That's the true definition of artistry to me being able to source your inspiration from all different types of places, your imagination, your reality.
And it's beautiful that other people can relate when it can reflect to you that you're not alone.
Beautiful gold engraving.
They all sort of hold a different spirit to them and a different story to them, a different world, a different time period.
See guys, this is just like my favorite.
Thank you.
Really quick before we get into this video, this is not a sponsor.
I'm so grateful for our community here.
I see that you guys appreciate the power of storytelling and if you enjoy my artwork, any of these conversations that we've had candles flowers, good spaces, good stories, good conversation then I am inviting you to a beautiful, unforgettable evening that will be taking place on March 27th.
I am going on a journey to Los Angeles to go perform more of my poetry, to open for my incredible beat poet friend Carissa.
She is celebrating the release of her new poetry collection.
We have a night of performance planned for you guys.
We're so excited to meet you.
We're gonna have Gidea on the harp.
It's going to be an enchanting evening of storytelling, community, us poets, writers, storytellers.
We put our heart into this work and to be able to perform it, celebrate it, engage in it with you guys.
It's the most special, rewarding feeling in the world.
I'm going to be opening the show, opening the evening with my poetry and, like I said, you're in store for a magical night of music performance.
March 27th is when this magical evening is happening.
Tickets are linked below in the description.
We can't wait to see you there.
Thank you guys so much, and I hope you enjoy the video.
It's a good one.
Hi everybody and welcome back to my channel.
My name is Anaya and today I wanted to talk to you about some of my favorite books and music slash media.
This has been a highly requested video for as long as I can remember.
I talk about books and writing and this and that all the time.
I will mention my favorites, slipping them in here and there, but I have been asked for book recommendations or like what is my music taste, and I haven't really made a video designated to that.
I get overwhelmed when it comes to sharing, because how am I supposed to share hundreds of songs and books and pages and all these things?
And So I decided that maybe I could do it in the form of a series, a seasonal series, because I seem to acquire my favorite books and music in seasons like chunks of the year, not necessarily in one month.
You know, january favorites like it's not really like that.
For me, it's kind of seasons like flowers right, i feel as though i've wrapped up the winter season.
I have a little collection of favorites when it comes to media music books, and also when it comes to beauty and fashion and things, but maybe we'll do that in another video.
This is sort of a books and media addition to my favorites, to my seasonal favorites.
Let me know if you guys would be interested in a little beauty fashion favorites.
I think that could be kind of a fun side to all of this.
But today it's going to be about stuff on the inside, things that we are consuming.
Guys, I made this arrangement in a previous video and it has been blooming in my house.
I made this for the springtime.
Something with flowers that make me really excited about the beginning of spring.
Winter has been a harsh season, I won't lie.
It has been a challenging winter, but it's also been one of my favorites, because I've learned to kind of romanticize the little things that keep me happy and warm inside.
Let's get into the book favorites.
The first book that I have to recommend you guys is The Novel of the Future by Anais Nin.
Now guys okay, we got a lot to get through, so I really need to make sure that I keep things quick.
She is one of the most interesting artists, in my opinion.
I have studied Anais Nin pretty thoroughly this past winter.
I've enjoyed her writing for a long time but I really dove into her craft, who she was, sort of her belief system behind her writing and The futurism that honestly really inspired her.
This has been such an interesting read because, if you don't know, Anais Nin is an author that is most famously known for her erotic writing, but also her diaries that have been published before and after her death.
She has a very I guess what I would describe to be as this stream of consciousness, diaristic sort of writing style because yes, a lot of her diaries are famously known and have been published.
But her writing.
People have not discredited her but have criticized her work, saying that she had certain neuroses that make her an unreliable narrator to the story that she's telling.
But in my eyes, that does not really make her an unreliable narrator to me.
It makes somebody who is relaying an interesting story.
Maybe she's piecing together her story through the essence of what she's feeling in her reality, but also some sort of fantasy that she is living out.
That's the true definition of artistry to me being able to source your inspiration from all different types of places your imagination, your reality, your love affairs, your friendships, your traumas, your fears, your romanticism.
I don't know if you can hear the birds.
They're really loud.
Let me actually open the window.
There's also a rooster crowing outside the window.
It's like I live on a farm.
Don't know if you heard that, but there you go.
