First of all:

Have you been following the convergences contest on the McSweeney’s website? Building on the organizing concept of Lawrence Weschler’s book Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, you find two things that look remarkably similar and you submit the images “along with a paragraph or three exploring the deeper resonances.” (Full contest explanation is here.)

The first image above is a “histological image of an ovary and the primordial follicles within.” The image below it is Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Writes Maya Muñoz: “One could swoon at the very high number of both stars in the night sky and of all the primordial follicles in women on earth … Are the numbers comparable? … And it’s interesting that funding provided to further research in both subjects represented (space exploration, stem cells) is somewhat controversial. Is there something about swirls that raises hesitancy and criticism? What also struck me… was the seeming fact that about half of a certain population of 20-somethings have a print of Starry Night somewhere in otherwise sparsely decorated living rooms. Something else in the lives of about half of 20-somethings everywhere? Ovaries.”

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What’s in Stranger Suggests today, you ask?

Paul Simon
(THE MAN) “The problem is all inside your head she said to me/The answer is easy if you take it logically/I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free/There must be 50 ways to leave your lover/She said it’s really not my habit to intrude/Furthermore I hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued/But I’ll repeat myself, at the risk of being crude/There must be 50 ways to leave your lover.” (KeyArena, 305 Harrison St, ticketmaster.com. 7:30 pm, $39.50—$69.50.)

I finally got around to giving Paul Simon’s new album Surprise, which he made with Brian Eno, a good listen last night. Not bad. Full report to come.