Aunt Jen would pass me the green one, and she'd take the blue one—green was her favorite color, and blue was mine and we'd swap like that, and she'd plug the red-yellow-white cables into the crt, they ran off those big 9-volts that I'd lick sometimes to feel tingles and I'd fire up DigDug and Jen'd play Galaga and Bowie'd spin in the background on a turntable.

For a little while I'd forget about...