AYN RAND DIDN’T WRITE THE RETURN OF THE PRIMITIVE AS A HOW-TO GUIDE: “Tech Elites Recreate Burning Man Inside Their Living Rooms,” and the New York Times is on it: “Like a modern version of a medieval minstrel, a singer named Jess Magic is helping A-list entrepreneurs get in touch with their inner child in private ‘songversations.’” Click over, if only for the photos, which are yet another reminder that the ‘70s is the decade that refuses to die:
“The finance and tech scene is still riding the waves of hypermasculine values,” she said. “Coffee to get through the day, alcohol to wind down, then sleeping pills at night to turn off the mind from all that they have going on.”
“People forget that they are human beings rather than human doings,” she added.
Enter the Soul Salon, which Ms. Magic calls “a play date for your inner child” and performs as a “gift,” she said (although guests are invited to “contribute in accordance with the value they feel they received”).
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Ms. Magic looked ready to jam with the “Exile on Main St.”-era Rolling Stones, wearing skintight bell bottoms and platforms, and admitted to being nervous.
“One of the reasons why I do what I do, and why I am, honestly, on this planet, is to show up with such a level of vulnerability and sincerity and authenticity, that it almost gives people permission to let it go for a little while,” she said.
Whatever the topic, Ms. Magic speaks with a faraway sense of wonder, her hazel eyes seeming to sparkle. When the singing commenced, Ms. Magic invited the assembled to sit on the floor in a semicircle, where a musician named Elijah Ray droned a mystical tune that called to mind images of saffron robes and singing bowls.
As the music swirled, Charles Eisenstein, a proponent of what he calls “sacred economics,” talked about the unending human injury to Mother Earth. “If you knew she could feel, would you stop?” he said.
Was Jerry the actor also there?