DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION FOR MISSY? OPINION BY MISSY : CHECK PREVIOUS POSTS FOR QUESTIONS and ANSWERS

I have a few Questions here that I've never answered.  I can't always promise I will.  If you have a Question for me, please use the Google Search feature embedded in the side bar of this blog to bring up previously answered Questions and Answers.  One of these might be the same or similar to the question you want to ask me.

My answers reflect my Opinion, just an Opinion.  You may or may not find my advice works for you!

Missy

HE'S MR. RIGHT BUT SEX IS TERRIBLE - SHOULD SHE KEEP HIM?

QUESTION FOR MISSY

Missy, I think I've met Mr. Right.  I want to marry him.  He wants to marry me.   He has wonderful qualities.  He's educated, responsible, and he treats me like a lady. Trouble is sex.  We waited a long time.  Six months.  I was already in love with him.   I'm avoiding having sex with him.  I'm 29 and I've had a couple other relationships and sex was OK.  This is the worst sex. I'm beginning to think that the reason his other relationships haven't worked out is because of the sex.  I'm trying to track down one of his ex's to talk to her about it.  What do you say?

Maryanne
Cleveland

ANSWER FOM MISSY

Maryanne

Don't track down his ex and then expect her to instantly bond with you and reveal her personal sex business.  She's done with this man!  He is now your problem.

I say, you're 29 and worried that you'll never get married so you are making do with this man who is NOT Mr. Right for you. 

Sex has been called "the wild card" in relationships and I agree. 

I've asked some of my girlfriends what they think, and we all agree that sex does not get better because you get married.  If it's a problem when you're in the early stages of in love, it probably always will be.  It's always possible that this man would satisfy someone else, that it's just a basic incompatibility that no book learning or couple's workshops (sex therapy) would fix, but we think that's more for couples who had good sex for a while and then got bored.

So get this, Maryanne.

One of my friends had your situation.  She too had good sex with other men and then met Dirk.  She married Dirk and within a year they weren't having sex at all.  It was pretty awful when she figured it out.  Her husband is a repressed homosexual (old psychology terminology but useful) who is very uncomfortable, if not simply turned off, with a woman.  He wanted a wife so he'd look good to his boss at a conservative law firm and to his family.  She took a good hit to her self esteem and responded by having an affair that assured her that she was not the problem.

Another of my friends, in her twenties, dated a man in his forties and again sex was not good.  But she was very inexperienced and could only think it was her. He told her he was divorced.  He didn't tell her five times.  Each marriage was brief. She's now betting it was the sex.  One night he said something very strange to her about her fancy parts.  He made her feel defective.  This man also had a very good man friend who he talked to every day on the phone.  We're the two of them involved?  Who knows.  She says that it took her years to realize that there was nothing wrong with her fancy parts, that she is attractive, and that she was not the problem.

So BAD SEX can make a woman loose her self esteem and sticking with a MR WRONG is also bad for a woman's confidence.  Two reasons, of many, why a woman should not marry until she's had sexual experience.  (This is not to advise sleeping around or being very casual about an important, and for some sacred, experience.)

If you are actually thinking of marrying someone, then you should feel free to tell them that you are unhappy with sex.  We're all wondering if this man has any idea he's so sad in the sack! 

Look at this man as "almost right."  You want someone with his good qualities but you also want to have good sex when you are married, which we hope will be a forever marriage! 

Missy

C 2016  All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights

COMMITTED : A SKEPTIC MAKES PEACE WITH MARRIAGE by ELIZABETH GILBERT : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

 

COMMITTED by ELIZABETH GILBERT

 

MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW/EXCERPTS

 

 

This book asks "are EXPECTATIONS of marriage," which are cultural, really what makes marriage a questionable commitment today? 

 

Examples of alternative ways of marriage are given. 

 

For instance, among Hmong women, you don't expect your husband to be "your best friend, your most intimate confidant, your intellectual equal, and your comfort in times of sorrow." (page 32)  Of course this list does seem idealistic, even today, but most of us in the Western world, the 1st world so to speak, do expect our husband or wife to be the best person for us that we've ever met and communicating with that person as a confidant, intellectual equal, and comfort in times of sorrow are necessary.

