Abstract Books

Without writing a summary, I have to say that this book was delightful. It gives an excellent perspective on western thought in the early 20th century.
I definitely recommend it to anyone interested in art theory, art history, architectural history, or just generally interested in the modern movement.

Published in 1908 , this doctoral dissertation of Wilhelm Worringer soon became the most valid theoritical support for Expressionism.Elaborating the idea of Riegl's "kunstwolen"(roughly means the will to create)Worringer suggested that the history of art is the history of artistic intentions raher than the artistic skills which culminates in the scientific observaton of the external world and became a Greco-Roman-Reaissance tradition.Empathy ,on he oher hand,is a subjective approach to aesthetics and fails to exlplain the arts outside the European tradition.So a more fundamental phychology is needed and Worringer showed that how this "will to form" at any period of human history is related to a man's surrounding world which causes him insecurity and fear. Art is a responce to overcome this constant flow of randomness and becomes a corrective to this feeling by means of creating permanent asthetic forms. Great book .Physical shape and large font of this book is highly satisfying.Also read author's "Form in Gothic".

Breaking man's urge to create down to the point of a dialectic battle between his level of comfort with the surrounding environment, Worringer outlines the historical balance between our urge to make what we perceive concrete (through abstraction) or organic (through empathy). This classic dissertation argues it is only by finding a state of equipoise between these two urges that art can make a lasting connection with any generation.

Recommended for all those interested in advancing art and design evaluation beyond mere opinion.

A wonderful book; interesting, beautiful, profound, well-made. Exactly what I had been looking for for a while.

An instant after picking up this book I knew I had finally found a worthwhile treatment of science-art relationships. The impeccable good taste exhibited in the choice of illustrations, some of which are new and stunning, the fine layout, and the incisive prose devoid of the usual desultory obfuscations all point to a refreshing, enlightening experience. Lynn Gamwell's broad knowledge of both science and art illuminates her subject crisply. The prose is clear, devoid of any condescension. Her subjects range widely. Every page brings new delights and insights inextricably linking science and art, so confidently presented one wonders why all the recent overblown clutter surrounding this subject was ever printed.

One curious omission in the book is the role of the computer in the science-art relationship. One does not find the word "computer" in the index, nor the word "digital". Yet, some very modern examples are given, e.g recent Hubble telescope images. One can only hope this means she is saving this topic for another book.

This is a challenging read. A prerequisite to finishing this book is that you have a developed interest in all three areas noted in its title. There are some wonderful insights offered the reader, but these are buried in excessive, pedantic detail. Not a page burner.

First we study the classical construction problems. With ruler and compass we can construct precisely the numbers built up by rational operations and square roots, since our construction tools are "limited to degree two". For some specific number it could be very easy to prove that it is not constructible. This is the case for the cube root of 2 and the cosine of 20---the constructions equivalent to the classical problems of doubling the cube and trisecting an angle. These proofs are based on first proving that if we were trying to reach these number from the rationals then one more square root could never be the final step, so if they were constructible they must have been among the rationals in the first place, and since they are clearly irrational it follows that they are not constructible. But this approach does not work for proving that it is impossible to construct pi (square the circle). Here a great detour is required, using the "upper bound" on constructibility that any constructible number is algebraic. The proof that pi is not algebraic doesn't have anything to do with field theory; instead, for example, we are asked to work out a chunk of complex function theory in the exercises (complex exponential function, fundamental theorem of calculus). The next chapter follows a similar pattern: field theory is introduced in all its glory, and we wish to use it to study construbtibility of n-gons. In accordance with the above, "constructible" is now equivalent to "obtainable by field extensions of degree two", and this allows us to rule out many n-gons as impossible. But this fancy-pants theory cannot help us prove that the 2^n Fermat prime n-gons are in fact constructible---here we cannot improve on the ingeniously contrived proof of Gauss. So far, then, "field theory" is a bit of a failure since it had nothing to do with the proofs of our two most interesting theorems---indeed, its pointlessness forces Hadlock to resort to two "it is natural to ask..." proclamations in two pages (pp. 72-73). But we soon see that field theory is not entirely useless when we study the classical Galois theory of solvability by radicals. This is a standard treatment just as in any Galois theory textbook, but we then go deeper into follow-up questions: unsolvability by radicals of the general quintic of course follows from the unsolvability of its Galois group S_n, but then we set out to find specific polynomial equations that are not solvable by radicals. Some hard work with classical algebra and analysis enables us to prove Hilbert's irreducibility theorem: for any irreducible polynomial in n+1 variables we can pick rational values for n of the variables so that the resulting polynomial in one variable is still irreducible. With this result we can construct a polynomial of degree n whose Galois group has order at least n!, so it must equal S_n, so all roots are interchangeable, so all roots belong to the same factorisation. It follows that there are equations of any degree greater than 4 with no roots expressible in terms of radicals and that there are unconstructible numbers of degree 2^m (not surprising since the general solution of the quartic is based on reduction to a cubic and so involves cube roots).

