I was born in Lockport, New York, a small factory town outside Buffalo. My parents were hippies who hooked me on Bob Dylan, Chuck Mangione, and Ike and Tina Turner. I was a kid who had some very early weird experiences in school. Kindergarten was not a good experience; I would have my "backwards" days, when I walked into the classroom backwards, saying the Pledge of Allegiance backwards, and writing my name backwards on my papers. I would be sent to see the principal, who called my mother and complained about me. My mother came in and said, "Can't you see Michele is bored and being creative?" My kindergarten teacher didn't buy it and made me sit under her desk. My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Wilbur, worked hard to get me into the top reading group. Mrs. Johnson, my fourth-grade teacher, would stand outside her door and ask me how I was every single day. She hooked me on reading when she read us A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle.
My worst teacher was Mr. Luff, who took us to the library in Lockport He told us not to chew gum in the library. When we returned, he yelled at me, accusing me of chewing gum. He told me to open my mouth and show him. He grabbed me, threw me over his knee, lifted my dress up, and spanked me in front of the whole class. Then he threw me into my desk and flung it against the wall. I ran away from school and went home, which was across the street. The next day I was again called into the principal's office and was spanked again for misbehaving.
I enjoyed going to St. John's Catholic Middle School and DeSales Catholic High School. My undergrad college was Sarah Lawrence, where I majored in cinema and anthropology, also poetry and French. I was the editor of the school's poetry magazine. For grad school I went to New York University, where I combined my interests in cinema and anthropology into ethnographic film, film history, and film production. On graduation, I worked at Mt. St. Vincent in the South Bronx, a Jesuit school, where I taught cinema studies and communication, as well as film production. I also taught several semesters at The New School for Social Research.
After five years I was tired of living in Manhattan because it was expensive and filthy. I moved to Chicago, where I lived downtown. I was hired by Columbia College, where I taught film history and film production.
