Der Sturm vol. 11 no. 1, page 2
The pattern
This still is filed under Exhibit in the column.
Define
An image is dropped into the column of type so the reader meets picture and argument in one scan.
Mechanism
In-flow exhibit. The figure is not a separate see fig. 2. It starts the paragraph. Eye and mind start together.
Verdict
Long copy must show as well as tell: a product cutaway, a before/after, a map in the story.
Why it works
The device is literal collage transposed to running text: every parenthesis is a scrap of real classified advertising (impregnating compound, false teeth bought by the tooth, bedfeathers, insurance) pasted into a sentence that continues around it. Because the intrusions are set in the same face at the same size, the reader cannot skip them, and the argument and the junk end up sharing one voice - which is exactly the charge the critics laid against the Merz pictures. Naming the critics, quoting their own sentences and then rebuilding those sentences out of garbage is a rebuttal that demonstrates rather than asserts.
Steal this when
Use it when a critic has attacked your method and you want to answer in the method itself rather than defend it in their language. Also useful for a numbered, alphabetically ordered takedown of several named opponents in one piece, which reads as fair procedure rather than a rant.