Talk:Jason Garfield

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[edit] POV

The latter half of this article seems very biased in favor of Garfield and his views, and (considering Garfield’s history) I would almost be suspicious that he (or at least a proponent of his) made it himself. Every clause of the following excerpt contains obvious ‘point-of-view’:

Garfield is an exceptionally talented clown and comedian, and his criticism of those who rely on comedy without also exhibiting technical mastery is a consequence of his relentless and competitive nature, and also simple logic: Technical mastery always enhances an act-whatever style is being adopted and utilised- and there are no great jugglers who are not supremely skilled.

This section seems less like encyclopedic information than it does an argument for the ability and opinions of the juggler himself. Garfield’s comedic stylings, as well as his critical view towards “unchallenging routines,” have already been noted; these sentences are redundant and opinionated.

Not only is Wikipedia not a place to propose arguments, the arguments brought forth here are ambiguous, flawed, and unclear in their significance. What makes Garfield such a talented clown and comedian? His skill as a juggler (which can be neutrally established based on his competitive record, among other things) does not denote his skill as either of these. Furthermore, the implied criticism that follows is hardly “simple logic”—unless one defines logic as a series of premises with no supporting statements. (And, speaking of logic, it commits the fallacy of petitio principii by its use of the term “skilled.”) Additionally, many would argue that an excessive focus on "technical mastery" can detract from an act (causing the performer to sacrifice artistry for technicality). This can be seen in other forms of performance art as well—such as music, where it is common to see highly technically skilled players become focused on speed and precision to the extent that many others would view it as being detrimental to musicality. (The claim that playing a piano concerto excessively fast detracts from its intended sonority could be compared to the claim that performing a three-ball juggling routine with five balls clutters the simplicity of its expression.) Finally, the last sentence of this excerpt uses dashes improperly (and uses the hyphen character instead of the em dash).

So, considering the apparent lack of significance and neutrality of this passage, I am removing it in its entirety.

--— Poga — 12:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

---Link to youtube is broken because of endslash, i dont know how to fix it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.226.227.97 (talk) 20:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)