Hadlock writes in a brisk, thorough style, leaving no stone unturned in what I believe to be an excellent introduction to the subject. I bought this book as an undergraduate student, upon completion of the first course in modern algebra, and it has proved to be an indispensable tool since.

This book gives a very concrete intro to Galois theory & field theory & would be an excellent supplement to an advanced course on algebra. It has some group theory in it but its emphasis is on field theory because its focus is ONLY on Galois theory & its applications, so you'll have to find another book on general abstract algebra. But for Galois theory this text really helped me out with its fairly concrete treatment. Look at this to get a more tangible version of more abstract stuff. Each chapter has a bibiolgraphy at the end of it & each one is a goldmine for interesting stuff about abstract algebra, history, numbers, etc.(...) One could also think of this book as a jumping-off point to all kinds of other stuff it scratches the surface of.

This beautiful book with an anthology of Pollock's work; along with the details of his life, was very engrossing. I was unfamiliar with his work; although I do collect some artwork. When I saw and read the book from the coffee table of a friend's home over the holidays; I couldn't wait to order from Amazon.com for my copy. A recent find of Pollock's work was shown on David Letterman. It sold for millions after being locked away in a closet for many years. Beautiful book for a fantastic artist.

Before Varnedoe and Karmel's Pollock monograph, which accompanied the MOMA / Tate retrospective a few yeas ago, this was the best available text-and-plates book about Pollock. In terms of its text, this book is still relevant and insightful. Like Elizabeth Frank, Landau does a lot of truly eye-opening comparison work throughout her book. She'll reprint a work by Picasso, say, or a Native American artifact, or a Pollock sketch, and then analyze the influence it exerted on one of Pollock's key canvases.

And unlike the Varnedoe/Karmel book, this volume reprints these several kinds of works in close proximity, often on the same or a facing page, a useful feature. Landau's remarks about Pollock's sources, outcomes, growth and directions are always at least provocative and often really instructive, particularly in her coverage of the late black paintings. Indeed, Landau's analysis is regularly listed and praised in other authors' bibliographies.

The drawbacks of the book are its numerous poor reproductions, and plates after all make the primary reason for buying an artist monograph. Many of the plates are excellent and crisp--"Lucifer," "Pasiphae," "Autumn Rhythm," the colorful, playful works following Pollock's marriage. But too many of the plates and fold-outs are muddy, and Pollock's use of silver or aluminum paint is simply beyond this book's ability--as with the gaudy and over-exposed looking gatefold that opens the book. "Blue Poles" and "Stenographic Figure" are among the book's other poor reprints. Until I saw the Varnedoe/Karmel reprint of "One: Number 31, 1950," and then again in "person" at the MOMA, I just flatly didn't understand how Pollock had approached it. It looks "ok" in Landau, but with a lessened resolution that just slightly confuses the webbing throughout.

Still, I value the book and particularly its text. As for the reproduction quality, I did buy a second copy to cannibalize it; I've posted many laminated pages throughout my classroom. But I got that copy at remaindered prices. At full cost, this is a 3 1/2 or 4 star book. At bargain prices, the book rates 4 or 4 1/2 stars. Varnedoe/Karmel is just visually superior.

This intelligent and lavishly illustrated volume, which first appeared in a 1989 hardcover edition, covers Pollock's entire career, his early influences, and the progression of the themes, techniques, and accomplishments of his life as an artist. Ellen Landau's text is enlightening, but the best part of this book is, inevitably, the illustrations themselves, which are an unparalleled feast for the eyes. For those who want to experience and understand Pollock's art (rather than dwell on his personal problems) this is an excellent choice.

