So the way it works is that you get nine cases per month. Nine new cases, on top of whatever else you already had and couldn't close in time. There are three days per month on which you get new cases. The math works out to three cases per case-assignment day. The math is pretty simple on this. 9/3=3, or 3x3=9, or 3+3+3=9. The ritual of case assignment gets complicated, because then you factor in "credits," i.e. cases that you received on days that aren't case-assignment day, for any given number of reasons, but most prominently because you have a case family and then another family who lives in the same house also pulls a case and so you get that family too, even though it's two different families. You get a credit for that. Or, like, ya know, sex trafficking emergencies that have to go to the closest worker in physical range, whoever gets hit with that dart gets a credit, and so on. Or if a worker is on vacation, then they aren't going to overload the worker on the day they get back, you get credits i.e. fewer cases per month than nine in that case. The social work gets complicated, but the math never does. It's very simple math. If my worker starts her month on a weeklong vacation and then comes back on case-assignment day but while she was gone pulled three same-household-rule cases, then it's 9-2-3=4 cases for the month, or 7-3=4. I only asked as a question about it because I wasn't sure if the assigners were going to give me 1+1+2 cases over the next three case-assignment days this month, or 1+2+1, or 2+2+0, or 0+2+2. That was my only question. It was a social work question, a "how things work around here" question. But then I end up sitting there talking to a peer in my office with my hand over my mouth to cover the horrified grimace that is affixed to my face underneath my hand as my peer struggles to subtract 3 from 7. Seriously. She's sitting there with a slice of yellow legal pad in front of her and writes down "7 - 3 =" on the paper and looks up at me and says "no, it's 5, isn't it?" I'm dumbstruck. I get dizzy. I don't know where I am, or how I ended up here. How a simple question can so dangerously spiral into 30 minutes of writing math equations on strewn pieces of paper across my desk, I really don't know. These are things I take for granted. Living my life on this path is a continuous and unending lesson in humility. I don't know how the world works. I don't know how people get through the day. I don't know how human beings operate and are able to feed themselves and survive like this. I really don't. My privilege is choking me. I feel like I'm gonna pass out, seriously. Mrs. Swoyer, help me, oh god, oh god, please, take me away from this place, this stuffy room, where I have to explain multiple times that 7-3=4, oh lord, oh god.
There is a base foundation here that is required to know something more complicated. You need to know 1+1=2 because if you don't, you won't know that 7-3=4, and if you don't know that, then you won't know that 9x12=108, and if you don't know that, then you won't know how to pay your bills, and if you don't know that, then you won't know how to provide for your and your family's basic needs. Slow Burn is pretty simple, but also not the most foundational knowledge. It's the 7-3=4 of music. You have to know 1+1=2. You have to know what the symbols "7" and "=" and etc. mean before you can understand the equation. But if you're looking at 7-3=4 or listening to Slow Burn and claiming that you don't understand it or else are getting it wrong, then I'm wondering what the hell happened in your life that brought you to this point without that fundamental knowledge, like how could this possibly be, and so on. Not liking it is one thing, and understandable. Not understanding it seems absurd.
Please do not get me wrong here. There is beauty in math, even the simplest math. 7-3=4 is simple but it fucking works. To know 7-3=4 is to know how the universe operates, how there are truths and how those truths interlock to provide answers for you as you travel otherwise blindly down the path of life. Likewise, there is beauty in Slow Burn. Baby Rose sounds nothing like a baby, as her voice is deep and mature and powerful. She stands at the crossroads of Yola and ANOHNI. There is a simplicity to it, but I never once doubt its truth. This, after only a week or less spent with her and that voice of hers. I can tell immediately. It's important to know but it's not that challenging. I know it. I can have a piece of paper in front of me that says "7-3=" and know without even thinking. That's the beauty of it, that it comes naturally. This music comes naturally. I didn't know her before this, though.
I didn't know BADBADNOTGOOD either, the production team who also get artist credit here. They are the minus sign and the equal sign. Ya know, if Baby Rose is the numbers in the equation. Ya know, if we're stretching this metaphor (that is based on a real thing that happened to me right before I sat down to figure out what to write about Slow Burn) to its breaking point. Ya know. I've never been conscious of BADBADNOTGOOD's music before this week, but I must have heard their name like five years ago, and it's been stuck in my head ever since, like if something bad happens to me I'll hear "bad bad not good" in my head as I contemplate that bad thing. Cool to finally check 'em out. Cool to know that they have such a firm handle on the foundations of music.
Because you have to know the basics before you can get more complicated. I don't know for sure but I'm assuming that most of Baby Rose's music prior to this sounded like the title track: cool and soulful. I am then going to go out on a limb and say that her music did not sound anything like "It's Alright," which honestly gets halfway to sounding like a Led Zeppelin track, and features a drum solo out of nowhere that caught me off-guard the first time and settled in deep during every subsequent listen. I like how the music straddles sounding old and sounding modern. Like they are purposefully giving it that classic edge, while also being certifiably "new." Baby Rose isn't the first artist to do this, because we're working in fundamentals here. But the voice is interesting enough that it feels worthy of attention. And then something like "Caroline" feels simple too, pretty close to Michael Kiwanuka territory... but then there's that flute fluttering about that elevates the whole damn thing.
But you can't have the flute if you don't lay down the basics first. Do you see what I'm saying? Am I making sense? Or do I find myself once again eyes wide and mouth agape in awe and agony alike, wondering how in the goddamn fuck I find myself trying to explain my question if 7-3=4 isn't even an agreed upon truth? How the fuck are we going to talk about Baby Rose if we don't agree on the foundations of music criticism? Do you think this is good? I think this is good. If you don't think this is good, if you aren't attuned to neo-soul, then how can I ask you to appreciate the way that BADBADNOTGOOD adds some light-psych garage rock crunch to "Weekness"? You need to know the basics. You need to know 7-3=4. Who the FUCK doesn't know that? I mean honestly. What in the fuck, jesus fucking christ.
GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment