A Cat in Paris

A Cat in Paris

(The following is taken from Amazon. Click on the link above for more information.)

"The Academy Award-nominated A CAT IN PARIS is a beautifully hand-drawn caper set in the shadow-drenched alleyways of Paris. Dino is a cat that leads a double life. By day he lives with Zoe, a little girl whose mother is a detective in the Parisian police force. But at night Dino sneaks out the window to work with Nico a slinky cat burglar with a big heart, whose fluid movements are poetry in motion as he evades captors and slips and swishes from rooftop to rooftop across the Paris skyline. A CAT IN PARIS is a delightful animated adventure perfect for both adults and children a witty and stylish "animated noir" with a jazzy soundtrack featuring Billie Holiday and a thrilling climax on top of Notre Dame cathedral.
Featuring the voices of Academy Award winner Marcia Gay Harden (Mystic River), Academy Award winner Anjelica Huston (The Royal Tenenbaums) and Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket)."

My note: I showed this movie to my French classes, eons removed from the lives and location of the characters in the animated film. They loved it and actually wanted me to show it twice (no time). I also loved it. My point? "A Cat in Paris" is a universal film, to be enjoyed by a multitude of viewers.

A love story

This is my love story, a really unusual love story. It's not about a man and a woman, or any usual relationship. It's about a teacher, an aging teacher, retired for 10 years, who went to teach at an "inner city" school. To teach French there.

I needed the money and could not find a job teaching English or working as a librarian, two of my areas of certification. School started and I still did not have a job. I had been looking at this French position at this "inner city" school, but was really hesitant to interview. One, I am not that fluent in French. I can read and write it and speak hesitantly, so I was not eager to do something I did not excel in. Two, I did not know how I would do in a school that was 99.8% another race. How would they accept me? That was my biggest worry. As it turned out, that worry was quite grounded.

Students were absolutely horrible to me--disrespectful, rude, they minimized me every way they could. The disciplinarian tried to work with me. He told me I had to earn their trust. So that's what I did. I worked more on relationships. French came along--it, after all, was the structure of our relationship.

Perhaps it was the hard work, but eventually, I came to absolutely love those students. Nearly every one of them. I learned so much from them. Most of them came to love me, too. But not all. That's to be expected.

There's so much left to say, but I'm leaving it unsaid. The bottom line is what a remarkable year I had, what a great experience it was, and how much I would like to do it again.

Reading material

I's time to examine my reading material. It leaves me undernourished, brain-depleted, contemptuous of my own reading habits. All I read is the various thrillers--the more exciting, the better. But what food for thought, for provocation comes from those? Oh, yes, the Alex Cross novel about Alex going to Africa in pursuit of a criminal really wasn't that believable, yet Patterson could --and did--include meaty information about African teens,  orphaned and brainwashed boys, their access to power and what it might mean to them. Oh, the horror, the horror. This particular assassin, their controller, used them in his kills. So, I learned about killers and a horrible type of killing. Not believable? Wrong, it's true--hmmmm.

In another thriller, I learned about the horrors in current Russia--and what nightmares they bring! Again, killing and more killing.

Ask me about a a provocative book, one that instigates, invigorates, and is worthy of time spent in its envelopment. Quick, name one! "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee. I've read that one twice and seen the movie twice. What instigation, what provocation! A professor seduces one of his students and continues to trick her into sex until she cracks. He is released from his job and seeks out his distant daughter who lives out in the veldt, where she grows flowers to sell and makes a quiet life. During his stay she is raped under questionable circumstances and the professor is brutalized. Both survive but are equally affected and changed by their experiences. She quietly compromises herself to accept her pregnancy and what it means in her surroundings (intentionally left vague here by me), whereas the professor wants to fight. Finally, he returns to the city to find his former student, only to be rejected and humiliated by the family. He returns to his own daughter and accepts the inevitability of her decision. He has no choice because he has nowhere else he can go. Now he is compromised.

What's the disgrace? Obviously, his fall from grace as a respectable professor, his tainted seduction of the girl lead to his disgrace. But more is going on. The daughter is disgraced by her rape. The professor is disgraced by his inability to protect her or himself. It goes on, more disgrace, leading to final decisions and acceptance of what is rather than what could be, although that concept is also part of the story. This novel is not entertaining or thrilling (like my crime or spy books), but it shows human nature in tumult, in despair, in disgrace, and then choices. I will read this book again for its beauty of language and for a story of human dignity.

The following is the last paragraph in William Faulkner's acceptance speech for the Noble Prize in Literature. I don't think anyone has ever said it better about the role of the writer.
"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

In "Disgrace," the professor returns to his daughter, I think, because of her "courage and honor and hope..."--all of which compensate for the disgrace of the rape and his own fall from grace. They both will "endure and prevail." "Disgrace" is one of those great novels that a well-read person should know.