Anyways, her style of writing is truly inspiring because it's something that she never sacrificed.
She stayed integral to her style no matter what, and that is sort of what this...
This is sort of an analysis, exploration from her when it comes to the future of literature film art, dance.
She's sort of giving this synthesis for the young artist struggling against sterility, formlessness and spiritual bankruptcy afflicting much of modern fiction.
She's very poetic in her thoughts, in her speaking.
There's so many facets that we could talk about with her, and also like when it comes to her erotica and how she got into that and how her writing was too feminine and flowery for certain categories but also too abstract and confusing when it comes to that very literal criticism of oh, is she writing for me?
Is she writing from fantasy or from fact?
Like that debate, I don't know.
That's what makes it interesting.
Obviously, there are other things about her life that people like to sort of pick apart and analyze.
And you can analyze her psychology all day long, but her artistry is something that continues to timelessly inspire me.
I just think this is such a cool critique because she talks about her place in this field of her writing and other writers that she advocates for when it comes to that more abstract futuristic, poetic novel and not sticking to such literal things.
This really emphasized the importance of dreams to me and how whether that be imaginary or the dreams in your subconscious when you're sleeping beautiful it really is to pay attention to those things, to turn those things into moving parts of maybe a story or a poem or anything.
And she highlights that, how it's important to not reject our neurosis or the dreams that we have, but more so to integrate them into our art, and how it doesn't have to be understood so literally.
The beauty about abstract art is it can be perceived by the reader, by the consumer, and made into something of their own too.
I've never liked whenever art is, you know, discussed so literally and we're told exactly what it's about.
This was written in the 60s, and she said that people are willing to accept abstract paintings and abstract architecture, but what about abstract literature?
This one I have not completed yet.
She is a big girl.
This is the Clarice Lispector Complete Stories Collection.
In the introduction of this book it discusses how her grammar, similarly to what we were just talking about with Anaís' style of writing.
Clarice's grammar and things may not be exactly what you've seen in typical English literature and writing yes, because it's translated from Portuguese.
But also she had a very specific style in her expression and her writing and that is what has made these stories so interesting is the way that she sort of captures her subjects.
It's not see it all really connects.
It goes back to kind of the novel of the future, not focusing on every single logical detail of the setting, but more so how that feels the dynamic between two characters, just like the depiction of emotion.
It's palpable in these stories.
Just the introduction was interesting, learning a bit of who she was and why her writing was so favored at the time, just kind of her accolades and recognition as a woman.
She was a mother and a wife.
It talks about how she doesn't really shy away from those aspects of her life.
She didn't really live this solitary, isolating artist's life.
She really lived kind of a domestic story as well and you can feel the essence of that and maybe the pains of that housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected epiphanies, old people who don't know what to do with themselves.
Clarice takes us through their lives and hers and ours.
Okay, the next book that I have to talk about was actually a lovely Christmas gift from my best friend Juna, and she got me this book about Sufism.
She told me, this made me think of you because the Sufis were the mystics and poets of Islam.
So, taking my personal stance in religion out of this and just focusing on the true philosophy of Sufism, it's extremely interesting.
The mythology, the philosophy, the core beliefs that stand in Sufism are all really about this sense of love from within and recognizing the love of a higher power and the love within yourself and what it means to maintain that connection, to sustain that connection in relationship to others, in service to others, in service to self, in creation, in so many things.
And obviously Rumi, one of the most well-renowned poets of all time.
So many of his poems are referenced in here.
In this book, the chapters are sort of organized by a certain ideology of Sufism and then followed by so many quotes from different religious texts or poetry like Rumi or other poets or other sheikhs and It's so interesting to hear about the philosophy but then see it exemplified through these people throughout history and it has been a book that has also just been very timelessly inspiring to me and something that I hold close to my heart. okay so this is something else that has been in the rotation guys i went to a new bookstore in my city and it's not new i say new it's new to me but it has been around i think since the 60s or 70s 80s i'm not sure my friend had invited me to go so we went one afternoon quite a wide selection a unique selection of all these different types of books and it was a very small store but right in the front there was a cart of local poetry and this one in particular stood out to me so much yes because of the cover but also the title the rosary of latitudes she is a local poet in my city but i learned that she has traveled throughout her life to so many different poetry festivals and events all over the world and That is what this collection summarizes, is her interpretation of the places that she's visited and how that connects to all of this history and myth and faith.
