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by harveywi 1960 days ago
> Chick asked me to sit in a chair a couple feet away from his piano. He stared at me with the a look that seemed to say "whatever you've got, I'll work with it." If I had to imagine how I looked back at him in that moment it would've been the simulacrum of a mathematical model of computation that defines an abstract machine that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a table of rules. It felt like I was being imitated, state by state, symbol by symbol, my inner-most thoughts understood but unspoken as my utterances were scribbled onto the infinite tape.

> I was also a newly married man who had gained some weight.

> As Chick tickled the ivories, he whispered, "I shall call the song of your life 'The Imitation Game'."

> A moment later, he whispered my name. I do not recall me telling him my name.

> "I wrote this for you, Benedict Kummerspeck," whispered Chick.