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Joni Mitchell and CSNY play at Don Draper’s yoga retreat, 1969
05.18.2015
02:24 pm
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The climactic scene in last night’s Mad Men occurred at an unnamed (at least that I heard—a big deal is made in the episode that nobody in the narrative knows where it is, etc.) yoga retreat on the California coast. The year is 1970, and anyone who knows the area will recognize the terrain as Big Sur, while Don’s yoga retreat was clearly the Esalen Institute.

In the show the retreat is presented as a semi-joke (paunchy Upright Citizens Brigade Theater standout Brett Gelman is on hand to provide the requisite loser/poseur quotient), but its real-life model wasn’t, indeed isn’t, much like that. SFist usefully helps with some of the background of Big Sur and Esalen as well as of the episode. Last year Monterey County Weekly reported that the Mad Men crew had been spotted at Big Sur to get some footage. The institute was founded in 1962, the same year that Jack Kerouac published Big Sur, his novelistic treatment of the area.
 

 
The people who have visited Esalen over the years is a lot more “counterculture pantheon” than “Brett Gelman”—examples include Abraham Maslow, Buckminster Fuller, Ansel Adams, Ray Bradbury, Ken Kesey, Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. One resident closely associated with Big Sur is Henry Miller, who famously lived there for a time. Of course, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner is perfectly within his rights to gently make fun of the place, and truth be told, the retreat is presented as a prod for authentic change, even for the likes of a damaged soul like Don Draper. (Burnt out businessmen seeking to regroup were a mainstay of Esalen’s visitors at the time, this much, too, is historically accurate.)

Remarkably, you can still attend the Esalen Institute: It is still in existence as a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, and weekend workshops have a minimum price of $1,750, covering subjects from mindfulness to permaculture and ecological sustainability. Even more incredibly, if you can get a larger group together (like 25 people), you can experience the marvelous hot springs at the convenient slot of 1-3 a.m. at a much more affordable price (about $30 per person).

There was an annual music festival on the grounds of the Esalen Institute from 1964 to 1971—the 1969 concert was turned into a documentary movie called Celebration at Big Sur, which was released in 1971. The movie featured performances by CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, John Sebastian, and Mimi Fariña. You can watch it below.
 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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05.18.2015
02:24 pm
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