Ask Sol Anything

[Sol]

I meant to do this again at 8,000 posts, and then forgot so we're a few over now.

Fire away!

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

How often do you watch films? What are your favourite ones?

[Vice President Christian Man]

Do you prefer Oregon or North Carolina?

[Sol]

How often do you watch films? What are your favourite ones?

I don't really watch movies too much, because I have an odd tendency to get anxious when consuming media where I can't control the pace. That said, many of my family and friends are very into movies, so I've seen a lot over the years, and like them once I get over the hump of my nerves. I wrote a little bit more about some favorites here.

Some favorites:
-The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
-The Act of Killing
-My Neighbor Totoro
-Vertigo
-The Queen of Versailles
-Weekend
-Playtime
-The Third Man
-Nashville - TW for gravely misunderstanding the way presidential primaries work.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Have you ever been in a mosh pit? Ever seen any type of emo-adjacent type show?

[Sol]

Do you prefer Oregon or North Carolina?

North Carolina, but it's hard to divorce that feeling from the fact that I have much deeper personal ties there. Much of my family and my good friends remain there; if I were to live in Oregon for long enough to develop close ties like that it would be a closer contest.

Independent of all that, Oregon has objectively better politics and scenery (though North Carolina has some cool spots too), and Portland has more interest for the kind of culture I like. But there are downsides too; the cost of living is much higher here, it's much more homogeneous, and the risk of natural disasters is greater.

One element which is kind of easy to miss is how genuinely remote the Pacific Northwest is from the rest of the country. North Carolina is a day's drive from much of the country's major cities, whereas western Oregon, where I live, is really only close to Seattle, Portland, and the northern CA cities. You feel much more isolated from the rest of the country out here.

Who knows where the future will take me, but hopefully I'll end up in a state which has some of the virtues of both, like Illinois.

[Sol]

Have you ever been in a mosh pit? Ever seen any type of emo-adjacent type show?

I guess it depends on how you define a mosh pit? I've definitely been to concerts and house parties where there was moshing going on, but it was usually a few friends (myself included a few times) banging into each other rather than a widespread thing. I've also been to a few DJ sets where there was crowdsurfing; don't think that counts though.

I have not seen an emo show. Not a huge concertgoer so most of my live music experiences have been at house parties where there was a band playing, and my friends in my partying days were more likely to play jazz or indie rock.

[TDAS04]

Have you been to Eugene, OR? How similar is it to Asheville, NC? I’ve not been to either, but the cities appear strikingly similar from the pictures I’ve seen (small city skylines dwarfed by surrounding green mountains).

[Sol]

Have you been to Eugene, OR? How similar is it to Asheville, NC? I’ve not been to either, but the cities appear strikingly similar from the pictures I’ve seen (small city skylines dwarfed by surrounding green mountains).

I live in Eugene!

The cities have some commonalities but also differences for sure. For one thing, the two cities are by mountains, but the mountains out here are more forested with conifers, which means the appearance is different from Asheville, where the mountains are largely covered in deciduous trees. This is especially apparent in Asheville's winter, where the mountains are covered in trees without leaves, giving them a striking grey-brown-purple appearance which I find beautiful but which isn't usually highlighted in pictures of Asheville or anywhere else in the region. The seasonal difference is less marked in Eugene due to the large number of conifers.

I haven't been to Asheville in a minute so it may have changed, but there's a lot more homelessness here than in my memory of Asheville -- like the rest of the West Coast. Downtown Asheville is extremely tourist-oriented and filled with lots of Art Deco architecture; these factors aren't true of Eugene. Eugene is a larger city with an actual public transit system, and a history of industry which is not the the same as Asheville's.

Overall, both places are very left-leaning, but Eugene has a much deeper counter-culture -- though paradoxically it feels maybe slightly less performatively left-wing than Asheville now (I also do not have a great sample size on these places so that might be wrong).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What feelings, if any, do you have on South Korean politics?