 

As polygamy and gay marriage make the news, we learn that in ancient Southern India, a union between one women and several men was OK and in ancient Rome, a union between two men was recognized as marriage. (page 53)  So maybe the ancients were even more advanced in their thinking than we are, and so is it surprising that there is still a debate here?

 

Then there is the history of marriage, which was seen as an economic union, that protected inheritances and wealth, so that marriages could take place even between the unborn.  In Mediaeval Europe, peasants were forbidden to marry those of higher rank.  In China, a living woman could be married to a dead man in a "ghost marriage."  (page 54 and page 61)

 

A great example of what it took for people to change their practical and economic view of marriage was that after the Black Death (plague) when 75 million people died, there was, for the first time perhaps in Europe, such a great striving for remarriage that finally, for survivors, there was a possibility of marrying up.  "20 somethings" eagerly married elderly men and women.  (page 61)

 

And then Gilbert shares with us an old Polish adage that goes...

"Before going to war, say one prayer.

Before going to sea, say two prayers.

Before getting married, say three prayers."  (page 85)

 

This author, famous for her intellectual and spiritual memoir called "Eat, Pray, Love," also gets into infidelity and being childless by choice.

 

A thought provoking though less personal book than that one, this is a worthwhile read. You may just find yourself testing your own expectations about commitment to the status quo.

 

 

C 2016 Missy Rapport/ Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

 

 

 

 



DID MERCEDES DeACOSTA KEEP ISADORA DUNCAN LATER IN HER LIFE?

ROBERT SCHANKE - Mercedes DeAcosta book

Mercedes DeAcosta came from a respectable Catholic Cuban family that immigrated to the United States, and became an expatriate in Paris who was well known for her lesbian seductions. This book details her self realization that she was different and her acceptance of that fact with much turmoil which she got over: she had Greta Garbo and Eva Le Gallienne, both famous actresses, as lovers, and is said to have made the rounds of women.  Her older heterosexual sister, Rita, who became renown for her fashion design and sense, went to Paris first.  They both moved in artistic and literary circles starting in the 1900's. 

When Rita learned that her husband was having an affair with a woman who didn't dress well, she said "I can't have you going around with a creature who looks like that" and sent the woman off to Callot Soeurs for new fashions. (page 33)

In Paris, Rita and Mercedes met the sculptor Rodin.

Isadora Duncan had met him a few years earlier. 

She reported "Finally he took a small quantity of clay and pressed it between his palms.  He breathed hard as he did so.  The heat streamed from him like a radiant furnace.  In a few moments he had formed a woman's breast, that palpitated beneath his fingers."  Then he turned to Duncan.  "He gazed at me with lowered lids, his eyes blazing, and then with the same expression that he had before his works, he came towards me.  He ran his hands over my neck, breast, stroked my arms and ran his hands over my hips, my bare legs and feet.  He began to kneed my whole body as if it wet clay, while from him emanated heat that scorched and melted me."  (pages 24-25)

In June 1926, Mercedes went again to Paris.  Word was out that Isadora was in a hotel on the Left Bank, destitute and deserted by her friends, possibly starving.  "Almost immediately, Mercedes hailed a taxi and sped off to find her.  To Mercedes' delight, Duncan greeted her at the door with "Archangel!  I think you are an archangel. How did you find me?"  (page 79)

In no time at all, an intimate romance resumed between them. Duncan penned a poem to Mercedes that overflowed with sexual images. (The poem is in the book, as is another message from Isadora in which she has just now known love for the first time.)  Duncan wrote later that "I believe the highest love is purely spiritual flame which is not necessarily dependent on sex."  (page 80)

This statement has been interpreted, I believe incorrectly.  I think Isadora didn't mean sex, but gender.

