Poems, Science

Brain Sex Science

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I was delighted to learn last week that after scientists conducted a close examination of the one sexual body part no one obsesses over, it was concluded that human brains are not distinctly male or female.

That’s right  – no real difference.  Both sexes come to the dance with the same basic between-the-ears equipment.

When I revealed this to Trail Baboon sing-song poet laureate Tyler Schuyler Wyler, he swept out of the room with no comment and tromped up the stairs to his tiny garrett.

I couldn’t tell if he was hurt, angry or inspired.  Until he appeared several hours later with this:

A research shelf is where they sat.
The bottled brains of May and Matt.
Who once, in life, met in a bar.
Now side-by-side, each in a jar.

Their first encounter didn’t last –
an opportunity both passed.
But in the lab, a perfect date.
Paired up by color, size and weight.

The lab assistants, on a whim,
located hair for she and him.
On the containers, fitted snug,
A girly wig. A manly rug.

The hair was fluffed and teased and plump.
They called them “Marilyn” and “Trump”
And everyone enjoyed the laughs
of brain jar hairstyles, over glass.

But years went by as well they must
The jars and wigs collected dust
Experiments were rather rare
for brains floating beneath fake hair

Until the lids came off one day.
They lifted out both Matt and May
and placed them in sink to drain.
That’s a big deal for an old brain.

With samples taken, back they went.
To their containers, both were sent.
Except no one had thought to ask
which brain belonged inside which flask.

But still they float inside their jars.
Which brain is Venus, and which Mars
has not been proven to this day –
without the wig and the toupee. 

Describe your favorite headgear.

 

57 thoughts on “Brain Sex Science”

  2. I have a new hat that I am waiting to wear – weather needs to be a bit colder. It is a knit cap with the face of a penguin on the front and ear flaps…Daughter has a similar one with the face of an owl. I may be too old for such things according to some, but I don’t pay attention to those folks. We already wind up looking ridiculous enough in winter to stay warm, why not embrace the ridiculous?

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  4. It depends on the occasion and the season. This time of year, although it has been wonderfully balmy lately, I like my felted, multicolored, hand knit hat. During the summer, my trusty Wallaroo hat get’s the job – of keeping the sun from scorching my fair skin – done.

    Truth be told, though, I really prefer nothing on my head but hair.

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  5. fedora is my answer
    bogart, Sinatra, cowboy homburg, ahhhh
    I love headgear.
    2 years old wanted a cowboy hat for Christmas. nothing’s changed but the calendar.
    I have a dobbs super soft felt charcoal gray today that’s not for sale because I have never seen another like it. a double thickness of a cashmere like felt that makes an unnoticed elegance that I share with myself. yesterday I wore an old black homburg a swede enquirer about. I need to follow up with him on that. hats and headgear are a year round pleasure for me
    Panama in the summer, beaver felt in the winter lit weights in the spring and fall. there is a little community of hat enthusiasts online and we ask and comment on each other’s stuff. headgear r us

    men and women the same brain
    maybe organically but something happens along the way
    how come fish and birds and dogs have such different places they come at their world from? I suspect political correctness may play as big a role in this study as data did. any man can tweak the data to read however the woman tells him it’s supposed to read.
    I have a study to prove it right over here….

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  6. fedora is my answer
    bogart, Sinatra, cowboy homburg, ahhhh
    I love headgear.
    2 years old wanted a cowboy hat for Christmas. nothing’s changed but the calendar.
    I have a dobbs super soft felt charcoal gray today that’s not for sale because I have never seen another like it. a double thickness of a cashmere like felt that makes an unnoticed elegance that I share with myself. yesterday I wore an old black homburg a swede enquirer about. I need to follow up with him on that. hats and headgear are a year round pleasure for me
    Panama in the summer, beaver felt in the winter lit weights in the spring and fall. there is a little community of hat enthusiasts online and we ask and comment on each other’s stuff. headgear r us

    men and women the same brain
    maybe organically but something happens along the way
    how come fish and birds and dogs have such different places they come at their world from? I suspect political correctness may play as big a role in this study as data did. any man can tweak the data to read however the woman tells him it’s supposed to read.
    I have a study to prove it right over here….

