Interesting
The initial query; what happened in my experience that I’m disgusted by the majority of the dominant culture and have zero desire to partake in the tech-sausage, neo-fa, BS-fest that half the country signed off on?
This started out as an impromptu piece that evolved over the last year to capture aspects of my own influence toward empathy and attempted respectful awareness of “others.” It started out primarily documenting the influence of Black culture on my thinking but expanded to include media, public institutions, the commons, punk, early synth pop, psychedelics and others. It is certainly one of the most sprawling songs I have written. I’ve gone through and linked some of the references for the young ones and those who enjoy nostalgia.
The song is called “Interesting” because while it was coming together I would finish rather fascinated and perplexed. So much so that I would utter the word “interesting.” This happened without thought repeatedly until in my mind “interesting” became the name of the song. For a while there it was “Interesting, Rev. Dr. King” — but then I thought better.
A little bit of cross-over here between the art page and medium to get this new song from Without a Book platformed outside of the metaminion. I was planning to get 6 songs out on MLK Day, but the holiday vacation was raided by some manifestation of norovirus. Be well. ~Eden
Interesting
by Eden Bloom
Started December 2023
Recorded on MLK Day, Jan 20 2025
from Without a Book
Maybe it was the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King that messed this up for me. I love myself in what I hope is a healthy way, but I see nothing in myself that gives me a sense of supremacy. Maybe that message that deep down we’re all the same sunk in and damaged my ability to think that somehow I’m more special or more deserving than anybody. Maybe his dream damaged me.
Maybe it was watching all the children I was supposed to hate playing hand in hand with kids who looked like me on public TV. Sanford and Son, Good Times and The Jeffersons are a part of the story. Maybe it was seeing the rise of Black folk on my TV in the seventies that did this to me. Maybe it was Roots. 7 years old, watching a man who looked like me commanding extreme damage be done on a Black guy who then ended up in Reading Rainbow, then Geordi from Star Trek TNG. Maybe stuff like that seeded the evils in my mind that now look a lot like critical race theory.
Maybe it was Paul and Stevie singing about black and white piano keys, remember? “Ebony and ivory, living in perfect harmony.” Maybe that so badly damaged my psyche that now I want to open borders and give all your stuff away to people in need.
Maybe it was learning how to read.
I don’t know what got me to fall for it, justice, equity, standing up and working for what is pretty much black, white and right.
Maybe it was those ‘tribal beats’ that rattled my brains…… I know Apollonia on the banks of Minnetonka got me thinking a little differently. Maybe it was those European guys with empathy and synthesizers like Depeche Mode that messed me up to the point that I have zero desire to kill anybody. “People are people so why should it be you and I should get along so awfully.”
Maybe it was the Detroit Institute of Arts, or maybe the zoo, public institutions notably too, that got me thinking about “other” people and “other” places in a respectful way. I know a subpoena should be sent for the idea that “You’ve gotta have art” and that we can become living breathing social commentary. These ideas, these institutions radicalized me.
Maybe it was David Carradine and fake Kung Fu or the white women doing yoga at 5 am on the basement TV, that got me thinking “other” cultures might be holding some of the healing I was seeking, and needing.
Maybe it was Field Commander Cohen, the Shulgins, the Leary psychedelic revival in the 90s. Maybe they got me feeling the tree bark against my palms, grains of sand falling through my hands, got me thinking wrong about connections between all things and that to cause others pain was gonna happen, but wrong.
Maybe it was the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King that messed this up for me.
© Eden Bloom 2025
https://linktr.ee/edenbloom2023