C2016  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot / Missy Rapport

ISADORA DUNCAN DANCE FOUNDATION - LORI BELILOVE and the ISADORA DUNCAN DANCERS

ISADORA DUNCAN DANCE FOUNDATION LINK

LOTION LYRTA - PARIS

ISADORA DUNCAN's MEMOIR - THE AMERICAN VERSION WAS CENSORED - READ AT PROJECT GUTENBERG

 

GUTENBERG- ISADORA DUNCAN "MY LIFE" MEMOIR  Read it here!

First published in 1927 and after she had tragically died. This link has MANY wonderful pictures of Isadora and the people in her life.  But, by the way, she has a code name for Paris Singer, the name which begins with L.


From chapter 19, about giving birth to her first child, a daughter by Gordon Craig.

"We were all sitting at tea one afternoon, when I felt a thud as if some one had pounded me in the middle of the back, and then a fearful pain, as if some one had put a gimlet into my spine and was trying to break it open. From that moment the torture began, as if I, poor victim, were in the hands of some mighty and pitiless executioner. No sooner had I recovered from one assault than another began. Talk about the Spanish Inquisition! No woman who has borne a child would have to fear it. It must have been a mild sport in comparison. Relentless, cruel, knowing no release, no pity, this terrible, unseen genie had me in his grip, and was, in continued spasms, tearing my bones and my sinews apart. They say such suffering is soon forgotten. All I have to reply is that I have only to shut my eyes and I hear again my shrieks and groans as they were then, like something encircling me apart from my self.

It is unheard-of, uncivilised barbarism, that any woman should still be forced to bear such monstrous torture. It should be remedied. It should be stopped. It is simply absurd that with our modern science painless childbirth does not exist as a matter of course. It is as unpardonable as if doctors should operate for appendicitis without an anæsthetic! What unholy patience, or lack of intelligence, have women in general that they should for one moment endure this outrageous massacre of themselves?"

*****

I got my own English version copy at a used bookstore years ago and found it so Poetical.  Isadora Duncan could probably never be accused of speaking in an ugly, guttural way.  But the book I recently read about her checks her version of her life, as she remembered it, with some other references such as her student Irma's book, the writings of Gordon Craig, and even mentions that some of her book was censored by the publisher, despite her so eloquent and even obscure ways of mentioning sex, for instance, for the American readership.  - Missy

THE KISS by WILLIAM H. BRADLEY

MENS GAZE VERSUS WOMEN'S GAZE CAN TELL SEXUAL ORIENTATION and INTEREST

LIVE SCIENE - MALE GAZE REVEALS SEXUAL MOTIVATION

EXCERPT:

The eyes have it.

Previous work has found that men, especially, give away their sexual thoughts with their eyes. The dilation of the pupil in response to sexual images, for example, can reveal sexual orientation reliably in men and in gay women, though straight women don't show such clear patterns.  Studies have also found that heterosexual men gaze longer at pictures of women than of men, while heterosexual women look at male and female images about equally.

DANCE ON FIRE

Isadora lived long enough to see that there were dancers and dance troops all over the United States and Europe who took some inspiration from her ideas but who didn't give her credit.  This vintage image from artfullymusing.blogspot.com from THE THEATRE magazine, March 1917, features a dancer on fire.  She is wearing shoes.  Isadora at first wore Grecian type sandals, gold in color, that tied up her legs, but soon decided dancing barefoot was more in keeping with her philosophy.

ISADORA DUNCAN - SOME PHOTOS

While the Mistress of Paris Singer, Isadora Duncan got out of her Grecian style dress and sandals, and began to wear the Parisian fashions by trendsetting designers as well as shoes and important pieces of jewelry and fur coats. According to Isadora - A Sensational Life by Peter Kurth, in Argentina where she was not well received and took losses, she gave a huge emerald and an ermine coat towards the debt before leaving town.

. 

Posting this video June 2021 called GLIMPSES OF ISADORA DUNCAN

TO MY VALENTINE

WILL YOU RECIEVE VIOLETS OR ROSES?