I would alter the title by dropping the word abstract, as the book could be considered a primer on the mathematics of an undergraduate major. I recently completed teaching a course in fundamentals of logic and arithmetic for elementary education majors and many of the topics we covered are in here. The basics of logic, counting, sets and functions, the content of the first two chapters of this book, were all in the fundamentals class, although obviously not to this level of detail. Factoring, unique factorization, modular arithmetic, and the cardinality of sets, covered in chapters four and five, were also the subjects of several of my lectures. Only the principles of linear algebra and linear operators, the topics of chapters 5 and 6, are in this book but were not in my class.
The coverage here is basic, with a set of problems at the end of each section. Solutions to all of the problems are given at the end of the book, a very commendable thing to have done. All of the topics covered are explained in a routine, yet thorough manner. By that I mean that the explanatory strategy is largely a traditional one, with definitions, theorems, proofs and interspersed examples where appropriate. Diagrams are used, but only rarely.
Solid, but not spectacular, this book covers the fundamentals of mathematics that all students should know before they begin calculus and linear algebra. It can serve as a primer or a refresher, depending on whether you are moving forward or are retracing old ground.

Published in the recreational mathematics e-mail newsletter, reprinted with permission.

I would alter the title by dropping the word abstract, as the book could be considered a primer on the mathematics of an undergraduate major. I recently completed teaching a course in fundamentals of logic and arithmetic for elementary education majors and many of the topics we covered are in here. The basics of logic, counting, sets and functions, the content of the first two chapters of this book, were all in the fundamentals class, although obviously not to this level of detail. Factoring, unique factorization, modular arithmetic, and the cardinality of sets, covered in chapters four and five, were also the subjects of several of my lectures. Only the principles of linear algebra and linear operators, the topics of chapters 5 and 6, are in this book but were not in my class.
The coverage here is basic, with a set of problems at the end of each section. Solutions to all of the problems are given at the end of the book, a very commendable thing to have done. All of the topics covered are explained in a routine, yet thorough manner. By that I mean that the explanatory strategy is largely a traditional one, with definitions, theorems, proofs and interspersed examples where appropriate. Diagrams are used, but only rarely.
Solid, but not spectacular, this book covers the fundamentals of mathematics that all students should know before they begin calculus and linear algebra. It can serve as a primer or a refresher, depending on whether you are moving forward or are retracing old ground.

Published in the recreational mathematics e-mail newsletter, reprinted with permission.

I have used many of Robert Ash's book, including "Information Theory", which was his first published textbook based on notes he used at Columbia University to teach a course by the same name and which were subsequently used by other instructors, and "Basic Probability Theory". His books all have the same characteristic: simple direct introduction to the subject, powerful penetration to the core of the subject matter with no clutter and a deceptively comprehensive coverage in a succint manner. Any time spent with any of his books is well spent. In this instance I can not think of a better introduction to abstract mathematics. As another reviewer noted, the treatment of linear algebra is evidence of Ash's concise and powerful method. Having said this I would strongly reccomend, as Ash himself does, that the reader consult other books to flesh out the treatment, or better still to create and work through his own examples and exercises. Highly recommended!

This book is aimed to prospected High School teachers. The author's main area of study is Algebra. I would not recommend this book to someone looking for rigorous mathematics.
"Rings, Fields, and Vector Spaces" is a detailed book so much that I found myself lost while following proofs. This book is also outdated and is sold as quick-xeroxed copies at the bookstore of California State University Northridge for the price of about $12. I would recommend the newest edition along with "Introduction to Abstract Algebra" by Neal H. McCoy.

The value of this book becomes apparent when you miss a class. You can make it up by directly referring to the book and reading the chapters. Another thing I like about the book is that there are no dangling ends.. the information required to understand the book is found in the book itself. It is a book I would like to permanently keep on my bookshelf. It rocks.

I used this book for two classes and found it to be tremendously helpful. In both cases, it was a supplement to the required text. First, in my Foundations of Higher Mathematics course, I found it to be an excellent resource for understanding some of the basic concepts of divisibility in integers, gcds, primes and the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. When first learning to understand and write proofs, one must have good understanding of the basic material. B. A. Sethuraman leaves no stone unturned when it comes to this. The text helps you learn how to learn mathematics, and this can easily translate into better proof writing.
Next, I found the book to be a valuable supplement to Algebra: Abstract and Concrete by Frederick M. Goodman, used in my Elementary Modern Algebra course. The explanations of rings and fields were excellent, but beyond this is a book replete with examples. When first discovering abstract algebra, one can never have too many examples!
This book is a beautiful combination of close attention to details, without being pedantic, as well as a broad overview of abstract algebra. I highly recommend it for all beginning math majors and aspiring math teachers!

