Feel particularly witty. Click "Add a Testimonial." Skim previous entries. Decide you can do better. How to proceed. Wiggle your fingers over the keyboard. Grin with determination . . . plunge in.
"I've known him since..." Fuss over your beginning. Too many nostalgic templates floating around. Decide to avoid that. "When we were kids, Martin climbed a tall acacia and couldn't get down. He hollered 'Mama' till his voice got husky. We laughed at him till his mom came running, blaming us for what happened." There. Concise, a touch of drama, explaining you've known him from way back. Decide that he forgave you for not helping out back then. Wonder how he'll thank you for recounting the old days.
"The only Alcoholics Anonymous member I know with a rap sheet longer than her arm." Synopsis, punched it right where it counts. Smile proud. Continue with best wishes template: "She gets better every two months, sobering up and then plunging down again into the bottle. Her consistency is a thing of beauty." Perfect.
"This gal, mhann, tops the list of coolness kids in school. She is goodtimes personified." This is exactly how you know her, you decide: in a mindless-fun wavelength. Apt would be the surfer-dude template...always useful for people you don't really know, don't care to know better, and don't really intend on offending. It's like a neutral arms' length pat on the back.
"Lovely, full of energy, bouncy, talkative..." Will this do? you ask yourself. It's non-committal, an unimaginative grocery list of adjectives, the first impressions off your mind when you think of this person. Maybe another adjective will do. Decide to be a miser. You hope she'll be flattered and then write you a testi that beats what you did for her. Always works, you remember. People think you are either sincere or pulling their chains. Either way, they remember your effort.
"Terry is the man! He can do overtime like a camel! Nice going on that promotion and the anvil of feather award!" Perfect for a guy who thinks he's important. Keep up the exclamation points and the cheerleader attitude. He'll testi you back with empty praises, that's the only bad side to this. An empty pat on the back deserves another.
"I don't know this guy well..." A lot of bull, you press backspace to erase it. If you don't know the person well, why write a testimonial? You decide to be honest and qualify things: "From the week-long workshop, where I got to know Dexter, he kept biting his nails, kept spitting between long sentences, and stayed too long in the toilet. Nice guy though."
"He jumped back, barely evading the bloodied knife. His opponent pressed on, withdrew the weapon, and lunged at him with a stab aimed at the neck." Hah! Action-packed. Who wouldn't approve of this on his testi page? Even though none of the events happened. You continue with the neat story. "He ducked below the thrust and stabbed upward, piercing the enemy's throat. Someone will choke on his own blood tonight." You decide you should get paid for this. It's publishable escapist testi-writing.
"Superb craftsmanship, astounding character-build up. Gregory packs a wallop on every page." You mimic the back-of-the-book cover write up. It's always funny. People are after all books to be read and reviewed.
how to write a friendster testimonial
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pinoy detective fiction
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Smaller and Smaller Circles by FH Batacan
Published by the University of the Philippines Press, 2003.
The body count had reached six before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) sought the services of two Jesuit priests: forensic anthropologist Gus Saenz, to examine the victims' corpses, C.S.I. style; and clinical psychologist Jerome Lucero, to build the killer's profile to hasten the manhunt.
Six teenage boys found dead at the Payatas area had their faces, genitals and internal organs removed. In Saenz's comfy hi-tech lab in Ateneo, the evidence point to the same knife used on the victims, each of whom died on the first Saturday of the month.
The tidy knife job and corpse dumping suggest meticulousness and skill. The consistent date of death, a ritual; something with which to start the month right.
A serial killer is on the prowl, which the NBI can't begin to admit, and can't fathom how to track down.
This is because, Batacan writes, "Little attention is paid to determining patterns: a missing persons' physical type or age, the geographical area in which he or she disappeared or reappeared, the condition in which he or she has been found."
This leads to the prevalent myth that there are no serial killers in the country, even though serial killing, she writes, "is not a solely Western phenomenon...and that the inadequacy and sloppiness of local police methods and intelligence techniques stand in the way of its detection."
In short, no one is watching, except, in this case, two men of the cloth "with no staff, limited resources and often, no official authority, performing the kind of investigative work that very few people in the country--and civilians at that--are capable of doing."
This is an excerpt from my review of Smaller and Smaller Circles. It's an unexpected good-enough read. For a teaser review, click here and here. Try to read the teasers first, because mine gives everything away: judgmental synopsis and all.
The development, or the chase (which is painstakingly slow), is seen through the lives of the characters: the sleuths (two Jesuit priests--recall Umberto Echo's 'In the Name of the Rose'), the victims' mothers, the reporter hot on the serial-murder-scoop and her adopted father/segment producer); the National Bureau of Investigation agent; and of course that of the killer himself (who is from UP Manila--could this be a hint that the freedom to improve is the self-same freedom to degenerate?).
Two things slow down the story's pace. One is the telling of the characters' back stories. Another is the series of lectures on forensic investigation: how date of death is approximated, inferences on weapon type and killer profile based on depth of cuts, manner of mutilation, and so on. Remember, this was written some five years before C.S.I. made it here through cable TV. The book's concept was original at the time; probably why it won the grand prize in the Palanca awards.
Don't expect tense dark alley chases or gun-point drama. The priests are not deputized to make arrests, they carry no guns, and they are relying on their own resources (forensic equipment, air fare, unofficial intelligence sources, etc.--good thing they're Ateneans, they can afford it). One subtle message in the book is that professional forensic-detective work leading to an arrest, in this country, is nearly a miracle. Probably why priests are the detectives--they are morally untainted, at least compared to cops; and they answer to a higher morality, at least as far as their image goes. The ending, where the killer is bullet-holed, and one of the priests offers himself as a killer-negotiator (and nearly gets martyred), is a comforting closure. Justice was not to be served by human courts (a tainted extension of the police), but by heaven. The killer's psyche was too damaged by teenage trauma to do otherwise--his shrewdness evolved out of an inability to cope with the pain. This is his salvation.
The pace of the investigation felt realistic. The book detailed the causes of delay--the NBI investigator wanted to hog media attention; and there was no national database of committed crimes and missing persons, where one could compare and cross-reference cases, and see patterns. This accumulates into: if this is how slow justice comes, we need a miracle; hence the priestly interference. It was as if God was forced to do something.
Published by the University of the Philippines Press, 2003.
The body count had reached six before the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) sought the services of two Jesuit priests: forensic anthropologist Gus Saenz, to examine the victims' corpses, C.S.I. style; and clinical psychologist Jerome Lucero, to build the killer's profile to hasten the manhunt.
Six teenage boys found dead at the Payatas area had their faces, genitals and internal organs removed. In Saenz's comfy hi-tech lab in Ateneo, the evidence point to the same knife used on the victims, each of whom died on the first Saturday of the month.
The tidy knife job and corpse dumping suggest meticulousness and skill. The consistent date of death, a ritual; something with which to start the month right.
A serial killer is on the prowl, which the NBI can't begin to admit, and can't fathom how to track down.
This is because, Batacan writes, "Little attention is paid to determining patterns: a missing persons' physical type or age, the geographical area in which he or she disappeared or reappeared, the condition in which he or she has been found."
This leads to the prevalent myth that there are no serial killers in the country, even though serial killing, she writes, "is not a solely Western phenomenon...and that the inadequacy and sloppiness of local police methods and intelligence techniques stand in the way of its detection."
In short, no one is watching, except, in this case, two men of the cloth "with no staff, limited resources and often, no official authority, performing the kind of investigative work that very few people in the country--and civilians at that--are capable of doing."
This is an excerpt from my review of Smaller and Smaller Circles. It's an unexpected good-enough read. For a teaser review, click here and here. Try to read the teasers first, because mine gives everything away: judgmental synopsis and all.
The development, or the chase (which is painstakingly slow), is seen through the lives of the characters: the sleuths (two Jesuit priests--recall Umberto Echo's 'In the Name of the Rose'), the victims' mothers, the reporter hot on the serial-murder-scoop and her adopted father/segment producer); the National Bureau of Investigation agent; and of course that of the killer himself (who is from UP Manila--could this be a hint that the freedom to improve is the self-same freedom to degenerate?).
