Talk:Tom Waits

Concept: 7 I totally did not just spend the past (削除) three hours (削除ここまで) two days playing Portal 2 instead of doing something productive, because that would have been wrong. And I totally am not writing a review now based on a read of the article I did three days ago and now don't even remember, because that would also be totally wrong. No, instead I spent (削除) half an hour (削除ここまで) two hours in IRC spamming HALP!, because I am a sane and reasonable person and do sane and reasonable person things...

But seriously, now that we've established that I suck, I should probably point out, on the off chance you hadn't already guessed as much, that I am not actually familiar with the fellow... and that indeed, it does make a fair amount of sense. No, I don't know what a lot of the stuff mentioned actually is, but it fits together and appears to make sense in terms of itself and with what little I read of the wikipedia article on the subject, so you needn't worry about that. It all seems perfectly in order, although you may want to look to the distribution. Some bits seem rather patchy, or jumpy, and at times the cool-cat storytelling just gets inconsistent, although I'll try to say more what I mean about that later. The way it is presented, this story, as well as the... ah, heavy feel of it, are just lovely overall, and work for this quite well, so... yeah.

Humour: 6 Mind, some of this doesn't seem particularly funny - it fits the overall notion, and there's also a fair bit that is indeed quite good, but some... it feels kind of forced, I suppose. So much slang, or whatever you call it, crammed into the very beginning, for instance, the introduction, especially compared to the rest of it where it evens out more and gets into the actual story... perhaps more about the guy himself, there? An entire first paragraph of genre references before saying anything at all about the guy save for his name, that's too much of that, or too little of him. Sets the scene, though, and when it does get into the guy, seems a rather fascinating fellow, indeed. Speaker knows him... whoever the speaker is. Not terribly funny, but it doesn't need to be.

Mmm, but the details are strange. How could he know that, such specifics, what are work? Embellishment? Stories? Part of the lore? Being there? Doesn't even matter; it's the story, and everyone remembers things a little different, and different pieces, but... why aren't there more? Throughout. And nothing about the life between 0-20, not even a mention of nothing worth mentioning, or the jazzmaniness hiding itself or not hiding itself or causing problems or causing girlfriends, it seems strange to me. Telling it as a story, stories flow, even if only to establish the transition in some more explicit manner.

There are a lot o good lines in this, though. Quotes, comments...

And he had a show? Excuse my cluelessness, but playing around town and taking a show on tour, it seems like a jump. I don't actually know what that means, so perhaps you just need to smack me or something, but as a result of this seeming jump, I find myself too bemused over that to even have an inkling as what the fellow does mean, and such.

...and I give up on trying to keep the sections separate. The rest of this, if any of this was this in the first place, should be toward the bottom of this next section... unless it isn't. But the main problem with the humour of the thing does seem to be prose or presentation or some such-related, so that kind of makes sense. I guess?

Prose and formatting: 8 AARRGHHH. That said, not bad, not bad at all, all that I said before. Only thing it's really lacking, however, is smoothness, and somehow I just feel that this should be smooth, for what it is. I mean, so much of this is jazz... anyhow, save for the stuff I've already complained about... spacing? Pacing? I put in a nice long mumble about the complete lack of an early life, but it does also seem like maybe he's stopping, taking a long breath or some such and considering... but there's nothing really to indicate it, prose-wise, and that's the problem. Just nothing. I'd suggest more paragraphing, perhaps double line-breaks when emphasising pauses, perhaps for the background music, but there are some users who make a point to remove those from every article in which they see them (and the things usually do do more harm than good, so I'm not sure I blame them), and they are rather... ah, messy. But anyhow, paragraphing... the thing could do with more. Whenever the speaker pauses, goes onto a slightly new notion, or waits for something, give it a new paragraph, even if he goes back into the same notion as before, or it's directly related; it should help the flow when reading it immensely. Yes, this could result in a lot of really short, spindly paragraphs, but speech is like that. Broken and fluid, full of rises and falls...

Also, I love the use of links. Missed that, of late, though perhaps I've simply grown optimistic, mousing over on articles hoping for a quick joke or hidden meaning... but it is nice to see. Do you always do that? I can't even remember from the last two I read. Or were those yours? I don't remember that, for sure, either. Strange.