I know I'm new to Strangers in Paradise, but of the few issues I've read, these have been the best. Buy if you're a fan. Buy if you're not a fan. You'll still like it.

After all the events and revelations that took place in "I dream of You" this book is a little more at ease and is really wrapping the volume up. No new big events come into play but instead things that emerged in "I Dream of You" are being worked out between the characters (Moore doing a very good job at that I think). Terry Moore does some of his best 'dialogue-writing' yet in here. He's making it funny, he's making it dramatic and most of all, he makes it all logical. These characters aren't your everyday comicbook-characters. They act like REAL people would (slightly exaggerated and funnier now and then, but in essence they do).

About the story: Former events have really made a big impact on all three of our main players (Katchoo, Francine and David) and now all three of them are trying to sort their feelings, and where to go from here, out. Be it through arguments, be it through conversations, be it through acting on impulses. David is trying to convince Katchoo that despite everything that happened he never lied about his feelings for her. Meanwhile both Katchoo and Francine aren't really sure anymore which gender they love, let alone who in specific. And to make things worse Francine's former boyfriend Freddy tries to become a part of her life again.

For people who've read "I dream of You" this book will be a very welcome continuation (and ending) of the volume. You've seen how the adventure ends, now see how it all affected Katchoo, Francine and especially David (who turned out to be something more than expected at first in the previous volume). The quality you've seen in "I dream of You" stays at the same good level here, only there's a lot more room to expand on the relationships between the characters (meaning that as a positive thing). For people who haven't read "I dream of You" (collecting #1-9) I would suggest to either get "I dream of You" and read that first (which would be a smart thing to do in my opinion because I really think this is one of the best non-superhero books out there), or don't bother at all. Without knowledge of the events that took part in the previous volume this book (which collects #10-13, the last four issues of the volume) won't make sense at all.

This is the third Strangers in Paradise trade paperback, and compiles the following issues into one volume: Volume 2, Issue 10: The Homecoming; Volume 2, Issue 11: Queen of Hearts; Volume 2, Issue 12: Goodbye; Volume 2, Issue 12: It's a Good Life. If you have not read the previous two volumes (Volume One and I Dream of You), I recommend you do so before reading this volume, otherwise you will be missing vital backstory.

This collection continues with the stories of Katchoo (the tempestuous blonde with a heck of a past), Francine (the neurotic brunette with self-confidence problems), and David (the keeper of the torch for Katchoo). All three are in need of some peace and quiet and recovery time from their adventures in I Dream of You, but the world isn't content to let them get it.

Above all else, this issue is about defining relationships. Where do Francine and Katchoo stand? How about David and Katchoo? Can Katchoo forgive him for the role he played in her betrayal and injury? What about Freddie, who's decided that he can't live without Francine? Does Casey even figure into all of this? And what is it with these people's fascination with Hawaii, anyway?

If you're reading Volume Three because you enjoyed Volume One, you'll probably be pretty pleased with the story. If you're looking for more of the over-the-top intrigue and violence and mystery of Volume Two, this book is significantly more calm (at least, in that sense) from the previous volume. All in all, however, it's a great continuation of an interesting story.

Strangers in Paradise is the tale about three friends who seem stuck in their love for each other. Each one trying to figure out what to do with their feelings, they get confused, surprised, disappointed and cheered up during events.
Where most titles start off strong and then fall into the big grey area, this title keeps me interested and entertained. This here is vol. 4 of the collections but it can also be used as a jump-on TPB for newcomers to the title. It collects the first 5 issues of volume III.