A friend (of a friend who owns a floral shop in Southern California) tells me this. "On Friday nights the Mexican-American men come in and get Violets for their wives and Roses for their Girlfriends." 


Interesting!


Well, let it be known that today is considered to be VALENTINE'S DAY for MISTRESSES, the day before the actual holiday when married men who also have a girlfriend are known to remember their Other Woman with flowers (and other treats.)

LOVE POEMS AS PRESENTS!

I'm a fan of gifting a poem - a love poem - and though I think ANY POEM you write (even if it's corny, even if it will never be published) will work - you can always find a poem you love and think is appropriate ,and copy it, crediting the author.  I still have a poem that my boyfriend, age 17, handwrote with a pencil on ordinary paper.

image from Google Images search for

public domain vintage images

Hafiz is a famous poet.

CHOCOLATES CIE FRANCAISE

PARIS SINGER PROVIDED FOR ISADORA DUNCAN - PARTIES, DESIGNER CLOTHING, EXOTIC TRAVEL, HOME, STUDIO, and LOVE

According to Peter Kurth, author of ISADORA, a Sensational Life, Paris Singer provided Isadora Duncan the following gifts of love and support and patronage.

After the birth of their son, Patrick,

(265) He gave her carte blanc to throw a great party at Trianon Palace Hotel at Versailles to celebrate.  There were marquees in the park with caviar, champagne, tea, cakes, a tent with Richard Wagner works via Colonne orchestra, and dinner.  Isadora greeted each guest personally, dressed in a "flaming, pleated silk gown made by artist and stage designer Mario Fortuny.  Then switched to dancing in her tunic and gold sandals to the strains of the Vienna Orchestra."  Guest included famous ballet dancers, Nobel laureates, the director of the Boston Opera company, and more.  (But Paris didn't show  up!)

(274) She left Patrick to be raised by others and returned from traveling to America and other places, touring, after 2 years.  She had left him in a cradle.  Now her students barely recognized her in her Parisian finery.

(280 and 283) Land to build a theatre of her own near Champs-Elysees "Le Theatre due Beau" and a house to use as a school. "The gift she had been waiting for."  He hired an architect to create a "democratic" design.

(280) Financially helped her best friend for life, Mary Desti, to open a skin crème store.

(280) In January 1912, Isadora and Singer went to Egypt on a boat, talking along a party of people with them, and then he bought a villa in Alexandria where they both said they would live permanently.  (They didn't.)

(291-292) After flirting with other men in front of him, Paris Singer had enough and took off.  He left for another trip to Egypt with another woman.  But the break up didn't last.  He was gone for several months but returned in the spring asking her to meet him for lunch. There he proposed that they revive the theatre.

Soon after, her two children, including her son by him, Patrick, were drowned in a terrible auto accident. SINGER was the one to break the news to her.

Though he also slept with other women, Isadora's affairs infuriated him.  But she did love him.  At this time, Stanislavsky, who would become known for being an originator of METHOD ACTING, visited her in Paris.

(259)  He was shocked at the change in her and felt she had sold herself.  He went into the private rooms she lived in and saw that they had been decorated "French Demi Mondaine" meaning Courtesan or Prostitute.

(303) Isadora when to London and then Corfu that summer.  Singer showed up.  She asked him to give her another child.  He didn't agree.

(311) Despite all this, SINGER gave her Bellvue, a mansion, OUTRIGHT in 1912.  It had been Hotel Paillard and was an 18th century mansion, he hoped to "rescue her from grief."

(313) 1914  Singer's funds were again available to continue with building a theatre on the grounds of Bellevue.

(338) When her New York tour proved to be a loss of $12,000  Singer settled the debt, asking some to forgive 80%.

(356) When her tour of Buenos Aires also proved to be a failure financially, and she didn't even know where Singer was anymore, he heard that she's was alone at the docks and without funds or friends.  Once again he bailed her out.  She said, "I had a curious feeling of confidence and safety and I was delighted to see him as he was to see me."  They met up in New York where he had taken a apartment and life became wonderful again "Through the magic power of money."