Francis Ford Coppola... a person... but introducing the person before the relation, it just throws me off, you know? Am I the only one? Even an 'and' at the beginning of it would help, as there's apparently no transition at all. Smooth sailing, when suddenly, another person! Whatever it is in the story itself that transitions the notions, drinks, music, a sudden thought or memory, it doesn't translate to the text, or to the reader.

Actually, that whole section needs more. Confusing. Not sure what's going on. Well, can tell what's going on, but it's sudden and it seems to miss opportunities or some such unhelpful vagueness, and it's so brief. The filmography seems kind of meaningless, save to prove the point that he was in a few, and make a quick crack at the roles, but without any real introduction or anything referring to it, I find myself wondering why it's there at all, and/or why it's a table. This is a story, after all, told in an ambient setting, the life of which'll draw one in, but then suddenly a table? It breaks it. Just say it; the speaker should have no trouble listing that off, making quips of the rolls, and generally being vibrant and alive, not some dreary encyclopaedia.

And after that, it does go back into the same manner as the introduction, sudden and full and really rather lovely, but it also makes more apparent how different this is, and how little mention of the background noise there is in the rest of it by comparison. Might be something to consider. Might not. Emphasis and all.

His personal life, though, why is this in a separate section toward the end? Some of it is already just worked into other bits... why not do the same with the rest of this? I dunno, maybe that wouldn't work, but...

Images: 9 They seem rather lovely. Fit the thing, good captions, good quality, good distribution... although the second one just confuses me. The caption. I'll just assume 'sa reference or some such that I'm missing and just mosey along, though.

Miscellaneous: 7 My brain tells me this resembles the average; my gut says, "FEED ME!" I'm ignoring my gut for now.

Final Score: 37 This article seems goodish. I can't really tell. But it seems bloody goodish, to a point of almost being alive. That's rather goodish. How that for utterly unhelpful? Hopefully the rest of the review wasn't as unhelpful as this, although from looking at the numbers, I'm not feeling very optimistic... er... well, you know.

Sorry, man.

Reviewer: 1 2 3 4 ~ 16px-Pointy.png 09:07, 24 April 2011

Concept

I totally did not just spend the past (削除) three hours (削除ここまで) two days playing Portal 2 instead of doing something productive, because that would have been wrong. And I totally am not writing a review now based on a read of the article I did three days ago and now don't even remember, because that would also be totally wrong. No, instead I spent (削除) half an hour (削除ここまで) two hours in IRC spamming HALP!, because I am a sane and reasonable person and do sane and reasonable person things...

But seriously, now that we've established that I suck, I should probably point out, on the off chance you hadn't already guessed as much, that I am not actually familiar with the fellow... and that indeed, it does make a fair amount of sense. No, I don't know what a lot of the stuff mentioned actually is, but it fits together and appears to make sense in terms of itself and with what little I read of the wikipedia article on the subject, so you needn't worry about that. It all seems perfectly in order, although you may want to look to the distribution. Some bits seem rather patchy, or jumpy, and at times the cool-cat storytelling just gets inconsistent, although I'll try to say more what I mean about that later. The way it is presented, this story, as well as the... ah, heavy feel of it, are just lovely overall, and work for this quite well, so... yeah.

Humour

Mind, some of this doesn't seem particularly funny - it fits the overall notion, and there's also a fair bit that is indeed quite good, but some... it feels kind of forced, I suppose. So much slang, or whatever you call it, crammed into the very beginning, for instance, the introduction, especially compared to the rest of it where it evens out more and gets into the actual story... perhaps more about the guy himself, there? An entire first paragraph of genre references before saying anything at all about the guy save for his name, that's too much of that, or too little of him. Sets the scene, though, and when it does get into the guy, seems a rather fascinating fellow, indeed. Speaker knows him... whoever the speaker is. Not terribly funny, but it doesn't need to be.

Mmm, but the details are strange. How could he know that, such specifics, what are work? Embellishment? Stories? Part of the lore? Being there? Doesn't even matter; it's the story, and everyone remembers things a little different, and different pieces, but... why aren't there more? Throughout. And nothing about the life between 0-20, not even a mention of nothing worth mentioning, or the jazzmaniness hiding itself or not hiding itself or causing problems or causing girlfriends, it seems strange to me. Telling it as a story, stories flow, even if only to establish the transition in some more explicit manner.