First off we make a jump in time, many years past the events in the previous collection ("It's a Good Life"). Francine is a middle-aged woman now, with a little daughter, and has been married for ten years. It's been equally as long since she last saw her best friend Katchoo. When she's sitting in a restaurant oneday an old acquaintance walks by and mentions she just saw Katchoo sitting in the lobby. Right there memory-train leaves the station for Francine. She starts thinking about how things were when she and Katchoo used to live together.
The rest of the paperback is about those memories (which are the real continuations from the previous volumes). We see Francine trying to get a job and trying to gain some self-esteem. We see how our main three characters (David, Katchoo and Francine) keep on struggling with their feelings in their little love-triangle where nobody really oversees it all. Katchoo realizing how she really knows little about David, and off course there's still the humor in the dialogues (or else it wouldn't be Strangers in Paradise).

The colors in the first few issues seem a little strange at first. That's because this trade is in black-and-white and the original issues collected here were in color. Imagine making a black-and-white copy of a colored page and you know what I mean. Luckily that's only in the first few issues, the rest is back in original black-and-white (as seen before). The art is as good as it ever was (fluent, realistic and clear) and the story never stopped being interesting. Although I would advise to get "I Dream of You" and "It's a Good Life" (they together collect vol.2 in its entirety) first, it isn't really neccesary. You should get them to get to know the characters and because they're good, but this is a good jump-on point as well for new readers. There's minor hinting to what happened previously in this volume, but it's nowhere essential.
This title is a good diversion from most other comics and can best be described as a action-humor-dramatized-soap-opera centered around three characters. And it works ...

People who like this title should also keep an eye out for "Box Office Poison" and "The Waiting Place".

"Strangers In Paradise" is the wonderful story about the friendship between Francine, Katchoo, and David. All three of them seem to be from opposite ends of just about everything, but they learn to live together and love together.

It is a wonderful story, even for those who do not particullary like comic book stories. Volume 3 is one of the few volumes that are in color and is a great place for readers to pick up on!

The next installment of Strangers in Paradise, Volume 4: Love Me Tender contains the following comics: Volume 3, Issue 1: Love Me Tender; Volume 3, Issue 2: A Beautiful Day; Volume 3, Issue 3: She Has Reasons; Volume 3, Issue 4: Dance; Volume 3: Issue 5: Stranger in Paradise. If you haven't read the first three volumes (The Collected Strangers in Paradise, I Dream of You, and It's a Good Life), you should do so before reading this book. At least, I hate jumping into a story mid-stream.

The beginning of this comic really threw me for a loop. I mean, I think that's Francine, but ... maybe not? Or maybe she's the kid? What? Where are my beloved characters! Oh. Wait. There they are. Panic averted, persistence pays off.

Katchoo and Francine, back from Hawaii (see It's a Good Life and evicted from their home, move into a teeny garage apartment provided - free of charge - by Margie McCoy (who you might remember from Volume 1). It's time for life to get back to normal for these two, and they take their best shots.

Francine re-enters the working world, which turns out to be anything but normal. Between the manic, stress-loving boss, the artiste director, and the conniving co-worker (you remember Rachel, don't you?), and the wardrobe (oh my), Francine is in for more than she had ever anticipated. And she can take little comfort in the fact that Katchoo's life isn't settling down any more readily.

Katchoo, who is singularly unsuited to working life in the regular world, decides it is time to go back to her art. And David would be the perfect subject... even if he doesn't think so. But turmoil sets in when David has second thoughts, and it may be too much for their relationship to handle. What will happen there?

All in all, this is more of what we've come to expect from Terry Moore: Tight storytelling with interesting characters who get into situations that make your head spin. Good stuff!

This book has excellent images on Kandinsky's work beginning with his representational early works to his abstract later works. The color quality of the prints are good and the information is readable - to the point and not overwhelming like many art books can be. I only wish this book was bigger with more examples of his work. ...A good resource for art educators.

The word "visionary" is so often overused, but Wassily Kandinsky truly was one. Pick up this book and find out why!

This book in few pages can describe Kandinsky so well. The style of Kandisky which reflected the developments and strides physics took in first 2 decades of century is shown in his love of planes and geometry.

Frank Stella is one of contemporary art's most challenging and compelling figures. This series of lectures presents his view as to how nonrepresentational art has gone astray by focusing on an excessively cold northern tradition, following it from Mondrian up through the color-field painters. He looks now instead to a warmer mediterranean strain that he traces up through Reubens and Picasso, as his own solution to the possible deadness and flatness of so called "abstract painting". A clear and thoughtful example of how a contemporary painter turns his take on art history into praxis.

