April 23, 2004

Publish-or-Perish TV: 'The Assistant'

By MELVIN JULES BUKIET

Episode 1

Saul and Salman, Cynthia, Toni, Milan, Gabriel, Don, John, Joyce and Carol, V.S., A.S., Zaydie, Günter, Haruki, Jumpha, and Ian shuffle humbly into a damp office, its walls lined with hundreds of copies of the same book. Some of the contestants are holding sheaves of manuscript paper that tremble in their sweating palms. They introduce themselves, talk a little about their backgrounds, and all of them end with the same painful plaint: "I've always wanted to