(356) Then at his own expense he booked the Metropolitan Opera House for her, a benefit for the families of French artists whose families had been impoverished by the war.  It was a triumph but afterwards, Isadora made a scene at "Sherrys" where she wore the chiffon and diamonds he had provided her.  She danced seductively with younger men and threw the necklace at him.

(358) He forgave her and continued to provide until the public scandals associated with their romance moved it "unavoidably to its conclusion."  (Isadora was now about 40 years old.)

(367) 1917 She pawned the necklace and ermine and emerald jewelry Paris Singer gave her to rent an Oceanside cottage for her and her students on Long Island, New York, for the summer.  There are guests constantly.

Isadora drank more and became more promiscuous, seeking out affairs with younger men, and then, she did what she said she would never do.  She married, and to a much younger Russian poet who was verbally and physically abusive to her, stole from her, ruined her reputation further with his destruction of furniture and rooms.  They married on May 2, 1922.  And when their relationship was in a significant crisis...

(472) Isadora borrowed money from Paris Singer to get back to Europe.  She had ask him to get her to Paris "In memory of our love for our child" previously and been turned away, maybe because she was married, so how she got the money this time is a question, but maybe she said she was leaving her husband.

(473) She used the last of Singer's money to get her troubled poet husband back to Berlin for transport back to Russia.

(556) And when Isadora Duncan died, her neck broken in an auto accident, Paris Singer was the one who came to take charge of the funeral arrangements.  The day before he had agreed to buy her a luxury automobile.

DECLARATION FOR MISTRESSES : Elegance

"I am elegant in my manner and appearance."

Elegance is defined by one dictionary as "the quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance or manner." 

Isadora Duncan, because of the physical practice of her personal philosophy of movement and dance, was graceful on her feet, flowing and light even when she was overweight.  For most of us being at a good weight is an advantage when it comes to free movement and balance, but being elegant is also about 'less is more." 

I think that the Plus Size movement is very good because women who are average build or a bit bigger have for years been plagued with some of the worst, badly cut, overly patterned and colored garments one could buy.  It's as if the designers have thought that they could disguise a bigger body by making it even more overwhelming to see.

Perhaps when you dress for the evening especially, be concerned that you don't overdo it with ornaments of ruffles, frills, overwhelming patterns and colors and then make it all worse with too much or wrong jewelry and hair ornaments.  What people should see first is you, your face, not your clothing.  This is why a simple formal gown that shows off your face is often the most elegant or a dress well cut and fitting made of one color fabric, with just one piece of jewelry - choose earrings, a necklace, or a bracelet - but just ONE - may show you off to the best effect.  If you wear glasses or have multicolored hair, you simply must take those into consideration as you count all the distractions you are wearing.  A beautiful pair of sun or prescription glasses counts as a jewelry item.

Have you ever heard, "Get all dressed and take one item off?"  Well, here is a simple formula.  At any one time you should not have more than a count of 9 on.  Each item counts as 1 but patterned items count as two.  So, hair, glasses, earrings is three.  Shoes that are simple and plain are four.  A simple bag without a pattern is five.  Carrying more than one bag?  Count one for each. You get the idea.  Wearing your hair simply, a classic evening dress, shoes, a small bag in a texture on texture or same bead colored pattern, allows you five more points for jewelry and perhaps a live flower.

Photographs of celebrities on the Red Carpet and other events that are featured in magazines are not to be trusted, even when the photo comes with complimentary or critical judgment.  WHY?

The photograph is one view, a picture, often enhanced or shopped, and not the same as meeting that person wearing that dress at all.  Let me say that almost always the celebrity is more beautiful in person than they photograph, that you might not even notice their dress so engaged are you with their true visage, but also their charm, charisma, personality, and manners.  (Sadly, in some cases with their acting out, bad language, and narcissism!)  I've met a few of these people and there is really something to be said for their special energy or "star power" that is obvious and intriguing.

