In 1964, Playboy magazine approached several science fiction writers to create short-short stories based on a photograph of a clay head without ears.
The selected stories — Arthur C. Clarke's "Playback", Frederik Pohl's "Lovemaking", and Thomas M. Disch's "Cephalatron" (later "Fun with Your New Head") — were published in the December 1966 issue.
[1] Playboy had rejected Asimov's story, so he submitted it to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which published it in April 1965.
They discuss a new project in which they attempt to manipulate physical matter, and Ames creates a sculpture of a human head.
Ames remembers that he had once been a man, and the force of his vortex splits the head as he turns in search of Brock.