Usha's poems in Rosary are much about the self as about places.
These... are much more than a tourist's impression of the country that she visits.
Each journey here is a journey to the essence of things, to vital experiences to which different countries only form a backdrop.
Like the first chapter that I'm reading here is about Istanbul and the way that she projects, yes, this sort of internal imagination and fantasy onto her surroundings, the blue mosques that she's describing and all this beautiful architecture and the colors and the foods and just like her interaction with the city it's like a love letter to these places i would say this has been my poetry collection of the winter and then okay these two books these two books i wanted to discuss because they were both two beautiful birthday gifts that i books to me i read them and explore them sometimes quickly sometimes slowly but they also are like little time capsules to me how people you know resonate with crystals because they have a certain vibration when you hold them or their colors and all these things i sort of feel that way about books in my home like they all sort of hold a different spirit to them and a different story to them a different world a different time period and these two were beautiful gifts that i'm so happy about because they feel like just that of course i've looked into them and read parts of them they feel like just beautiful additions to my library in spirit i don't know if that makes sense but like the colors we have going on the subjects of these things we have elizabeth taylor's memoir elizabeth taylor by elizabeth taylor just talking about books in a physical sense again look at this like this is i wish you guys could feel these pages like they are worn and chunky and they have a certain smell obviously i am obsessed i'm obsessed with the cover here but if we just gently i'm not even going to remove it because it's so worn and delicate but like look at the hard cover in there like the black spine and the rosy canvas type of fabric of the cover oh my gosh see guys this this is just like my favorite and this was gifted to me from my wonderful friend Ava this is Victoria's Secret Beauty of Love and this is just this is what I'm talking about the physical appreciation of these books because it's This is just the casing for it.
And then it comes out.
How happy does that make you?
It makes me really satisfied.
I love this.
Book ASMR.
That's actually a good idea.
Look how gorgeous that is.
We have that beautiful gold engraving with the periwinkle and pink.
Come on!
And it's a collection of romantic poetry, prose, and literature paired with romantic imagery.
So it's really just like a book of poetry, flowers, and women.
Like, come on.
Come on.
Oh my gosh.
And it comes with this.
Look at these colors, guys.
This is too much.
It comes with this beautiful deep blue bookmark ribbon.
Oh my gosh, and I get to put my name in there.
I haven't even done that yet.
Aoife, if you're watching this, you don't even understand how much this gift means to me.
So this will truly be a part of my collection for a very long time, and I am so happy to have received it this winter.
Time to put it back in its gorgeous case.
Okay, so now we have music.
And this is a whole other realm of passion for me, guys.
I have so much favorite music.
But this is my favorite music of the past season, okay?
That's how I'm narrowing it down, like I said.
Eusexua by FKA Twigs.
I love this album.
I love twigs.
She is one of my biggest inspirations.
I said that about Anais Nin.
I will say that about FKA twigs.
I love her so much.
She just symbolizes something so satisfying in my psyche.
I think she received an award one time titled the godlike genius award.
Where was that?
Where did she get that?
Yes, FKA Twigs was honored with the prestigious Godlike Genius Award at the 2022 BandLab NME Awards.
She was recognized as a boundary-pushing artist, dancer and director, becoming the youngest solo artist to receive this award on March 2, 2022.
Yeah, so she's a genius okay, and she has been recognized for that.
Recently she just won a grammy too.
She is my genius.
She is a pure genius to me.
I love capri songs, but yousekshua came out last year and that song the title track of that song, was my anthem to the winter.
Last year i had just been going to la for some of the first times and there was just so much poetry and making floral arrangements for new friends.
And that song like I remember feeling really alone at that time in my life and then I was kind of thrusted into community and new life and city.
And that song she repeats this sort of affirmation again and again you're not alone, you're not alone, you're not alone.
And oh, just the feeling of the beat with the mixture of that sentence, it's kind of just running through my head.
It just who.
It summed up a time of life for me.
So that already was such like encouraging winter-esque ballad to me, just getting really passionate here.
That's what this is all about, my favorites.
But then whenever she released Eusexua Afterglow this winter, oh!
Don't even get me started.
Well, I am getting started, but I'm not going to talk about the whole album, okay?
