This is probably not the answer you're looking for, but you could look into ways that make callbacks enjoyable. The syntactic sugar provided by CoffeeScript goes a long way to make readable (and, dare I say, elegant) what would be a tangled mess in straight up JavaScript:

  # Get profiles LIST as JSON
  .post "/list", (req, res) ->
    db.maria.query getProfilesQuery, { userId: req.session.passport.user }, false
      .on "result", (result) ->
        rows = []
        res.status(200)
        result
          .on "row", (row) -> rows.push row
          .on "error", (error) -> logger.warn error
          .on "end", -> 
            res.json rows
            res.end()

5 callbacks here but they don't impede readability.