C 2016 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

DIRECTOIRE WOMAN 1917

ISADORA DUNCAN : MOTHER OF MODERN DANCE - MISTRESS OF PARIS SINGER - SHE DID POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS TO ATTRACT A WEALTHY PATRON

Image from Wikimedia

Identified as in Public Domain in the United States only

ISADORA DUNCAN as a young woman. 

1877-1927

 

 

 

ISADORA - A SENSATIONAL LIFE

This outstanding book by Peter Kurth is the primary reference,

along with Isadora Duncan's own memoir,

 called MY LIFE, for this month's focus.

I read both cover to cover.

 

 

ISADORA DUNCAN, in her early womanhood, said this: "Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences." 

 

Marriage, she thought, was excessively Repressive and she was excessively Romantic, at least into the days of her sexual awakening, before she had been pregnant and abandoned. 

 

To put Isadora Duncan into the context of her times is important. She wasn't just unconventional but a Rebel and she was considered an Old Maid when, at twenty-four years old, she finally found a man willing and lost her virginity.  She would suffer two miscarriages and give birth to two children in her lifetime.  She'd be known most for her "mothering" of children, students, and friends, but be horribly disappointed by men repeatedly.  It was Paris Singer who Kept her, and perhaps loved her the most and best.

 

Born in San Francisco to a mother who played the piano and instilled culture into her children even as they moved frequently ahead of debt collectors, and with a banker father who got in trouble and abandoned the family, she, her siblings, and their mother had to find their own way in the world and experienced lifelong extremes when it came to finances.  Technically homeless at times, even as Isadora's dance theories, inspired by the Ancient Greeks as well as other artists who emphasized the connection between body and spirit, made her famous and wealthy, she lived in chaos.  Isadora many times had the patronage and sponsorship of society women and fellow artists.  She made money but spent it freely.  She let money slip through her fingers with questionable management, risk taking, a preference for spending on good times and vacations,  and supporting the father of her first child, the irresponsible womanizer, Gordon Craig.  She was always begging, or had others doing it for her, in campaigns official and personal, to cover costs to prioritize her school and students.  The school survived because it became the forte of her sister, Elizabeth.

 

When I first read Isadora Duncan's own memoir, which I will provide a link for you to this month, I was a teenager struck with her way with words, her world view, her Romanticism.  I've come to see Isadora Duncan as someone with a Gift and a Vision, but also someone who was unable to deal with the practicalities of life.  By today's standards she was alcoholic, depressed, possibly bi-polar.

As an Artist who ran on Emotion, and by all accounts was Free Spirited, going against the prevailing morals of her time, believing that marriage was a trap for a woman, especially an Artist, Isadora seemed to believe that the Universe would always be kind to her. But then, 30ish, Isadora became more Pragmatic.  She decided to counter her plea for funds from patrons and friends alike and practice the new, mystical method of getting what it was you wanted called Coueism, *** the original Positive Thinking.  After having been though emotional sickness and mental breakdowns as a result of her relationships with men, came the time, in May of 1901 when she was 30 that she reassessed.  She said, "I had created an Art, a School, a Baby."  By then she had bailed Gordon Craig out more than once and was becoming frustrated with him. (Finally!)  She practiced mantras to attract a millionaire, at first only to finance her dream of dancing schools. 

Her multi-millionare turned out to be Paris Singer, one of the siblings of her first great patron in Paris, his sister Winaretta,  the Princess de Polignac, who had invited her to dance, introduced her to the aristocrats, given her a generous sum of 2000 francs, and arranged a series of subscription dances for her that brought notables to her when she arrived there in 1901.

Isadora met Paris, who she called "the Grand Duke," in February 1909. 

Could she really ever reconsider what she had said about marriage?  Not yet.

