Out On His ASSME

As far as genre goes, the demise of American publishing story has easily acquired its own set of defining traits. For one, repetition. How often must we be reminded of the perils that lie ahead for the Republic, the ink producers in Skokie, the impractically educated recent grad? Quite a bit, actually. Valid or not, print (and ex-print) people like to write. As the saying goes, idle New York media types are the Devil's playthings—particularly if you're one to believe in the Devil.

No one understands this better than Aaron Gell, head chronicler at the chronicle of media demise-gawking, the American Society for Shitcanned Media Elites, or ASSME. An enduring New York media elite—he's worked variously as writer and editor to a kiosk of national glossies, some still around, some not—Gell, 41, was laid off from Radar in October, where he was executive editor of the cutting politics and pop culture magazine for two and a half years. The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), the magazine industry's top trade organization, was no longer asking for favors, presumably, if they were asking Gell for anything at all. And so, ASSME was born.