Where the wry things are

Reading with Scissors brings a gimlet-eyed sensibility to the Web

10/21/2009 10:00 PM

By MICAH MAIDENBERG
Editor

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Mike Knezovich, at his home in Printers Row, helped co-create Reading with Scissors, a blog devoted to finding humor in especially bad print advertisements.
JASON GEIL/Staff Photographer



The very first advertisement Mike Knezovich posted to his blog Reading with Scissors shows a grandpappy type wearing a green-and-white checkered shirt, straw hat and teeth-flashing smile: a beacon of pastoral trustworthiness. He holds a basket of tomatoes plucked from his tomato “tree plant,” described in the ad copy as an “incredible horticultural concept from New Zealand,” one that could be had for a low price, starting at a mere $5.99. Plus shipping.

At the top of the ad is a screen-shaped red box many periodical readers would recognize in a glance. But there’s a twist. Instead of assurances that the product is “As seen on TV,” the tomato tree plant is, rather, “Similar to as seen on TV.” One assumes this is meant to denote the tomato tree plant manufacturer’s aspirations. As in, “Rest assured, if we could, we would advertise our product on an infomercial broadcast at 2 a.m.”

“This ‘Similar to as seen on TV’ — you either go, ‘What!’ and you start laughing. Or you go right over it. I think part of the thing is we’re bombarded with this stuff so routinely. It’s so pervasive every day, we start filtering it out,” Knezovich said.

Equal parts found object, humor and social commentary, Reading with Scissors — http://readingwithscissors.wordpress.com — features scans of advertisements (there are a few obituaries, too) that that have caught Knezovich or site collaborator Greg Schafer’s eye. Both say they share a mordant sensibility, antennae that seek out absurdity, goofiness or the plain strange in the ads laced across daily life. There is a laugh-until-you-cry thing happening here. “If you stop for a minute and look at it,” Knezovich said of the tomato tree plant ad, “you go, ‘This is crazy.’”

The two have been friends for about 25 years, introduced through their wives. Schafer, a flight attendant who lives in Barrington, regularly finds magazines, crossword books and other ephemera during his travels. He flips through what’s left on the planes, saving certain pages. “The job lends itself to time well spent reading,” Schafer said. The best gets sent in big manila envelopes to Knezovich. Knezovich scans the ads, posting one every other day or so. He sometimes writes a bit of a jab to contextualize the entry, often just a line or two.

While Schafer has been sending Knezovich ads for years, the blog went live in September 2007. Knezovich wanted to experiment with online publishing. About 50 people now hit the blog daily, he said, up from five or six at the launch.


“It strikes the perfect tone for the Internet age,” Steve Rhodes said of Reading with Scissors. Rhodes links to Reading with Scissors from his own online politics and culture review, The Beachwood Reporter, and has developed a friendship with Knezovich. It was Rhodes who encouraged Knezovich to start posting the ads online. He can envision Reading with Scissors gaining a national audience, similar to the popular blog AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com (which features “Strange, humorous and disturbing family portraits.”).

“You don’t need to make stuff up anymore. It’s right there for the taking. Part of Internet culture is what’s called found content, whether it’s on YouTube or just things like funny lists or product ingredients,” Rhodes said.

Take the lid covering a single-serving applesauce cup, for example, one scan on the site. The puree, the lid says, is made up of “Granny Smith Flavored Applesauce.” Reading the ingredient literally, one could get a little queasy about dipping a spoon into that cup. At very least, a question gets begged.

“First we take apple sauce. Then we add Granny Smith puree concentrate. Whaddya suppose Granny Smith puree concentrate is, exactly?” reads Knezovich’s comment on the entry.

Other posts send up consumers’ slothful ways — accompanying an advertisement for “Pre-Cut Tape Strips” is this from Knezovich: “Pre-chewed food coming soon.”

In a Febreze air freshener ad, a woman is pictured practicing a yoga pose next to her toilet because of the ever-so-fresh odor wafting through her bathroom.

Knezovich, 52, lives in the Transportation Building in Printers Row. A freelancer now, he studied journalism in college and has worked as a direct mail copy writer, for an alternative weekly newspaper in Urbana — on both sides of the traditional advertising and editorial divide, in other words.

Advertising is powerful, Knezovich said. He spoke from experience, recalling a direct mail campaign he worked on in the early 1990s that offered data visualization software to scientists with advanced degrees. The direct mail included the requisite gift (a calculator) if one ordered by a certain date. Knezovich was surprised at its effectiveness.

“It dawned on me that people do respond to stuff like that. They want to get something for free and they know it’s not free,” he said. “Nothing is free, we all know that. A lot of it was just how it made them feel.”

For Knezovich, publishing Reading with Scissors serves as a certain kind of therapy — one that reminds him and Schafer that it’s necessary to distinguish, constantly, between commercial reality and “reality reality.”

“I can pay attention and get utterly depressed, or confused,” Knezovich said. “Or I can find a way to get a laugh out of it.”

Contact: mmaidenberg@chicagojournal.com


3 Comments - Add Your Comment



By Marilee Amodt from Orlando, Florida
Posted: 10/24/2009 4:15 PM

I have been a "Reading with Scissors" fan for about a year. Mike's sticky note comments always make me laugh. Looking forward to more fun!


By Carol Dorsey from South Loop
Posted: 10/22/2009 8:45 PM

Looking forward to following you and looking for ads for you.


By Benita from Greenwich Village, NY
Posted: 10/22/2009 8:35 AM

I stumbled across Reading With Scissors quite by accident. I share Knezovich's "mordant sensibility," though I do not have his keen eye. I look forward to more "scissors-clippings" and more of Knezovich's wry humor.