WTF?

WTF? What's it mean? You and I know because we're hip, we're on the scene, been there, done that. I found a birthday card for my aging brother. This critter on the front had a "oh, woe" look on his face, then you open the card and there are three letters with a comment about getting old. I let my mother (age 93) read it. She said, Wtf as a word. I had to tell her what it means. She was startled then laughed. My mother is always game for something new (although she is NOT going to say WTF under any circumstances). Currently, I am teaching her to say, aih-ite. She's getting closer but still hasn't nuanced the phrase.

So phrasing in another language. If we say aih-ite, can we really expect a person from another culture to understand it? Aih-ite then. I just spent one year teaching French to high school students. That's the problem with taking a foreign language at that age--learning to speak that language is not going to happen in a year (unless the student speaks many hours outside class with a learning source and REALLY works at learning the language.)

My main point is that listening to a huge variety of other language speakers is the best way to learn a language. No, actually not. Living in the culture of the language is the way to learn nuances. How many students have that opportunity?

So we struggle, teacher and students alike.

Gorgeous, talented men

Oh, say, what a silly topic for a dizzy old woman. Yet! I'm not dizzy nor is the topic silly. It is what it is--and it is about gorgeous, talented men.

Omar Sy

The Intouchables

My new Number One is Omar Sy, a French-born. gorgeous, really black-skinned, awesome actor. I just showed "The Intouchables" to my French classes. It's a story about a quadriplegic, white-skinned Frenchman who seeks a new personal assistant. His counterpart, played by the charismatic Sy, is hired despite his attempts not to be. He brings absolute joy into a somber house, home to a resigned invalid, set on a course of music, letters, and quietitude. Driss invades it all, strewing his joie-de-vivre every where. He lights up everything. He zings everyone. He's a force to be reckoned with. I cannot emphasize enough what a delight this film is. The viewer will promptly forget she is reading subtitles (if you don't understand French) and become part of the story. Francois Cluzet is also excellent in his role as quad. Acting must take place in his face, for that's all he can move. There's one scene that is brilliantly played by Cluzet. You will not remain tearless! An emotionally moving story filled with laughter and joy and poignancy!

What is life?

Edited on July 8, 2014:
The following blog was written during a time of mental, emotional, and physical fatigue. I'm allowing it to stay because it reflects how I felt on a given date (as if that matters in the least). I was unfair in my assessment of my school. My principal, whom I genuinely liked and respected, lost his job because the school was deemed failing. His fault? He must accept some of the blame, but more goes to the status quo. I insinuate  in the blog that students are lacking. Actually, I found many smart students, but--and there's that but. It's that attitude, that absence of accountability for students, or rather for those who just attend. Too many just attend. So much time was spent teaching teachers how to use this technique and that one to reach these students, as if they couldn't be reached in any traditional ways. No, that's not what I want to say.
I could write and revise and eliminate and keep writing and not be able to speak adequately of my experience at this school with these students. So, the following with some revisions to eliminate things that don't need to be said.)

What is life? Coming from what direction? Heading where? And, most of all, why?

I'm reflective tonight because I don't know the answers. I thought I was Christian, but, truly, I don't know any more. When my neighbor at school says that every day is a good day because he walks with the Lord, I am temporarily stunned. I don't feel that way. I think, oh, yes, I'm supposed to feel that way, too. But it comes as a momentary illumination. Am I?

I've spent a hard year teaching in a school that really struggles to be a school. It's more an incubator, incubating what, I don't know. Where I spent the majority of my years teaching, I demanded excellence and got it. Here, I could demand all I wanted and it wouldn't happen. I require written work every single day, yet some students still walk in with nothing and think I am insane expecting them to produce a pencil, much less a pen. Brain work is not practiced on any kind of scale for too many students. I am horrified.

So, I come to May, weary and unfulfilled. I tried so hard this year to make a difference. People tell me I do, but I don't see it or feel it. I am leaving them with not much more than I started. DID I make a difference?

The school was placed on the Failing Schools (my capitalization for emphasis) list, every person had to re-interview for a position in the "new" school. I initially chose not to interview, then did. It was one of the worst interviews I ever went through. This new principal did most of the talking.  Also,  I watched too many really good teachers interview and not be accepted. Oh my gosh, why wouldn't this new principal want them? They're young, know all the new techniques, and work so hard! Yet, on they go, to new grounds. Yet, they loved where they were, they loved the students, and wanted so much for them to achieve. Who replaced them?

So, I will move on and hope to have my dreams restored, my intellect stirred. But what about those hapless students? They still won't know that they don't know.