When Time Stops

I remember VHS, stacked fragile in sleeves and plastic covers, the dignified forebear to the DVD with its pristine self-righteous pause. The VHS pause had character, though. It’s flickering static like a grandfather with stories to tell, repeated to children aching to listen in exchange for candy.

VHS reminds me of our cathode TV, the cavernous chamber wrapped in faux-wood grain. An archetype of the 1980s, which one day stopped speaking with…