My cinematic education came in a series of bell rings. Each bell ring meant that an angel’s fries were falling out of heaven. Of course, there was a multitude of unhappy, hungry angels up there, waiting for us rowdy kids to quiet down.

When the delicate peal of the bell finally stopped though, the room went dark, almost mystical. Like a behind the scenes of an opera, with an awaiting audience of middle school kids. We even had a red velvet curtain hanging from the ceiling; we could pull and open the curtain as we pleased, making the room so dark that we could barely see each other.

Charlie Chaplin and his little mustache came tumbling down the road, making his way into department stores and accidentally falling into protests against factories. All of this on VHS, all of this on the grainy screen that the teacher wheeled in every time we entered the room.

Cinema, velvet curtains, Charlie Chaplin — it all culminated in James Brown’s “I Feel Good,” right before creative writing. We were all singing, we were all jazzing, feeling that vibe flowing through us. Hey kids, guess what? I feel nice! Like sugar and spice. Ba dah ba dah ba dah.

Charlie Chaplin got the girl, we got the dusty computer rooms and starving angels. But hey, we felt good.