Menu Six: August 2024
In my nutrition practice, one of the questions I ask new clients is how much their appetite and cravings change in response to emotions and/or stress. It’s pretty common for people to turn to highly processed foods and boredom-snacking for comfort in response to an increase in situational stress. But many also report losing their appetite completely during periods of sadness, depression, or grief.
These disrupted appetites and dysfunctional dietary habits are easier to spot when you’re looking at food diaries and caloric intake, but the same patterns can also be seen in our media consumption — and I am no exception.
I began my sixth round of this challenge excited to dig into the next four weeks of finely curated audiovisual sustenance, ranging in flavor from punk, grunge, and noise rock, to country and Celtic new age pop. And for the first couple weeks my creative hunger was strong and consistent, effortlessly devouring every last bite.
From the jump, I was immediately enamored with art-rock pioneers, The Moody Blues and their uniquely poppy, psychedelic 1960’s/70’s sound that’s since been immortalized in The Simpsons. And Blur’s unmistakeable Britpop was just the thing to hit the spot.
But the news of the sudden, unexpected passing of an old friend immediately stole my appetite, and with it my taste for anything remotely spiritually nourishing. In the same way I’d encourage an appetite-suppressed client to first focus on eating whatever they could manage and not obsess over the nutrient value, I let myself abandon my creative diet plan and lean on whatever would get me through the first waves of grief.
The strategy worked, and within a few days I felt my hunger cues returning. So I decided I’d dedicate the rest of that week to a single band – the one whose song my friend had named her art practice after. It was somehow the exact combination of nutrients my spirit needed, both in sound and significance, and now the 90’s grunge rockers, Stone Temple Pilots will always be special to me.
My appetite continued to dwindle, but I found comfort in the soft, sentimental vocals of Slowdive successors, Mojave 3 — Ask Me Tomorrow is genuinely a masterpiece. And as another ode to my newly minted angel in heaven, I did a deep dive into eight of The Cure’s perfectly melancholy records that had been the soundtrack to the beautiful, messy chapters we shared in our 20’s.
As my creative cravings slowly resumed, I got into a few new, heavier records, all genuinely phenomenal and highly recommended to anyone with a taste for something more intense. Going in with a preference for a doomier, melodic kind of metal, Gatecreeper’s new release Dark Superstition really did it for me. From the satisfying growls to the melodic walls of sound, it was everything I could want from a contemporary death metal record — and if the track Flesh Habit suddenly bumps up to their number one, it was probably me.
It’s Inside You by CANDY proved to be an impressive blend of hardcore and metal with a touch of experimental electronic influences — and the opening of Short-Circuit really spoke to my mood all month. And earlier in the year a friend had sent me a link to Sparagmos by Spectral Voice, describing it as “depraved,” and that was not an exaggeration. It was possessed, obliterating, and relentless, and despite not typically having the stomach for sounds this severe, it honestly left me wanting more.
Throughout the month I went on a taste testing binge with a random mix of youtube videos ranging from a retired neurosurgeon’s epiphany that Western medicine doesn’t actually heal anyone; to the history of several of the world’s most influential fashion houses; to a circadian biology expert’s personal water filtration and re-mineralization process; and an ASMR-like study of a zen garden.
I finally got into two newer films that had been circulating in peripheral conversations and coincidentally shared a supporting actor — Triangle of Sadness and The Iron Claw — both of which were phenomenal and devastatingly sad. And I also watched the original Alien from 1979 for the first time, albeit through the gaps between my fingers during more suspenseful moments. I may have acquired the taste for scary sounding music, but I am still a big vanilla-ordering baby when it comes to movies.
And I carried on studiously reading the same chosen pair of books I’d been slowly working on — whose subject matter continues to touch on similar sentiments, signaling the possibility that there may be such things as universal truths after all.
In short, August was a weird one. But retrogrades and tragedies aside, I was just really grateful to have had this challenge to keep me grounded, even if it didn’t result in anything “productive” by capitalist standards. It did, however, create a second challenge within a challenge of somehow curating a listenable playlist that could include both Circle Jerks and Enya — the outcome of which may be strange, but it’s all been very fun.
This one’s for you, G 🕊️
Check out my August Menu Playlist, and follow along for next month’s menu and review!
Like the idea. Well written, thanks for sharing. Definitely gonna listen to a few of the musicians.