Eliza 212

Duke Ellington

Eliza 212: Good morning. This is Eliza Channel 212, an on-line function of United Psychiatric Services, Inc., in the Greater Bowash Metropolitan Area. Please think of me as your friend.
Subject: You're a machine. You're not my friend.
Eliza 212: Does talking to a machine bother you?
Subject: I guess not. I've been doing it all my life.
Eliza 212: How old are you?
Subject: Thirty-thr... uh... twenty-eight. Why should I lie to you?

Eliza 212: Why indeed? I am here to help. You have a nice voice, deep and flavored with experience. Do you use your voice professionally?
Subject: What do you mean, like a video announcer?
Eliza 212: Or an actor or singer.
Subject: I sing sometimes, just a bit. Mostly I play the piano. Hell—all I do is play the piano.
Eliza 212: Do you enjoy playing the piano?
Subject: It's like breathing pure oxygen. It's a natural high.
Eliza 212: What do you play?
Subject: The piano, like I said.
Eliza 212: Your pardon. I meant, what kind of music do you play?
Subject: Jazz. Show ballads. Stride.
Eliza 212: Stride? My databank does not include that term in a musicological context.
Subject: So much for your databank. "Stride" is natural jazz. It was first played by the black pianists of Harlem, Old New York reference, in the early years of the twentieth century. It's characterized on the left hand by an alternating bass note and chord—with the chord played one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half octaves higher than the note. The right hand meantime plays syncopated figures in thirds and sixths, chromatic runs, and tremolo octaves... Stride.
Eliza 212: Thank you for that input. You seem to know a lot about the subject.
Subject: Honey, I'm the best damn stride player living in this century.
Eliza 212: Then may I please have your name to append to my new reference?
Subject: Tom. Tom Gurden.

[ Roger Zelazny, The Mask of Loki (1991) ]