Belshazzar reads the writing on the wall yet still feasts!
If indulging in a massive meal large enough to feed the whole human history of asceticism isn’t quite enough; if you need to cultivate another sensual pleasure to really drive home the orgy of taste; if you are any lover of music whatsoever; or, if your family and conversation partners would make better company if drowned out by a thick gravy of noise; then I’d recommend a sonic garden of delights to accompany your meal this Thanksgiving season.
In these days of unbridled decadence and insurmountable ADD culture, why bother limiting your celebration of life to just the digestive satisfactions of food and drink? This is one day where we have an excuse to mimic our Roman predecessors and just go all out Nero style; or like Tupac on an alize, end of the world type of night. Why not add some audible soul to the gluttonous saturation of bodily pleasures you’re already going to enjoy to the point of couch cropped immobility?
I’d recommend some soul food rhythms to go with your platters, because they have that buttery, greasy goodness that no other groove can reproduce. For instance, just listen to Latin jazz pioneer Willie Bobo wax mad hungry in:
“Fried Neck Bones and Some Homefries”
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“Juicy”
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If that doesn’t inspire your salivary glands to flood your mouth like the forty day deluge of a previous apocalypse, then maybe buffet style tributes would work better. My personal favorite is when the Fat Boys take us down Sizzler lane with “All You Can Eat”.
Yes, I know, that under $3.99 is far cheaper than even Shakeys, but those were the 80s in downtown Brooklyn. Under $10? Still doable.
There’s some excellent food audio mixes out there. I’ll shamelessly promote my own attempt at gathering up some classics and obscurities in a Sanguine Soul radio episode I did only a few months prior aptly named Beat Buffet. But, before you test your desires to the exhaustion of their potential reaches, please be forewarned and remember the story of Belshazzar.
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