Two things slow down the story's pace. One is the telling of the characters' back stories. Another is the series of lectures on forensic investigation: how date of death is approximated, inferences on weapon type and killer profile based on depth of cuts, manner of mutilation, and so on. Remember, this was written some five years before C.S.I. made it here through cable TV. The book's concept was original at the time; probably why it won the grand prize in the Palanca awards.
Don't expect tense dark alley chases or gun-point drama. The priests are not deputized to make arrests, they carry no guns, and they are relying on their own resources (forensic equipment, air fare, unofficial intelligence sources, etc.--good thing they're Ateneans, they can afford it). One subtle message in the book is that professional forensic-detective work leading to an arrest, in this country, is nearly a miracle. Probably why priests are the detectives--they are morally untainted, at least compared to cops; and they answer to a higher morality, at least as far as their image goes. The ending, where the killer is bullet-holed, and one of the priests offers himself as a killer-negotiator (and nearly gets martyred), is a comforting closure. Justice was not to be served by human courts (a tainted extension of the police), but by heaven. The killer's psyche was too damaged by teenage trauma to do otherwise--his shrewdness evolved out of an inability to cope with the pain. This is his salvation.
The pace of the investigation felt realistic. The book detailed the causes of delay--the NBI investigator wanted to hog media attention; and there was no national database of committed crimes and missing persons, where one could compare and cross-reference cases, and see patterns. This accumulates into: if this is how slow justice comes, we need a miracle; hence the priestly interference. It was as if God was forced to do something.
ahmed
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Ah•Med //(pronunced รค-'med, written abbrev. 'Mhedz') noun. 1. A periodioc hermit of a myth whose reclusive moods remain uncatalogued. 2. Name of Arabic origin: 'Ahmed' means 'praise.' Therefore, to mention his name is to praise him. Don't. 3. In Krus na Ligas mythology, the right pinky finger, and therefore keeper of all peripheral powers of the omniboogyman. 4. Ahmed is known for his shiny look long hair, and for his habit of knifing the universe with a crisp, hand-lip coordinated Finger: his right arm would jut out from under, his middle-finger-guided hand in a sharp upward stab; at the same time he'd hiss, "**CK **U!" Goodness is in the man, somewhere.
rhea
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Rhea is watching her friends in the water. She's sitting on a papag, a bed assembled from bamboo, like the cottages to her left, where Espy and the others are drinking. Yesterday, when the jeepney they sardined into got near the shoreline, the wind picked up a coolness, a sweet scent that meant they were nearing the edge of the island. That was the point, of course, of coming to this place. To see the beach and then maybe decide to wade in it. But then there was the trek to the campsite that Espy's boondog watched over. It felt like ascending a mountain to Rhea, who had been raised to think that the terrains of Bacolod and Manila defined the world. And then there were the makeshift cooking and eating utensils and lavatories (which was anywhere far from human eyes), and it was an hourly struggle to remain antiseptic. Because the bathroom hadn't been invented yet on a hill that high. And she even managed to sleep in a tent with Espy and Rona. How was that possible? Never mind. Coming down from the hill was a different story, and strained almost a new set of muscles, which Rhea didn't expect. Her only exercise in the office was straining with the mouse and pressing her floor on the elevator panel. Of course, her vocal chords were in order. But you can't ask your voice box or your tongue to go downhill for you. Rhea remembered her cramping legs during her slow walk to the beach, when Ayen said she walked like those cheap wind-up little robots, and she was too tired to hit him with her bag. And now that the hill and campsite and boondog were behind her, she stares at the inviting beach below. But it's nice up here, she thought, with the air blowing not too hard and not too hot. But it would take effort to shower, even though the shower room was only six paces to her right. And after she showers, she'll have to walk all the way down to where Pam and Rona are doing synchronized swimming. There, she'll get wet again. This time by semi-salty water. And then she'll have to wash her hair, again. There was an odd logic to all this. You come up a hill to go down. You shower to get wet so you can get wet afterwards, in the sea. Weird. I think I'll just stay up here, she thought. This is the second time she went to Batangas, the second time she stayed away from the sea. Better that my friends think I just didn't feel like sea-dipping again, she thought. She couldn't risk them finding out that, when sea water touches her, she turns into a crab.
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