- Billy's Bog -

The experience of letters ‘opening up’ is strange. One has to be able to recognize the shape to be able to read the words. But once reading, you don’t see the shape anymore, only words and meaning surface. Learning to read seemed to be learning to look through shapes and not at shapes. Peripheral attention registers the shapes, but words, sounds, and meaning emerge from behind and through the shapes. Letters are like the mise-en-scène of language, setting the stage for the theatre of mediated communication. Only when you grab the mise-en-scène do words acquire meaning and communication flows.