Product Description

Printed on pink papers, Reverend Jen's Reverend Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood is a travel guide for the poor, deviant and bored, which takes readers on a whirlwind tour through the Lower East Side where they will gain valuable insight into where to obtain the cheapest Budweiser, the greasiest pizza and the fanciest porcelain unicorn heads. Filled with personal anecdotes of hellish roommates, loneliness and delusions of fame and peppered with delightful illustrations and sultry photos, it is both educational and entertaining.

Flip the book over and you'll find a bonus - Les Misrahi, an epic musical puppet show which tells the story of Jen Valjean, an ex-convict who has just been freed after serving three years for stealing a glue stick from Kinkos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #785586 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

Fun Observations About A Fun Place
I cringed when I read the so-called review in which the reviewer launched a personal attack on the author rather than discussing the book. That was extremely inappropriate, and the person who wrote that should be ashamed of himself or herself. Then again, another reviewer, in response to that out-of-line review, wrote something that praised the author but again did not address the book itself at all. I think some people are missing the point of a review.

Lest I too become one of those people, I'll now talk about the book: I liked it.

The Lower East Side is a fun place. As Manhattan becomes more uniformly upscale and sanitized (you *know* things are changing when even the Meatpacking District becomes fashionable), the Lower East Side is the last bastion of hipness and nonconformity. I thought "Reverend Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood" captured the feel of that very nicely. As the author says, it's quite likely that some of the places she mentioned will no longer be there by the time the reader reads the book, but that hardly matters. The value of the book is not in its usefulness as a travel guide. Rather, I think it serves as a snapshot of a certain place at a certain time - a neighborhood somewhere between the old dangerous-but-fun New York and the new safe-but-bland New York.

Reverend Jen's Really Cool
Saint Reverend Jen has fostered my performance-art career when All i had was a wig, a box & a tutu. "RJ'sRCN"(--her book, printed on pink paper which makes it very easy on the eyes) begins with a map of the Lower East Side, where it all takes place, like Tolkien's Land of Morder, above Houston Street is the "rest of the world."
she references her influences, Danté (as she is your guide), & Mr. Roger's Neighborhood... as she is in her Own land of make believe... which most paranoid-delusionals may mistake as, is, in fact, Reality.is it? . . . .Her Work is a true historical documentation of NYC, & chapter 9: the 2 greatest open mikes, Faceboy's Sunday-night, & her own Wednesday "Anti-Slam." I laughed out-load as she describes `just when she thought she'd seen it all,' she windexs the violated mike stand from unsaid male performance artist's naked spread buttocks. ...& myself being the unsaid unactual woman who painted a p.... onto canvas with her menstrual blood (p.97), & pull an onion out of her v... (p.99), i was like, me, me, me, i did that! (La Ruocco) Rehashing as i read, the day i used my fingers as a gun & said 'This is a stick up, everyone give me your wallets,' & pre-rehab took their money... 'now i need a hostage' (ref: p. 96); ... the audience, themselves a group of performance artists; we transcended. -- Jen was my icon -- for building the forum.
i especially enjoyed chapter 6, & the painting illustration, about pizza coating the walls of your stomach like "Pac-Man, which gobbles up the excess beer floating around inside me." i thought that was particularly Laruoccan.
I know that she is very well respected in the local community (which in the city, is a few million people) because i can't walk through that part of town, without people mistaking me for her, as i (sans/ wig) do bear a striking resemblance to her (sans/ elf ears). Sometimes i let them think im her, because she is so cool. {but im not her, im !plug: L a. Ruocco [author of "Xero, turn-of-the-millenia" ]!

anyways, it was good to read how she got from `art school' to there. It's kind of a coming-of-age book. (to find more on Jen, Kim's Video rents out her movies.)(p.s. i follow my own religion: "is what it ism" Laruoccco©2OO3; yet im also a devote Reverend Jen disciple.)

Sweet and depraverd
Saint Reverend Jen, partron saint of the uncool, makes the Lower East Side, tenement to the world, seem like shangrila. She has a way of making the depraved seem sweet and the bizarre seem like common sense. This guide may not tell you what beds Washington slept in, but it may tell you what beds you can.