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    1. I hate people who are so intimate with an exotic location that they call it by its first name.

      But, having dissed you, I want your help. How do you post photos? I suspect they have to be already on the internet.

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        1. Or if you find a picture, copy the address and paste it into the comment box. I’ve found I can only paste one picture per comment box.

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  8. Hats! Oh, please! I am a bitter non-hat wearer because I look ridiculous in about any hat i try on. Husband is very annoying with his hats. He has winter caps and summer caps and has to have just the right cap for every occasion and chooses them out for reasons I just can’t discern. He also has a Stetson fedora and another hat that he likes to wear with his trench coat. i think he looks like a an accountant who has come to audit the books when he wears those hats. He thinks he looks like a detective.

    I am crabby right now because we are getting ready to hit the road to Pine Ridge and it is snowing and misting and I am worried that the roads will be slippery . it looks to be ok once we hit South Dakota.

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  10. Stylish people, like Trump and Marilyn, don’t usually wear hats. I guess they want to show their hair. If that was really Trump’s brain in that jar, I think the ego part of the brain would be very large and the part that gives intelligence would be very small. I imagine Marilyn’s brain would be normal even though she played the role of a dumb blond and some might think she had a small brain.

    I like to keep my head covered when I am outside and usually wear a baseball type of hat, or it might be called a seed cap by some rural people. In the winter I like to have my ears covered and usually wear a knitted cap to keep my ears warm.

    I like a cap with a brim that shades my eyes from the sun. I have tried some wide brim hats and found that I can’t keep them on my head when the wind is blowing. Baseball caps shade my eyes and stay on my head in windy conditions. An other type of hat I like for winter is a snap brim cap with ear flaps because it has a brim in front that shades my eyes. I don’t wear baseball caps with ear flaps in the winter because I have been told they make me look weird.

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  11. I’ve bought some very nice hats from Sacred Feather in Madison:

    http://sacred-feather.myshopify.com/

    My favorite of those is a porkpie nicknamed “the Jazzman” (no longer on the website). However, I seldom wear it, because hats are kind of a pain: they always want to blow away (why don’t they make hats with the button and string anymore?); they do weird things to your hair, even when it’s as short as mine; they need to be stored where they won’t get dusty or damaged; you have to be careful not to lean your head back against something because you’ll crush the brim; if you take it off you need to find a place to set it and then you have to remember to pick it up again. I lost a gorgeous black velvet cloche once. By the time I realized it was missing, I couldn’t remember everywhere I’d been–in my own defense, it was the holiday season, and I was doing a lot of substitute librarianing up and down the county, so I couldn’t remember if I’d last had it in Edina or Maple Grove. I like hats, but I end up using my hoodie a whole lot more often.

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    2. wind trolley is the name for the button and string designed to attach to the button on your coat so when the wind blows it off it is attached and simply lands in the dirt at your feet and then blows out a foot beyond your reach. as for hat loss… a name card with your contact information always gets your hat back to you. when I sell a hat there is a card inserted in the sweatband that says…
      like hell its yours put it back
      this hat belongs to…. with your name address and email. phone number etc.
      it’s an old cowboy hat tradition from back in thendaynwhen you’d walk into the dinner club and put your coat on the pegs and your hat in the rack and there would be more than one of the type you wear.
      look at all those 50’s movies and see how similar the brown ones look.

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  12. OMG, wonderful, inspired poetry again! You guys are awesome. I don’t like headgear except my own hair. However, in the cold of winter I prefer earmuffs along with my silver and blingy barrettes and headbands.

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      1. I was out and about all day so unfortunately missed the re-play. Hope some of our requested songs made it into the morning hours!

