Brown Box to Living Room

Lyrics

September, 1972. The last of the sun on the shag carpet. The smell of warm plastic and ozone from the back of the set. You arrived in a cardboard box. Just a simple brown box with a wood-grain smile.

Ralph Baer dreamed you up back in 1968. A quiet game on the television screen. And here you are. Two controllers with aluminum dials. An RF switchbox for the antenna screws. We had to connect you ourselves. No one told us how the world was about to change. Just a wire and a promise.

And we take out the plastic sheet. A tennis court, clear and thin. We tape it to the glass, right over Walter Cronkite's world. And a white dot appears. Then another. And the living room holds its breath. The ghost of a game on a plastic window.

My thumb on the dial, a soft aluminum click. Your dot moves up. His dot moves down. A silent volley in the cathode glow. Later, the light gun comes out. A soft thud on the floor when we miss the moving square. We're not just watching anymore.

We take out the plastic sheet. A hockey rink, clear and thin. We tape it to the glass, right over the evening news. And a white dot appears. Then another. And the living room holds its breath. The ghost of a game on a plastic window.

This is how the invasion started. Not with a bang. But with a hum, and a click, and a piece of plastic taped to a screen. From this quiet evening, from this one brown box, a million worlds are waiting to be born. The screen is a doorway now.

Just a white dot. Drifting slow. On a plastic sea.
Goodnight, Magnavox.