Frank Stella's 'Working Space' is the publication of a series of Charles Eliot Norton lectures given in 1983-4. By this time of course, Stella's heyday was long gone- the 1960s, when Michael Fried and his acolytes could fuss over whether the latest Stella could "compel conviction." Similarly, Stella's time a young rebel was also firmly in the past. In 1960, Robert Goldwater chaired a panel on modern art, where Stella claimed that he "would welcome mechanical means to paint his pictures," a comment which provoked Goldwater into saying , "that man isn't an artist, he's a juvenile delinquent." Well, 20-odd years later, here's Stella as an establishment figure- a more mature (and undoubtedly more wealthy!) artist thinking a little bit more soberly about his place in the artistic tradition. In the last chapter, Stella admits, "To do what I was able to do, and what I am able to do now, I walk on roads built by others."

Chief among Stella's concerns here is the problem of abstract painting's seeming exhaustion by the 1970s- the well of inspiration running dry after the promises of High Modernism. What Stella proposes is that abstract painting needed to create some "working space," that is create something more than just a telescoped illusionism which merely shows us the foremost plane of a conventional picture. In order to illustrate his point, he goes back to Caravaggio, who he heralds as painting a more complete, holistic sense of space; that is a pictorial space which the viewer feels physically part of, rather than being on the outside looking in, as in Albertian perspective. We feel that we could easily cross the threshold into the fictive space of Caravaggio's paintings, and that equally, his figures could just as easily enter our physical space. But Stella notes tellingly, "I believe that Caravaggio meant painting to grow outside of itself." This is fascinating, because Stella here seems to be praising a kind of theatricality in the Italian's work, the very term which his friend Michael Fried would use to defend painting such as Stella's against Minimalism in 1967. (However, I have it on good authority that this is a misreading of Fried's notion of theatricality, so maybe Stella is not so contradictory here).

Indeed, this is the real issue for Stella. For painting's problem by the 1980s was not so much one of whether painting should be done this way or that way, but rather a problem of whether it could be carried on at all, especially given that painting seemed to contain within itself the seeds of other practices, something more "literal" or "theatrical." (This is true of Stella's own paintings from the 60s, which is what makes his observation of Caravaggio so revealing.)

Its always interesting to hear artists talk about other artists, and its these contradictions which make Stella worth reading. He makes some quite eccentric claims in these lectures, singing the praises of Picasso's 1920s figuration, where he seems to concede that abstraction has never found an adequate substitute for the human figure- this, from an artist who once said he was happy to see "humanist" values go down the pan! (Actually that was Donald Judd, but it was an interview with him and Stella). The last chapter in particular, where Stella discusses a very clumsy 17th century painting by Paulus Potter in relation to his own work struck me as the oddest claim of all, but then, that's the value of listening to an artist himself- with a different "take" on things compared to a critic or historian. These lectures are eloquently written too-Stella has obviously paid attention to the writings of his friend Michael Fried, and its paid off. (Maybe he got some help with them, who knows...) Its also beautifully illustrated, with Old Masters juxtaposed with Modernists such as Stella himself.

I trudged through this book up until Stella made one point so poignant and concise that I felt absolutely no need to continue reading it. Stella makes a case for "The Religious Experience." The moment when a work of art becomes an indelible part of the literal space of the viewer, that moment when a viewer is so convinced of the reality and gravity of the pictorial space (or flatness)of a work that they accept it as truth and not just imagery. Stella's is a case for the connection of art to audience, and can be applied not only to pictorial space but also to the content of a work of art. A stance taken by other artists in other texts as diverse as Ben Shahn's "The Shape of Content" and David Hickey's "Invisible Dragon." And its still a battle worth fighting. Stella's fame came so early in his career and rooted in such a fragile idea, almost a gimmick, based on pictorial flatness that maybe he didn't stop to think about what he was doing at the time. Don't get me wrong he was thinking about something (an artist's fist ball up into fighting projectiles if you say they didn't put any thought into something). But if you've seen any relatively recent work by Stella you're probably want to say, "Whoah, is this the same guy I was forced to learn about in Art History class?" The answer of course is: No, its not the same guy. This book can help show you why. And for me, Stella has become a great example of an artist willing to treat his art as something more than a mere money making visual gimmick, but as a medium through which to explore and expound on topics that are a little hard to talk about with everybody without having them roll their eyes at you.