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  14. I love hooded coats – one less thing to carry, I can take it off when I’m warmed up, doesn’t wreck the hairdo (well, when I had one). All my winter coats have a hood.

    Summertime – a basic straw with a wide brim. I look ridiculous in a baseball style cap. Or a scarf tied at the nape a la the 70s.

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  16. I, too, look ridiculous in just about any type of hat so usually don’t wear them. I will wear either earmuffs or a plain knit hat to keep my head warm in the winter since my hair is really short. And if it is really cold and windy, I’ll put on my long down coat with the hood that has fur edging – you can’t even see my face and it sure is toasty.

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  17. Well…

    My hat days began just as I had just graduated high school. The Glass Block department store in the Miller Hill Mall was going out of business. My mother, never one to pass up a good deal, insisted that we go clothes shopping. As we were leaving, there was a white, linen fedora on the extra-extra clearance table. My mother squawked as I picked it up to examine it. “Put that back,” she said with disdain, “you’ll never wear that!” But, for all of $8.00, I insisted on adding it to the cart. Later that summer, I was drafted (pretty much literally) into giving tours on the S/S William A. Irvin. Now working outdoors in Duluth, I quickly realized the need for a hat. Baseball caps have never really been my style. So, I dug it out, started wearing it on my tours and the rest is history.

    I have since refined my taste in my preferred hat style. I find that I enjoy what is known as the Outback style. A lower crown and a wider brim are better for management of sun, rain, and snow. Although, it does mean that you have to be more conscious of wind. For summer, I prefer a mesh crown (so my brain doesn’t overheat). I’ve become fond of the crushable, ventilated, canvas hat from Coolibar (I just tie the string around brim to avoid the ‘chinstrap’ look). For winter, I wear a crushable wool felt Outback from K-Hats with a minimal hat band and no chin string. Many Outback style hats come with a snap on the side for the Australian Military look…I avoid snaps on my hats. And I’m not a fan of hats with feathers…I always remove the feather from my hat band.

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  18. I also have a favorite outback hat with mesh crown where I attach various logo pins including ones from MPR. Several years ago when Banana Republic was still recycling old military clothing, i bought a 1940s Swedish winter cap with various options of ear flaps up or down, brim up or down. I wore it for many years when, but haven’t for a long time. May be time to pull it out and try it again and see if it will stay on. But first it has to get colder.

    On the other hand, much as I love hats, I don’t really like how I look in them…as others have mentioned.

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  22. Evening.
    You know me; regular ‘seed corn’ cap / baseball cap for me. Lots of logos though. Got my fancy black and yellow John Deere cap for formal occasions. Got my everyday Meyers Seeds cap, got the cap with the college logo on it for performance nights (will have it on in just a few minutes).
    Tried other hats and none look right. At least to me.
    Except….
    There is this black cowboy hat down in the costume shop. It’s a nice hat. I’ve worn that a few times but it’s been more as a joke than any kind of serious head gear.

    Oh– I also have the baseball cap with the lights in the bill and the ear flaps. I wear that one doing chores in the dark.
    I made fun of it when my brother-in-law gave it to me. But it has proven useful.

    Hate getting my head wet in the rain or snow. Gotta have a cap. I’ll walk through a T-storm but only if I have my hat.

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  23. For cold weather, I have a hat I got from REI. It is wool, with a fleece lining and keeps my head toasty warm even in super cold weather. Haven’t need it much this winter (can you call this winter? yesterday afternoon it was 45 and raining hard), but it’s the best winter hat I’ve ever had.

    And in the warmer months I’ve taken to wearing a MN Twins baseball hat that I found at Savers for almost nothing. It does a great job of shading my eyes from the bright sun. I look dorky in it, but my eyes thank me for wearing it, so I don’t care how I look.

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    2. I’m with you on the Robert Redford part. Not sure the “do” on the left is elaborate enough for my internal vision of Dolly.

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