sAiNt
reVeReND
JEn
To know Saint
Reverend Jen Miller is to love her. After all, the
world needs more elf-eared, poetry-slamming, movie-starring, book-and-play-writing,
former-art-school-punk-band-playing pixies. We first discovered
her reading the introduction to her latest book, "Rev Jen's
Really Cool Neighborhood" at Surf Reality last fall, and
her writing's just brilliant. When we saw her troll museum featured
in the Village
Voice, we knew we had to do some sort of story on her.
We lured her to Crif
Dogs on St. Mark's Place with the promise of tater
tots, and the following, only slightly fictionalized, conversation
ensued.
CM:
OK, for the record, what's your full name?
SRJM:
Saint Reverend Jen Lynn Miller. You can guess which part I made
up.
CM:
Place of origin?
SRJM:
Silver Spring, Maryland. Sniperland.
CM:
I'd like to note for the record that you're wearing elf ears.
SRJM:
Yeah, I was possessed by an elf at about 4 years old.
CM:
OK, you're one of the most creative people on all of the Lower
East Side. What was it like growing up down there in Maryland?
SRJM:
Hellishly boring, but I tried never to be bored by becoming a
workaholic at a young age. . . I started my own magazine when
I was 12. I used to go out in the woods a lot and talk to squirrels
and such.
CM:
So, let me try to remember all the projects that you're involved
with [ticks off on fingers] painting, the Surfing
Collective theater, the anti-poetry slams Wednesday
at Collective
Unconscious, the Dance
Liberation Front, selling elf panties, the Troll Museum.
. . What are you up to now?
SRJM:
Well, Nick and I are finishing up a movie called Wheatpaste
Terror. I play a 75-year-old woman that loses her dog and
goes around putting up posters and has the worst day of her life.
She winds up getting beat up and thrown in jail. I'm also working
on a superhero movie called Electra, Elven Fluffer. I get
tied up and fight a lot—
CM:
Hold on, I'm running out of room on this piece of paper. Hey,
wait, I can flip the page! Think about that! So you were saying?
SRJM:
So I get tied up fighting villains. With my Chihuahua.
CM:
How do you spell ch. . . chih. . . Hey, wait a minute, they have
a "Chihuahua" hot dog here [peers over at the Crif
Dogs menu] C-H-I-H-U-A-H-U-A.
SRJM:
The poetry slams are Wednesday nights. This Wednesday is the seven-year
anniversary. And I should have my new book, Rev Jen's Really
Cool Neighborhood, on the shelves by February. And I finished
another book, Dungeons and Drag Queens. It's porn. Oh,
and I started my career as a wrestler this past spring, so I've
been a wrestler for a year. I had a great birthday party with
wrestling and a band and cake at Collective.
CM:
I should note that you're about five feel tall and weigh approximately
80 pounds, even after hot dogs and tater tots.
SRJM:
I like to do things it seems I'll be really bad at. And I'm really
bad at wrestling, but I'm really good at getting the crowd riled
up.
Oh,
and I'm making these other videos. They're based on the essays
in Rev Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood. Like Mr. Rogers,
but edgier.
CM:
The Troll Museum was featured
in the Village Voice lately. It seems to be getting
a lot of attention.
SRJM:
Yeah, it was featured in the Voice and a bunch of other places.
I'd love to be able to schedule it myself, have it in a storefront.
I'm thinking about incorporating it. Hey, you want some of these
tater tots?
CM:
Sure! [With mouth full of tater tots] OK, what is art?
I mean, I know you went to art school. . .
SRJM:
I actually stayed in art school all four years, and I have a degree.
Art school is supposed to be a microcosm of the art world, so
it taught me to rebel against it.
CM:
And you had a punk band in art school? What happened to it?
SRJM:
Julia [Reverend Jen's partner] moved to Ithaca and had a kid with
a jazz musician. . .
CM:
[Shudders] . . .I can think of no worse fate. . .
SRJM:
And she was kind of crazy anyhow. Already my tolerance for mental
illness was low. . .
CM:
So, do you have a day job?
SRJM:
I work at a museum three days a week. It's right across the street
from my apartment. . .
CM:
The Tenement
Museum?
SRJM:
Yeah.
CM:
Of course, you could say that in New York, we all live in tenement
museums, anyhow. . . Any other projects?
SRJM:
I did a cable access show for a year. I dressed up as Doo Doo
the Fifth Teletubby. The TV on my belly only showed scrambled
porn. I went to FAO Schwartz and signed autographs and told people
how management had screwed me until I got kicked out. Then I went
to Toys R Us and rolled around on the ground until they kicked
me out, too.
CM:
That's a brilliant bit of culture jamming.
SRJM:
I also did a character called Whitney LeBlanc the NYU Prostitute.
Nick and I used a hidden camera. I dressed up like a prostitute
with an NYU T-shirt and '80s crack-whore makeup. I used to proposition
people on the street corner, like "I'm just trying to pay
off my $18,000 in student loans!" I went into the Financial
Aid office and asked if I could borrow $20, and followed tour
groups around until they kicked me out of the dorms. Some of the
students were, like, really mean.
CM:
It seems all your characters have something tragic about them.
. . 75-year-old women getting beat up and thrown in jail, alcoholic
Teletubbies, NYU prostitutes. . .
SRJM:
I think I'm a misanthrope. I'm trying to create powerful satire,
and I think the way to do it is to throw myself in the middle
of things. It's an experiment. But it's a certain madness throwing
yourself into the middle of things-it's an experiment.
For
more information on the Reverend Jen's madcap adventures, check
out her infrequently-updated Web
site!
Past
Employees of the Month:
Thor
Sam
Bea
Want
to be Employee of the Month? Simply e-mail a picture of yourself,
what your "day job" is, and what you really do,
to editor@corporatemofo.com.
If we use your entry, we'll send you a free CORPORATE MOFO
T-shirt! And, if you're really cute, we'll pin your photo on our
cubicle wall!
Do
you let your freak flag fly full-time? Even better! Tell us how
you came to make your subversive activities your life. We'll do
better than make you Employee of the Month. We'll make you our
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