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Learn English Naturally: The Mysterious Life of Isadora Duncan — Transcript

by English with Gemma · 2,388 words · 420 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00[music]
0:05>> Hello everybody and welcome back to
0:07another episode of English with Gemma
0:09where we turn English practice into
0:11progress. Now,
0:13I need to tell you a little story before
0:15I get into today's story.
0:18Um
0:20I just recorded this entire podcast.
0:24Um I think it was about I don't know it
0:27end up being over 10 minutes which is
0:29what I originally planned because my
0:32phone died three times fully charged may
0:36I add.
0:38My phone died
0:40uh
0:40many times during that episode and I was
0:42like, "Okay, I can make this work." I
0:44restarted it every time.
0:47And then
0:49so I was going to have to stitch
0:51together three separate videos.
0:54Uh which is fine. I was like, "Okay, I
0:56can do this." But then I finished the
0:59recording and my microphone wasn't
1:02connected. I I know that it was
1:04connected but it didn't record.
1:08So I am now re-filming re-recording.
1:12But this is especially significant and
1:15creepy in my opinion because today's
1:18episode
1:20is a creepy story. It's a kind of true
1:23crime
1:25haunted weird story. So
1:28normally I would just be like, "Okay,
1:31regular technical difficulties
1:33whatever."
1:34But this feels creepier because
1:39I'm telling a creepy story and I never
1:42have had these technical issues before.
1:44So
1:46I'm a little creeped out
1:48um but it's okay. I think it will add to
1:50the effect of today's video and
1:53fingers crossed we we get through this
1:56um without all the interruptions like I
1:58had the first time that I recorded it.
2:00So,
2:01for you guys, this will just be the
2:03first time and it'll be fresh, but for
2:05me, I've already just done this. So,
2:07apologies if I'm a little bit chaotic.
2:09Um, I'm tired
2:11and I just went through that whole
2:14situation and now I'm kind of creeped
2:15out, but that's okay because today's
2:17story is creepy,
2:20but at the same time you're going to be
2:21learning loads of English phrases
2:24because we are going to have little
2:26language breaks in the middle of the
2:28story.
2:29So, um, if you've been listening or
2:32following me for a while,
2:35you'll know that one of my greatest
2:37loves of this life
2:39is
2:40true crime and all things dark and
2:43creepy. I've been obsessed with dark,
2:46like horror films, creepy stories, true
2:50crime podcasts. Uh, well, the true crime
2:53podcast, it's a recent thing, maybe the
2:56last 5 years, but dark stuff in general,
3:01since I was a little girl, I would say.
3:02I was, uh, one of the first
3:05girls to start really getting into the
3:07horror genre of movies and every time I
3:09had a sleepover with my friends, and I
3:11would force all my friends to watch
3:13scary movies at my house. And I mean, I
3:15would be scared myself, too, but I don't
3:18know. I just love I like being scared. I
3:21like being creeped out. The older I get,
3:23the less I enjoy horror movies, but I
3:26still really like
3:28kind of dark, creepy things.
3:31Um, and one of my favorite podcasts is
3:33called My Favorite Murder. I don't like
3:36murder and I don't like death and things
3:39like that, but I am an anxious person
3:41and I feel like the more information
3:43that I can gather about the horrible
3:45things that happen in this world, the
3:47better prepared I can be if those things
3:49happen to me. That's kind of my logic
3:51about it. It might not make sense to
3:53you, but it does for me. So, that is my
3:56little explanation of why I'm so into
3:58true crime. And let's get into today's
4:01story. So,
4:02this is the true and very strange story
4:07of Isadora Duncan.
4:10So, in 1927, a woman stepped into a car
4:15in Nice, France, wrapped a long silk
4:18scarf around her neck, waved goodbye to
4:21her friends, and said,
4:23and I want you to remember these exact
4:25words. She said, okay, guys, I'm going
4:27to try to speak French for a second. Um
4:29I've never spoken French, never learned
4:31French, so
4:32pardon my pronunciation. [laughter]
4:35She said, adieu, mes amis, je vais je
4:39vais à la gloire. Je vais je vais à la
4:43gloire, I think.
4:45It means, farewell, my friends, I go to
4:48glory.
4:49So, farewell is just like an old-timey
4:51way of saying goodbye.
4:53Seconds later after she said this, she
4:56was dead.
4:58Seconds later.
5:00Her name was Isadora Duncan.
5:02She was one of the most famous women in
5:05the world. And what makes this story
5:07genuinely disturbing,
5:09what keeps it alive nearly a hundred
5:11years later,
5:12is that she had been predicting this
5:15moment for years.
5:17This is the story of a woman who seemed
5:19to know exactly how she was going to
5:21die, and couldn't stop it.
5:24Before we go any further, let's have our
5:26first language break. Let's pull out a
5:29phrase you just heard, to keep something
5:31alive.
