Thomas Ragsdale + ASC + Eluvium + Capac.

Thinking is, indeed, essentially the negation of that which is before us.

G.W.F.H.

Chiara Zonca, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions — they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force.

F.W.N.

Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.

A.C.

Jon Juarez, San Sebastián, Spain.

We turn our own lives into an information archive by storing all our emails, SMS, digital photos, and other digital traces of our existence.

L.M.

Most people use their job as a way to get a car. Dorian Valenzuela, however, is not most people: he used his 1970 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1300 Ti to land a job, in this case at Singer Vehicle Design, where he helps create that company’s bespoke Porsche 911s.

Nor did Valenzuela follow the typical path to a career in the automotive world. While still in university–where he was studying transportation in the hope of one day working on a race team–he applied for an internship at NASA and eventually landed a position at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Valenzuela would go on to spend more than ten years in the aerospace industry and some of his work, in the form of the Mars rovers, can now be seen roaming around that red planet.

Always a car enthusiast, Valenzuela spent his evenings and weekends at home wrenching on his Alfa and Porsche 964. One day, needing parts for the Porsche, he responded to an advertisement and found himself walking into the Singer shop, just outside of Los Angeles. The clean, classic builds and attention to detail in the Singer cars immediately resonated with him, as he shared similar goals for his Alfa. Once the folks at Singer got a look at that Alfa, they agreed. Valenzuela soon found himself changing careers, moving from the space age to the world of vintage (or, at least, vintage-looking) cars.

Given the time he’s invested in the car and the doors it has opened for him, it’s hardly surprising that this Alfa Romeo has a special place in Valenzuela’s heart. Indeed, as Valenzuela puts it, the car is an extension of him and while he doesn’t consider himself an artist, this car is absolutely a work of art.

More films, articles, and photos: Petrolicious.

Angelika Ejtel, Dallas, TX, USA.

The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.

P.K.D.