Thank goodness for small miracles.

The fact that after a weekend bendering on cough syrup and 5 Hour Energys I’m able to even put thoughts to keyboard is, unto itself a miracle of sorts, but I’m referring other kinds of miracles entirely.

Actually, two in particular.

The first being this fellow who goes by the moniker ‘Headquake‘, and was featured in a ‘One For The Weekend’ a couple weeks ago, but for those who missed it, I’ll post it again for your consideration;

It’s no secret that I am a life-long fan of things made by hand, but this Headquake’s creations are literally second to none.

The only information I’ve found about him is this interview.

It gave me a bit of insight on this enigma, though didn’t do much to quell my idea that he’s probably a retired military sniper who lost his mind and put himself into the middle of nowhere, where he plans to live out his days silencing the demons in his head by making his amazing creations, and hanging out with his orange cat;

Or like Sean from Soulcraft, who originally introduced me to his work noted “I’m sure he has a very lovely family, to whom he dedicates the other twenty-three minutes of free time he has a day.”;

And speaking of Sean from Soulcraft, I got a short and sweet hello from that guy;

“Yo-

ECS”

He’s a busy guy that Sean is, and I hold no grudges.

I’d like to note that the stem to which he made mention will be landing on a bicycle that I initially detailed here, made by one Robert Ives for Blue Collar Incorporated;

“Stevil-

Only Black Metal was listened to during every step of your frame’s construction… So it’s kind of like the story of the Hobbit’s ring forged by the dark lord’s evil, but without the hairy footed midgets.”

As you can see, the frame is done, most of the parts have been collected, and even the tires have arrived;

The bike will be complete, and under me within the next couple of weeks.

Look for a fully detailed rundown of the beast here either shortly, or eventually.

Moving on from craft, to art that doesn’t suck, you might recall this post in which we were introduced to The Chapman Brothers, and their amazing world view;

I was very happy to learn that they’re still at it, (though I’d be more surprised if I were to find that they weren’t) in this piece from Vice;

Making art that doesn’t suck is the Chapman Brother’s business, and clearly, business is pretty good.

Anyway, circling back to the introductory point in today’s post- The second small miracle is actually much, much smaller. It’s that this here that you’re reading with your own two eyeball balls, is All Hail The Black Market’s 900th post.

“How is that possible?” you might be asking.

How can so many words be strung together for so many years, and still not say anything?

Well, that my friends is what some might call ‘a gift’.

And while I might continually polish this turd to a fine sheen day after day, a thing of which I’m currently the proudest is the oft mentioned Wizard Staff Across The Universe Day, which is set to occur on June 21st;

Relating to that, in response to years of criticism and disapproval from various sites and/or individuals, I offer the following email that I received from one of the two people in Florida who frequent this site;

“I don’t know how I’ve never shared this, but the WSATU page reminded me. At last year’s celebration me and my girlfriend said our ‘I love you’ for the first time.
We had been together 7 months at the time, and I think we were both thinking it. After watching her keep up with me (eventually building a 11 beer staff), I knew. AHTBM, bringing more love to the world.”

Second to that, my dear friend Paul Price of Paul Component engineering popped the question to his long time girlfriend, Gnarly Marley last year on said date;

So naysayers will naysay, and those who profess to have a love of bikes and beer will strangely be openly critical of the holiday, both of which I’m fine with, because when you have people all over the world having fun, and/or being in love, all those other negative vibes get trumped.

And finally, I suppose the introduction to today’s post was a bit erroneous. In spite of the cough syrup and energy shots consumed, there were three miracles to be witnessed today.

The third being that we were actually able to come to some semblance of a conclusion.