5:32I said,
5:33this story keeps itself alive nearly a
5:36hundred years later. This is a phrasal
5:39verb, to keep something alive, and it
5:41means to make sure that something is not
5:43forgotten.
5:45Uh Uh, to make sure that something
5:46continues to exist, to prevent it from
5:49being forgotten.
5:51You can keep a memory alive, you can
5:54keep a tradition alive, you can keep
5:56hope alive. And notice how it works with
5:59abstract things. So, we don't say like
6:01keep a a chair alive. We say keep alive
6:05about feelings, relationships, ideas.
6:09Okay, so keep that piece of vocab alive
6:13in your brain for later.
6:16All right, so who was Isabella Duncan?
6:19Not Isabella, Isadora. Sorry.
6:22Isadora Duncan was, by any measure,
6:26an extraordinary woman.
6:28Born in San Francisco in 1877, she
6:31essentially invented modern dance, you
6:34guys.
6:35Before Isadora,
6:37Western dance meant things like ballet.
6:40Rigid, structured, corseted, and
6:43rule-bound.
6:45Isadora threw all of those ideas out the
6:47window.
6:48She danced
6:50barefoot, which means with no shoes.
6:53She wore flowing Greek tunics.
6:57She moved like the wind was moving her,
7:00not like she was performing a dance that
7:02she'd memorized.
7:03She was scandalous, she was magnetic,
7:06she filled concert halls across Europe
7:08and America.
7:09She drank too much, loved recklessly,
7:12had affairs with famous men
7:15and women,
7:16and she gave speeches on stage about
7:18freedom and art and the body
7:22that made audiences simultaneously
7:24applaud her
7:26and walk out in anger sometimes.
7:29She was, in the truest sense of the
7:32expression, ahead of her time.
7:35So, let's have our second language
7:37break. Ahead of her time. This
7:39expression means that someone had ideas
7:42or
7:43ways of living that were too modern, too
7:46progressive for the era that they were
7:49born into. The world just wasn't ready
7:51for them yet.
7:53We say someone was ahead of their time
7:55when they were visionary, but also sadly
7:58often misunderstood or punished for
8:01being different.
8:03What's the opposite of ahead of their
8:05time is behind the times. This means
8:08outdated, old-fashioned,
8:10or stuck in the past.
8:13So, a little grammar note, we say ahead
8:15of her time, not ahead of the time.
8:19In English, expressions like this use
8:21the possessive pronouns. So, we say
8:23ahead of his time, ahead of their time,
8:26because we're talking about the specific
8:29moment that that person was born into,
8:31that they were born into. So, it belongs
8:34to them. It's their time. All right.
8:37Let's get back to the story.
8:40In 1913, Isadora's life fell apart in a
8:43single afternoon. Her two young
8:46children, Deirdre, aged 7, and Patrick,
8:49aged 2, were in a car with their nanny
8:52in Paris.
8:53The driver [snorts] stepped out for a
8:54moment, and the car rolled forward,
8:58broke through a barrier, and plunged
9:00into the Seine River.
9:03All three of them drowned.
9:05Isadora was told while she was at lunch.
9:08She collapsed in sadness and pain.
9:12People who were there with her said she
9:14made a sound
9:15that they had never heard a human make
9:17before,
9:18and that they never wanted to hear
9:19again.
9:21She never fully recovered.
9:23How could she?
9:25But, what happened next is where the
9:27story gets really strange.
9:29Rather than pulling away from life,
9:31Isadora seemed to develop a kind of dark
9:34recklessness,
9:36as if part of her was no longer afraid
9:38of death
9:40because she'd already lost everything
9:41that she cared about.
9:42Friends noticed that she talked about
9:44dying with an unsettling casualness. She
9:47joked about it. She often referred to
9:50herself as a woman already living on
9:52borrowed time.
9:54So, in this language break, we've got
9:56two things to unpack. The first one is
9:58the phrasal verb to fall apart. It means
10:01to collapse emotionally or for something
10:05to disintegrate completely.
10:07Her life fell apart.
10:10It didn't break, it didn't end, but it
10:12came undone piece by piece.
10:15You can often use this about a
10:16relationship. For example,
10:19after the argument, everything fell
10:21apart with those two.
10:23Or a plan. The project fell apart in the
10:25final week.
10:27It implies that things ended not in one
10:30single moment, but it was a process of
10:32unraveling slowly piece by piece.
10:35The
10:36living on borrowed time.
10:38This idiom means that someone is
10:40continuing to live or exist beyond the
10:43point that they should.
10:46The image is almost mathematical. It's
10:48like you borrowed some time
10:51that was never yours, and eventually
10:53your debt comes due and you must die.
10:56You must pay back that borrowed time.
10:59It's a very heavy, haunting expression.
11:02And Isadora often used it about herself.
11:06Here's where the story starts to get
11:07genuinely unsettling. In the final years
11:11of Isadora's life, multiple people
11:13around her reported the same thing.
11:16She had an intense, almost obsessive
11:19fear of long scarves and moving
11:23vehicles.