I love the album in itself, but when it comes to songs that are my favorite, the album starts with a track titled Love Crimes.
And again during a season of life where I'm like letting things go, shedding things sort of.
The winter always feels like that.
It doesn't always feel completely isolating.
I'm grateful for my community and friends and everything, but it does feel like that time of going inward.
I don't know if you saw the interview with my friend a few weeks ago.
Please go check it out.
I worked very hard on that video and it was a really precious conversation with my friend Sam.
He is a visual artist, a pen on paper illustrator.
He's really, really incredible.
But we were making an arrangement during that conversation for the episode and I asked him like what do you really want?
This arrangement, like every floral arrangement to me, has such a different essence and feeling that it's representing.
And it was in the heart of winter when we did that and he said that he really wanted to kind of have an arrangement in his home that represented going inward and like that type of returning to center sort of feeling, and winter has always felt like that grounding time for me.
So again, twigs gave me something, an anthem to where i could feel so empowered in that idea of release, letting go and coming back to myself, and that is what this album did for me, what love crimes did for me.
And then the end of the album oh oh, my god, it's so good guys lost all my what is it called?
Yeah, lost all my friends.
Again, like what we just said sorry,
That like sort of isolating, empowering feeling.
It's something that I don't know if we all go through this in our 20s or like if this is just a season of life that I'm going through, but a lot is changing.
I'm changing environments places relationships, saying goodbye to seasons of life while continuing to stay empowered in my beliefs and my vision, and creating that in my life.
And for some reason, her music is very i don't really know like adjectives when it comes to music and production.
I'm just going to be speaking off of the brain here, so don't don't get too critical, but it's very like.
It feels just so alien-like like it feels just like space beat fun dance girly sexy beautiful, hot future silver pink, alien lights, dark.
Like, I don't know how to describe it, guys.
High energy, but also so gentle and soft.
Her sweet little voice and the things that she chooses to say.
I want to dance to this song in the club so badly.
I don't know what club is gonna play this for me.
I don't know.
I've to see her perform it in real life, to be at one of her shows, oh my god.
I don't even know what I would do with myself, but maybe that is when I will hear this live in that type of setting.
I don't know where or how I can just dance to this, but the song Lost All My Friends was sort of the celebration of this honest truth of like I lost.
It felt sort of like we're in a daze, of being aware of loss, but also like owning the loss and like hysteria of this moment she's describing.
Her vocals are just so like enchanting and gentle, like I said, but paired and contrasted with the satisfying hard beat.
It's just like, oh my gosh puts me in this trance of sort of feeling excited about my confusion and sort of feeling empowered.
Again, I'm using this word empowerment.
I guess she just really makes me feel empowered in my artistry and in my own imagination, but kind of embracing that state of being alone and almost like feeling like you're losing your mind sometimes to your art or I'm just going on a tangent here.
But I love that song and then i love the song that follows it and closes the album stereo boy, you're just a stereo boy.
A stereo boy, you're just a stereo boy.
I tried to get your attention but you were too busy looking at the passing lights.
The album starts with this intense like anthem of i have to let you go.
I have to let you go, like diving into this world of, like isolation and letting things go, but then ending the album with the sort of recognition of you were just a stereo boy.
Like I tried to get your attention, but you didn't want that.
I heard the static in your heart and fell apart because you're just a stereo boy.
You're just a stereo boy.
Interpret that as you will.
I definitely have.
And it's great.
So good.
I've Got Dreams to Remember by Otis Redding.
I feel as though this song is universally very loved and anybody can really make this their own.
Like I keep saying, I'm going through stages of sort of figuring out what I'm doing with my life, where I'm going.
In that there has just been a lot of goodbyes and ups and downs and reflection and I was just sort of having a moment like that with two of my best friends.
We were sitting in front of the forest and it was just kind of a sad moment of reflection.
It wasn't sad, but it was just sort of this like reality check um, that we were that i was having and that they were witnessing me having, and i shared a poem with them that i'm very proud of.
That will be in my next poetry collection, but it's it's a long narrative poem that sums up a lot of bittersweet sentiment to me and I read it to them in front of the forest.
I'm just so grateful for my friends.
The fact that they listened to me and take in my artistry and intimate thoughts.
It's like the biggest blessing to have sort of like a mirror to you and somebody to bounce these things upon, go through these times and these reflections with.
