?

    Reply

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