Who was it who suggested that a sophisticated AI program might provide fandom with an endless stream of Harry Warner Jr letters when the great man eventually leaves us for the heavenly Glades of Gafia? Since (a True Fact) I have in my time written and marketed some text generating software, it seemed worth trying to adapt it for such noble fannish purposes. Rather than attempt Warner, West or Willis for the first trial, I turned the software loose on a selection of Crifanac editorials and got the following rather unconvincing result. Testing continues.
[START PROGRAM RUN]
Belching Out Loud
The KATZPEAK simulation talks through a hole in its loudspeaker:
"I've been thinking some more about subfandoms, and realized I had to have a little talk with Joyce.
"We've proved in Crifanac 5 (I told her with my mouth) that Ansible and File 770 are not part of true Fanzine Fandom, but visitors from alien communities far beyond Fanzine Town. We're glad to have them visit, but we escort them damn fast to the city limits when they start having delusions of residency.
"Likewise Southern Fandom has its own separate identity, as I wrote in Crifanac 7, and so can't be judged by our rigorous standards.
"Well, I said to Joyce with my lips, I can't help noticing that you're female, and thus a member of a different subfandom. As Walt Willis once put it, Women Are Different. And as D. West so very forcefully added, This Proves It. I saw in a blinding flash of revelation that I've sometimes been unfairly impatient with Joyce, just because she doesn't embrace all Fanzine Fandom's traditionally male myths and traditions, etc. Now I've realized that she's part of a separate subfandom, Female Fanzine Fandom, I won't ask her to meet core Fanzine Fandom's high standards any more. Instead I will gently patronize her as a foreign subculture – my cousin rather than my sister – and universal harmony will prevail.
"My next editorial will discuss how we members of mainstream Fanzine Fandom here in Las Vegas can, with suitable precautions, interact with further misunderstood subfandoms outside Fanzine Town, like New York Fanzine Fandom, Seattle Fanzine Fandom, Minneapolis Fanzine Fandom, British Fanzine Fandom, Greg Pickersgill Fanzine Fandom, and all the rest. Their ways are not our ways, but I'm betting that if we core-group fans try really hard, we might just find some common ground with those strange and uncouth-seeming tribes. It's a wonderful opportunity that someone should have thought of before...."
[END PROGRAM RUN]