And you know, we just kind of laid down in the grass after that and my friend shuffled her music.
She always kind of just like plays music on her phone or her stereo when we're all hanging out, and one of the songs that came on was I've Got Dreams to Remember and it was sort of in that moment of heaviness, of realization, of heartbreak in a way, that I was reminded being with these people that I love, in a place that I love, that It's okay and I have dreams to ground myself in and remember and come back to, no matter what.
These things are what ground me and bring me back to what I believe in over and over again.
Okay, what do we have next?
Okay, I can't do that because apparently YouTube even copyrights if you sing songs, so I'm not gonna get into it.
But all the things she said, okay.
That was my January tune, man, around my birthday.
And we all know why, okay?
We all know why it's made a resurgence.
If I start talking about heated rivalry I'm not gonna stop.
But that show brought a resurgence to the beloved 2002 song All the Things She Said.
And I was born in 2002, so that's always fun when I listen to the song.
So they play the original song in that scene and then it kind of as the as oh, my god.
Oh, you know what I'm talking about if you've seen Heated Rivalry when Ilya realizes that Shane is in the club, and then the remix of that, the lower, the what is it harrison?
The harrison remix begins and things just i'm literally getting goosebumps.
I'm not kidding, just the slow motion that starts to occur.
Okay, so all the things she said that has been very fun.
Winter, new year's, just like cold times anthem.
I'll never forget this season of life.
What do we have next?
Then we have Hello Darling by Conway Twitty.
My friend Max has really inspired a lot of my music taste here this winter because Max is such like a southern little princess and her music taste is so.
She has such a huge vintage collection of clothes and the music that she listens to.
She has introduced me to a lot of like the old country that has hit me in the heart.
I used to say I hated country music.
That could be true about maybe about modern country music.
Maybe not even... maybe not totally.
I appreciate good music kind of no matter what the genre.
I can respect and appreciate even if it's something that I wouldn't listen to a lot.
But old country has been pulling at the heartstrings.
And hello, darling.
Hello.
Hello, darling.
It's been a long time.
It's been In a long time, you're just as lovely as you used to be.
Okay, I can't believe that I'm out here doing this, but Hello, Darling by Conway Twitty pulls at the heartstrings for sure.
That was kind of what I was listening to around Valentine's Day.
I don't know if that's depressing, but it just, it was satisfying.
I like listening to sad music.
It feels very cathartic and it's beautiful that other people can relate to the feeling that can sometimes feel so isolating and heavy when we carry it ourselves.
And I just love art, and specifically sad music in this context when it just, when it can reflect to you that you're not alone.
You're not alone with these feelings that feel so impossible to carry, let alone describe.
Having somebody wail it out to you, it's just...
It's healing.
The album, The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens.
Okay, I know that not- Sufjan Stevens is maybe an acquired taste.
I don't know if it's everyone's cup of tea, that kind of like soft melancholy singer-songwriter.
It's not totally my thing, but Sufjan did steal my heart years ago nine, ten years ago, I guess a decade ago.
I actually can't believe that, but when I was like 14 or 15 years old, I read Call Me By Your Name.
And then, of course, when I watched it, I watched it when I was really yeah young, I guess like 15.
When it came out it was 2017.
Anyone who knows me knows like how much that work of art imprinted my heart.
That rhymes.
It truly impacted me, and it's not just the film itself, it's not just the book itself, not just the characters, it is the beautifully curated soundtrack.
I don't know who chose that.
I don't know if it's the producer's job, if it's the director's job.
I think it is maybe a team effort.
I know that Luca Guadagnino did like Sufjan Stevens and maybe that is why he incorporated his work really heavily into the soundtrack of Call Me By Your Name.
But of course that was where the Sufjan infatuation and love was born.
His production is is so unique in so many of his albums.
In this album specifically, it's titled the ascension, and that is what i feel as though the music, the production, the lyricism sure, but like all of it is doing to me is it is ascending me somewhere else.
Okay, that might sound crazy, but that is what it makes me feel.
It is like again this, like this spacey sort of i don't want to say pop, electronic pop like, makes me feel like i'm ascending to space.
It's like this meditation on anxiety, faith and what i'm reading here now, the crumbling idea of america, like during the pandemic.
So it hits.
It hits further.