11:24Not cars in general, specifically the
11:26combination of scarves and vehicles.
11:31One of Isadora's friends named Mary
11:33Desti, one of her closest companion
11:35companions, wrote in her memoir that
11:38Isadora had mentioned more than once
11:41that she had had a premonition about how
11:44she would die. A premonition is like a
11:46vision in your head of the future.
11:49She saw it very clearly.
11:51A scarf,
11:52a wheel,
11:53and a vehicle at speed.
11:56Mary, her friend, begged her not to wear
11:58long scarves in cars. Isadora ignored
12:01her or couldn't stop herself or and this
12:05was the part that nobody quite knew what
12:07to do with.
12:08Maybe she simply just didn't want to
12:10listen to their advice.
12:13On the night of September 14th, 1927,
12:16Isadora was in Nice. She was 50 years
12:19old.
12:20She was in debt. Her career was fading.
12:23Her fame was flickering.
12:25She was thinking about writing her
12:26memoirs.
12:28She got into an Amilcar sports car, an
12:31open-top car, very low to the ground,
12:33driven by a mechanic named Benoit
12:35Falchetto. That's weird. It's like his
12:38first name is French and his his last
12:40name is Italian.
12:42Her friends on the pavement called out,
12:45"Be careful of your scarf."
12:47She laughed.
12:49She waved. She said those words, "Je
12:53vais à la gloire."
12:55I'm going to glory.
12:57And the car pulled away.
13:00The long silk scarf, painted with a bold
13:03design, trailed behind her in the
13:05breeze.
13:07Within seconds, it caught in the open
13:09spokes of the rear wheel of the car. It
13:12pulled taut
13:14and it broke her neck instantly.
13:17She was dead before anyone could even
13:19react.
13:22Oof.
13:23So,
13:25her premonition came true.
13:27Let's have a little language break. I
13:28think we need it, right?
13:30Pulled taut. T A U T, taut. This
13:35adjective means stretched tight with no
13:38slack. A taut rope, a taut wire.
13:42A taut expression on someone's face when
13:45they're trying to hide fear.
13:47It comes up a lot in physical
13:48descriptions, but also in emotional or
13:51atmospheric ones. A scene can feel taut,
13:55full of tension. A thriller novel is
13:57often described as taut, meaning sharp,
14:00no loose threads, wound up very tight.
14:04So, the scarf pulled taut, that
14:06verb-adjective combination gives you the
14:09exact sensation, the moment that the
14:12scarf went from beautiful and and
14:15flowing to taut and lethal, like a noose
14:19around her neck.
14:21And a little vocabulary note, uh the
14:23opposite of taut is slack, which means
14:26loose, not tight. Uh a slack rope, a
14:30slack expression on someone's face. Or
14:33we have a nice little expression, to cut
14:35someone some slack. It means to forgive
14:37someone, give them a little bit of
14:39leniency.
14:41Like, my mom was being really annoying,
14:43but I will cut her some slack because
14:45she's been very stressed at work. So,
14:47like, I will forgive her. I will cut her
14:49some slack.
14:52So, you guys, there is no clean ending
14:55to the story of Isadora Duncan.
14:57No one can explain why a woman of her
15:00intelligence kept wearing long scarves
15:02in open-top cars, even knowing or
15:05believing
15:06what would happen to her.
15:09Some biographers say it was
15:10self-destruction dressed up as
15:12recklessness. Some say she genuinely
15:15forgot in moments of joy the thing that
15:17she feared the most. And Mary Desti, her
15:20friend who was there that night, said
15:22these words,
15:24simply,
15:25"She knew."
15:28Oh, those were Mary Desti's words about
15:30it, the situation, just "She knew."
15:34Oh my god, that gave me goosebumps.
15:37Look at my arm. I literally have
15:38goosebumps. That's when your hair on
15:41your arm stands up, also on your legs,
15:44and you get those little bumps on your
15:45skin. In American English, we say
15:47goosebumps. In British English, goose
15:49pimples, I think.
15:52So, what we're left with is this, a
15:54woman who lived on the edge.
15:57Another phrase that means um
15:59to live on the edge, it's to live
16:01recklessly, to live dangerously.
16:04She lived on the edge her whole life.
16:06She also redefined what a body could do
16:09on stage. She was ahead of her time.
16:13She buried her children and kept dancing
16:15and kept living her life.
16:18She predicted her own death with eerie
16:20precision and walked toward it anyway,
16:22fearlessly,
16:24waving,
16:25laughing,
16:26dressed beautifully in silk.
16:29And you guys, that scarf, her exact
16:31scarf, is in a museum now in Paris.
16:34It's very long and very beautiful.
16:38And I hope you never look at a scarf the
16:40same way again. Thank you guys for
16:42listening or watching,
16:45and stay safe.
16:46Don't wear scarves. And uh I hope you
16:50enjoyed today's episode. See you next
16:52time. Bye.
16:57>> [music]
17:09[music]

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