In 2006, Quentin Stoltzfus was forced to retire Mazarin, the dreamy, strummy Philadelphia-based project he debuted in 1999, due to threats from a litigious Long Island classic-rock band of the same name. If not for that, the new Light Heat album would be a Mazarin album, and could have come out years ago. The catalyst for Light Heat’s debut came from Stoltzfus’ friends and former tourmates the Walkmen. That band, minus singer Hamilton Leithauser, backs Stoltzfus on the LP, although Light Heat itself, like Mazarin, is essentially Stoltzfus and whomever he plays with. Stoltzfus will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on Light Heat.
Stoltzfus: In 2011 I was asked by my good friend and impossibly talented Bill Baird to teach a songwriting class with him at a place called The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Calif. I had some idea of Esalen because Bill had spent time there the previous year, but I could not have foreseen the incredible beauty of being immersed there for a week. As if being situated on 250 acres of prime Big Sur coastline isn’t enough, there’s natural hot springs on the property, precariously cantilevered on 50-foot cliffs overlooking the Pacific and if you are wise, “the tubs” become the dominant force in your daily activity.
We were fortunate to be there during the week in which the Joseph Campbell Foundation celebrates his birthday there, a tradition that he held for a good part of his later life. The members of the foundation graciously invited us to celebrate with them by drinking a case of his favorite scotch, Glenlivet. We were treated to mythological stories, old Joe Campbell antecdotes and songs by some of the leading scholars and devotees of the 20th century’s most respected mythologist.
Esalen has been the spiritual home of many other 20th-century luminaries: Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Ansel Adams, Bucky Fuller, Ray Bradbury, Abraham Maslow, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Lawerence Ferlinghetti, Terrence McKenna, Albert Hofmann, Ken Kesey, Carlos Casteneda, Robert Anton Wilson, Alan Watts and on and on. Hunter S. Thompson was the security guard there for a summer, CSNY played a show there in their prime captured in the movie Celebration At Big Sur. George Harrison famously landed a helicopter on the lawn with Ravi Shankar in tow.
It all sounds like a hell of a party, but they manage to conduct some serious research and offer courses on a range of subjects and practices: meditation, massage, Gestalt therapy, yoga, psychology, ecology, spirituality, organic food, as well as writing and artist residencies, but don’t let the new-age hippies bum you out, man. The place is beyond magical. Words do the place a disservice, as it is about experiencing the raw natural beauty of one of the most picturesque places in the world.
Video after the jump.