You know, like we all went through this 2020 thing and, of course, a lot of art did come out of that, but i feel like now maybe we're about half, over half a decade away from that time and i haven't really gotten to reflect on a lot of artistry that references the pandemic in a way that is actually like really tasteful to listen to.
And i the ascension by sufjan stevens.
It's an incredible work of art and listening to it I recommend just like with headphones or somewhere that you can allow yourself to ascend kind of meditate on the story and the journey he's taking you on.
Babyoncé by Baby Sosa.
That whole album, it's like a really fast listen.
Yeah, it's 14 minutes long, 10 songs.
It's really quick.
It's sort of like ambient in a way, but also meditative and satisfying for me to listen to.
I formed some kind of special memories with it this winter, listening to it and imagining.
It's been like something that I throw on in the background whenever I'm curating inspiration or editing, so I feel like I've had some really impactful personal moments with this album this winter.
The last thing that I want to discuss with you guys is my beautiful friend, Carissa Love, who is a fellow poetic inspiration of mine.
She just released a beat poetry project, a beat poetry EP, and it is titled All Creatures in the Realm of Earth.
Carissa is.
I've talked about her before.
She's been on the channel.
I've interviewed her on my podcast.
She heavily references elements of the past, whether that is Shakespearean or flares of inspiration that she gets from Celtic culture, and she is so connected to nature and her craft.
She references a lot of these things that can be associated with the past, but she does it in such a modern, feel futuristic way of storytelling.
I don't know exactly how to describe it, and that is my favorite type of art whenever there's really only so much you can say it's something original, something you've never heard before, you can't really reference it to this and that because it is original.
I have just been Listening on repeat.
I'm so in awe of my friend's artistry and how she's meshed her love of so many different styles and things into her own version of storytelling and just the way that she interprets her life experience, performs it.
If you guys didn't know, I also have a spoken word poetry album that you can listen to on all streaming services Spotify, Apple music, anywhere.
That is a project that I'm so passionate about because it brings spoken word and poetry to life.
When you bring this element of music and sound and I was really focused on creating sort of those ambient soundscaping environments for the words and the story to relay itself and And Carissa has really highlighted being a beat poet and what it really means to follow this rhythm, musicality and theatrics to her poetry
It's spoken word poetry, beat poetry.
You can see it in different eras of humanity.
You know most commonly that I feel like we reference a lot is during the 60s, the performance of poetry and everything but me and Carissa have had so many inspiring conversations about it.
Having its revival now and finding the poetry that we love now, finding ways to be a performer, a storyteller in the world of poetry in a way that maybe people haven't heard done in a long time or ever before yet.
Bringing poetry to a form that others can connect with.
Maybe they don't want to just read the printed words on a page.
Maybe they want a full experience witnessing the elements of performance and color and theatrics, no matter how different.
This is just my interpretation here that I'm going off on here.
I don't.
You can go to Carissa's channel and hear everything she has to say about her own work, but I'm just telling you why I love it and my interpretation, A lot of the poems.
When I listen to them I feel inspired in my womanhood, in my differences.
I feel as though those things are the imperfections that make me beautiful and make me who I am and connect me to others and to the earth.
Kind of what I was talking about in the beginning of my favorite music here.
I feel empowered when I listen to it, and not just because she's a personal inspiration of mine, but because she is a poet who is not sacrificing her story, her style, her self-expression.
She stays integral to that.
If you guys like literature storytelling theatrics poetry, music in general, I highly recommend checking out Carissa's Beat Poetry EP.
And if you enjoy this type of storytelling, I have a spoken word poetry album.
That is my whole heart.
It is like my child.
It is the body of work that i've put so much time, effort and feeling into and that poetry, album and collection has brought me to so many brilliant places and has introduced me to so many wonderful faces and people.
And yeah guys, that concludes all of my book and music media favorites here.
There was a little section i was going to talk about some of my favorite youtubers and podcasts and shows and things, but this video is already very, very long so i might have to save that for another time.
Thank you so much for watching this video.
Thank you so much for being here.
I am so grateful to have had this chat with you.
I hope that you are having a beautiful morning afternoon evening, wherever you are, whatever you may be doing, never forget that we are on this journey together.
I love you guys.
I'm proud of you.
I cannot wait to talk to you again very, very soon bye.
