Shawn Smucker’s “Building a Life Out of Words” is Available!
Buy Shawn Smucker’s “Building a Life Out of Words” here. Who Is Shawn Smucker? Shawn blogs (almost) daily at http://shawnsmucker.com. He is currently traveling the country for four months with his wife and four children in a big, blue bus named Willie, looking for service opportunities as well as other writers to meet up with....
Roger Ebert’s Kidnapping Doppelgänger
I sent this story out line-by-line as a series of tweets last Friday, thinking it might make for an interesting approach to storytelling. It apparently was not. Not a single Twitter follower of mine commented on it, although I received a few comments on Facebook. Notably, “Chad, you really are weird. Do you know that?”...
IMAGE Essay: “The Disrobing Trees” + The Radiohead/Plato Paper I Mention Therein
The Disrobing Trees Today on IMAGE Journal’s “Good Letters” blog, you can read my latest essay, “The Disrobing Trees.” In the essay, I briefly allude to a paper I wrote in graduate school while sitting in front of a window that allowed me to observe a tree undergo its annual autumnal transformation. Below—for better or...
What Werner Herzog Got in Zee Mail From Us
In 2008, I pitched a documentary idea to New German Cinema director Werner Herzog via snail mail. I sent the same pitch via email. His office completely ignored my snail mail, but replied to my email. In a tone that was both kind and playful, his employees explained that Mr. Herzog was otherwise engaged with...
Nightmarriage 2012: Invisible Training Wheels
I have noticed that whenever my wife and I experience anything new in the realm of parenthood or “Babyland,” as I like to refer to it, we take extra safety precautions to ensure that all is well. If parenthood is a bicycle, that is, we reach for the training wheels when these incidents arise. The...
Nightmarriage 2012: The Paralytic Shopping Spree
I am learning a new parental dance. I call it the Paralytic Shopping Spree. Consider if you will, the ecstatic excitement that accompanies going on a shopping spree. The knowledge that you have been dropped like a consumerist paratrooper into a retail paradise that is yours to pillage and plunder. But there is a catch....
“I Am Og” (Virtual 7″ from 1991, When CTJ Was 13)
Early on in my “music career,” I was impressed with the recording techniques employed by the producers of the Chipmunks’ music. Which is to say, I recorded this song with my sister at a very slow tempo, played it back at high speed on the “high-speed dub” setting on my home stereo, and then recorded...
CTJ Designs “Building a Life Out of Words” Book Cover
Just finished my first ever paying book cover design! It’s nice when dead presidents can validate your meager attempts at art. Thanks to Shawn Smucker for giving me a chance. It was a pleasure, despite the fact that it took me around 30 hours to create from start to finish. I began by creating fonts out of...
The Innocence Mission: IMAGE Essay + the VHS Tape We Sent the Band
My latest essay, “The Flowering Dark,” is now available to read on IMAGE Journal’s “Good Letters” blog. Read it here. The essay looks at Lent through the lens of the Innocence Mission’s Birds of My Neighborhood LP, or at least how this record impacted a solemn season of my own life. At the end of...
Download CTJ’s Free 35-Song Anthology: “Source Materials & Sorcerer Materials”
DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM HERE, OR USE THE WIDGET ON THE SIDEBAR! A hearty thanks to the following people for inspiring me to assemble this musical madness: Ben Chlapek, for making a mix of only my songs for his friends a few months back, even if it meant they might all (Gasp!) unfriend him on Facebook....
Guest Post by Joshua Madden: CTJ’s Only Fan Issues Writing Advice for Christians
(Editor’s Note: Chad and his wife Becki call Evie, their 4-month-old daughter, “Evie Wonder” when her head movements resemble those of a certain songwriter. You need to know this to understand Josh’s opening reference.) Since Chad Thomas Johnston has described me as his only fan – something that I think “Evie Wonder” would vehemently disagree...
Virtual Gallery: Danny J. Gibson’s “Mouth Breathing at the Wick to the Apocalypse”
A Word from CTJ: My very good friend Danny J. Gibson has done it again. This March, he wants to land his flying art saucer in your head-space and set up an outpost there. Enjoy this virtual gallery, and consider it a foretaste of what you will experience in the event that you should be...
A Radio Broadcast Featuring CTJ & DJG (Right-Click & Save Target)
Follow Me and Give Me Reason to Issue a Restraining Order