 

Her relationship with Singer, one of the younger of a couple dozen children begot by the inventor of the Singer Sewing Machine, lasted for eight volatile years in which he continually financed her dreams, even buying her a historic mansion to live in that also housed a dance studio.  (During World War I she gave it up and it was turned into a hospital.)  Singer bailed her out time and time again, asked her to marry him, paid for the latest fashions and important pieces of jewelry and fur coats,  provided Interior Decorators who made her personal rooms into, reportedly, a Courtesan's, and tried for a short while to settle her down in England as a proper English Aristocrat.   With an income suspected of being about $15,000 a month without any need to work, Singer had no worries about running out of funds.

 

With Singer, Isadora became pregnant and gave birth to her son, Patrick. Patrick as well as her daughter by Craig, Deidre, were accidently drowned as children, an event so terrible that hundreds of the famous and important in Paris came to support her in her grief and she became defined by it.  Her hair is said to have turned white overnight as a result and she dyed it with red henna for the rest of her life.  It's also speculated that her Depression after the death of her children is what accelerated her drinking - she favored Champagne - and lead to increasingly promiscuity.

Did she love Paris Singer and he her, or was he there in her life only for money?  She did love him, in her way, without being faithful.  Accordingly, he also loved her and accepted much about her.

 

After the eight years, though he seems by then to have given up on Isadora, she apparently was still in his heart.  He was still someone who cared enough about her to keep tabs on her through friends and more than once he tried again. Then, if you count his anonymous bail outs later in life when she found her tours in America and South America to be losses,  you realize that Singer was in Isadora's life for the rest of her life.

 

In her forties, Isadora aged and got fat. She took criticism that her looks and weight took away from her dance, though it's said that she always held herself and walked with light and grace no matter.  By then there were many imitators of her dance in the world, others touring and making money without crediting her, and the public no longer needed the Original.  Her life turned into an ongoing party, surrounded by homosexual admirers and, this is still controversial, one or more lesbian lovers, usually also American Ex-Pats and heiresses who supplied money. Some claim she had as many as 1000 lovers, mostly young men chosen for the night.  My guess is that her reputation more than her behavior moved her towards that statistic.

 

Was Isadora a woman who was unable to learn from her own life?  Did she actually sell out?

 

Nearing fifty she did marry as badly as is possible. She married a violent, abusive, much younger Russian poet, Esenin, who she'd met as a result of her attempt to found a school of dance with the government sponsorship of Soviet Russia.  To some extent Isadora Duncan was mixed up, if not in actual participation but by philosophy, in the Russian Revolution and the cause of the Bolsheviks.  In hypocrisy, she seemed to despise the wealthy, though no doubt she had depended on them from the early days when she was featured entertainment in their Salons, in American and in Europe, and had lived lavishly due to their generosity rather than her own ability to earn, invest, or save.

 

Duncan's death has also become part of defining her because she was killed instantly by a broken neck when a long wrap scarf she was wearing got caught in the wheel of an expensive sports car that Paris Singer had agreed to purchase for her that very day.  In many of her dances a scarf was used as a symbol and accessory. Singer came to take care of her funeral. Of all her lovers, he was the most true to her.

 

This month, I'll select excerpts from the Kurth book that exposes the relationship between Isadora Duncan and Paris Singer.  I'll also give you a link to her memoir, and post videos of the dancers who carry her legacy of dance philosophy into the next century.  No matter the hell of her life, or however unstable she was or seemed, there is no doubt that Isadora Duncan is a Mother of Modern Dance.  We are lucky to witness her dance carried on by the students of her - and her sister Elizabeth's - students.

 

Having once attended a live recital of Isadorable dancers, I can say that they took my breath away and gave me chills, and that there is something profoundly spiritual in her dance.  It made me wish I'd been alive in the era in which Isadora lived, so that I might better understand her.

 

Check out this link on Philip Emile Coué (1857-1926)  Gordon Sanders on Postive Thinking /Coeu

 

C 2016  All Rights Reserved.  Mistressmanifesto.blogspot.com

 

If interested in Isadora, you might also want to read my posts from September 2014 on Natalie Clifford Barney.  It's said that she may have been a patron or kept for a short while Isadora Duncan.  The Kurth book mentions Mercedes D'Acosta and other ex pat American lesbians in Paris in the early 20th Century.