There are a lot o good lines in this, though. Quotes, comments...

And he had a show? Excuse my cluelessness, but playing around town and taking a show on tour, it seems like a jump. I don't actually know what that means, so perhaps you just need to smack me or something, but as a result of this seeming jump, I find myself too bemused over that to even have an inkling as what the fellow does mean, and such.

...and I give up on trying to keep the sections separate. The rest of this, if any of this was this in the first place, should be toward the bottom of this next section... unless it isn't. But the main problem with the humour of the thing does seem to be prose or presentation or some such-related, so that kind of makes sense. I guess?

Prose and formatting

AARRGHHH. That said, not bad, not bad at all, all that I said before. Only thing it's really lacking, however, is smoothness, and somehow I just feel that this should be smooth, for what it is. I mean, so much of this is jazz... anyhow, save for the stuff I've already complained about... spacing? Pacing? I put in a nice long mumble about the complete lack of an early life, but it does also seem like maybe he's stopping, taking a long breath or some such and considering... but there's nothing really to indicate it, prose-wise, and that's the problem. Just nothing. I'd suggest more paragraphing, perhaps double line-breaks when emphasising pauses, perhaps for the background music, but there are some users who make a point to remove those from every article in which they see them (and the things usually do do more harm than good, so I'm not sure I blame them), and they are rather... ah, messy. But anyhow, paragraphing... the thing could do with more. Whenever the speaker pauses, goes onto a slightly new notion, or waits for something, give it a new paragraph, even if he goes back into the same notion as before, or it's directly related; it should help the flow when reading it immensely. Yes, this could result in a lot of really short, spindly paragraphs, but speech is like that. Broken and fluid, full of rises and falls...

Also, I love the use of links. Missed that, of late, though perhaps I've simply grown optimistic, mousing over on articles hoping for a quick joke or hidden meaning... but it is nice to see. Do you always do that? I can't even remember from the last two I read. Or were those yours? I don't remember that, for sure, either. Strange.

Francis Ford Coppola... a person... but introducing the person before the relation, it just throws me off, you know? Am I the only one? Even an 'and' at the beginning of it would help, as there's apparently no transition at all. Smooth sailing, when suddenly, another person! Whatever it is in the story itself that transitions the notions, drinks, music, a sudden thought or memory, it doesn't translate to the text, or to the reader.

Actually, that whole section needs more. Confusing. Not sure what's going on. Well, can tell what's going on, but it's sudden and it seems to miss opportunities or some such unhelpful vagueness, and it's so brief. The filmography seems kind of meaningless, save to prove the point that he was in a few, and make a quick crack at the roles, but without any real introduction or anything referring to it, I find myself wondering why it's there at all, and/or why it's a table. This is a story, after all, told in an ambient setting, the life of which'll draw one in, but then suddenly a table? It breaks it. Just say it; the speaker should have no trouble listing that off, making quips of the rolls, and generally being vibrant and alive, not some dreary encyclopaedia.

And after that, it does go back into the same manner as the introduction, sudden and full and really rather lovely, but it also makes more apparent how different this is, and how little mention of the background noise there is in the rest of it by comparison. Might be something to consider. Might not. Emphasis and all.

His personal life, though, why is this in a separate section toward the end? Some of it is already just worked into other bits... why not do the same with the rest of this? I dunno, maybe that wouldn't work, but...

Images

They seem rather lovely. Fit the thing, good captions, good quality, good distribution... although the second one just confuses me. The caption. I'll just assume 'sa reference or some such that I'm missing and just mosey along, though.

Miscellaneous

My brain tells me this resembles the average; my gut says, "FEED ME!" I'm ignoring my gut for now.

Final score

This article seems goodish. I can't really tell. But it seems bloody goodish, to a point of almost being alive. That's rather goodish. How that for utterly unhelpful? Hopefully the rest of the review wasn't as unhelpful as this, although from looking at the numbers, I'm not feeling very optimistic... er... well, you know.

Sorry, man.