For Mad Men goers, the series finale was noted to be wrought with bad acting and an unsurprising, anti-climatic ending. But, when Don Draper is last seen meditating at Big Sur, a blast of history was at once revealed to fans of the show, which include performances at the retreat site by Joni Mitchell and the iconic Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young from a few years back.
The year was 1970, according to Dangerous Minds, and the terrain is easily identifiable as well as central to the episode. And for Don's yoga retreat, where he resists urges symptomatic of manic depression, and the unremitting foreshadowing of his demise, he comes up with his most brilliant idea to date.
But, as the show demonstrated, the Coca-Cola motif was omnipresent for the duration of the show. "Would you fix this Coke machine?" for example, reveals what Don would finally contribute: the iconic "I Want to Buy the World a Coke" commercial.
Perhaps that was what Frank O'Hara referenced with his poem "Having a Coke with You," but that poem preceded the commercial, having been written in 1966. However, O'Hara has been referenced in the series, particularly in the last episode of season two, which is titled after O'Hara's chapbook, Meditations in an Emergency.
Nevertheless, and as Matthew Weiner is particularly adamant about, the show is accurate to real history. And, as it's been reported, an annual music festival was held on the grounds of what Mad Men reappropriated as the Esalen Institute from 1964 to 1971.
Visual records from the festivals were eventually turned into a documentary entitled Celebration at Big Sur which was released in 1971. In that movie, there was footage of performances by CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and many more.
And, thankfully, we have provided a small video from that movie below.
