A Filipino Historian, A Japanese Anime, and A German Band

Think multi-tasking and you'll figure out the meaning of the title...

I'm on my second day of reading "An Introduction to Philippine History" by Jose S. Arcilla, S.J. Actually I already had the book back home -- having bought it a year after graduation. I didn't expect that this book would be required reading for our Kas 297 course. One of the requirements for the course is a paper analyzing one of the history textbooks listed in our syllabus. As luck would have it, I was assigned to read Arcilla's book. Unfortunately, my book was back at home sheltered behind the glass panels of my bookcase...

A search of the holdings at UP Main Lib turned up unsuccessful as I was assigned the 2003 edition. THe book, in fact, had four editions and was first published during the 1970's. The library only had the editions until 1994 in their stocks. tsk, tsk...

So, no choice...I went book hunting among the bookstores at Trinoma and SM North. And it was in National Bookstore at SM North that I found a copy of Arcilla (better to refer to the author than the whole title. don't you think? hehe)

Having taken possession of Arcilla (and losing P200 in the process) I proceeded with my reading. I admit that when I bought Arcilla in Bacolod I only gave it a superficial reading -- more concerned with gaining facts from this slim volume. But now that I am assigned a more analytical reading of the book...I began to see a few things that I missed during my intial reading of the book.

All I have to say for now is that though history textbooks basically contain the same facts, there are some subtle -- and not so subtle -- difference between the history books written by different authors. The one I'm reading right now contains some stuff that I prefer left out in a history book hehe.

I remember a question posed by Doc Diokno during our lectures on postmodernism:

"Are you reading Philippine History, or are you reading Philippine History according to Agoncillo?"

Replace "Agoncillo" with "Constantino", "Zaide" (who gets a thorough beating during our discussions with Prof Teodoro), even "Arcilla" and you'll pretty much get the conceptual framework I'm working with while reading...

Now that's the Filipino Historian part of the blog post title...

The Japanese Anime part refers to the anime I am watching on Youtube right now. The title is "D Gray Man" and this is another interesting story of armies fighting out a centuries-old battle over the very fate of the world. The protagonists of this series are people known as "exorcists" blessed with the ability to harness the power of a substance or object called "innocence." I'm now viewing episode 63 and the story is quite engaging -- okay, I admit, astig ang action! hehe

The German Band I'm referring too is Rammstein. If you've viewed my post on Marilyn Manson, Rammstein was also blamed for inspiring the Columbine shooters to go on their killing spree. Their music, like Marilyn, is uh -- how do I put this? -- peculiar? hahaha If I were to take a second language course it would be either Japanese or German.

Now, combine them all together like the blog post title and you get...

Me reading a short chapter of Arcilla while listening to Rammstein, at the same time waiting for the D Gray Man episode to download. I've been doing this for about two hours now hehe...

BTW, this might be unrelated but I heard Trinoma Foodcourt FM playing "Ren" by Moonpools and Caterpillars hehe. I remembered this band, mostly composed of Filipinos (the vocalist I think is married to one of the band members), when they guested in a show called "MAD: Martin Late at Night" which was hosted by Martin Nievera. They were interviewed by Martin and one of the questions elicited a funny response from the lead vocalist of Moonpools...

Martin: "So your band is called Moonpools and Caterpillars? Why did you pick that name for your band?"

Kimi (the vocalist): "Because...we like it!"

Hahahahahaha! How cute naman the answer -- medyo may pagka-retarded nang konti... hehe

Okay, music video time!

1. "Mein Teil" by Rammstein. Disturbing imagery and explicit content (again?!) featured here. The actual story which inspired the song is even more disturbing..hehe



2. "Hear" by Moonpools and Caterpillars. Unfortunately no music video of "Ren" is available at Youtube. I'm wondering if a music video was indeed made of that song. But the important thing is that this band should not be forgotten -- naks! Pasensya sa poor sound quality...



3. D Gray Man Intro (Season 3)