"Film for Her" author Orion Carloto takes us on a tour of her beautiful bookshelves and shares some of her favorite reads, including cherished poetry collections and a novel so good she read the entire thing in one day.
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00:00Do people assume maybe that I'm a little crazy?
00:04Maybe, who knows?
00:05It is interesting, and that's all I'll say.
00:07Hello, everyone.
00:08My name is Orion Parlato,
00:10and today I'm going to be giving Marie Claire
00:12a look into my now extensive home library.
00:16This is Shelf Portrait, and this is my cat, Lolita,
00:21who loves attention.
00:23Now, my bookshelf is kind of split up in strange ways.
00:30It's my own kind of Dewey Decimal System, in a way.
00:34Right over here in this section,
00:35I have, obviously, I have some art books,
00:37but I have a little section of some children's books,
00:41you know, along with all fiction.
00:43And here we have my art books, as in magazines.
00:48I love Pinfolk, I love Vogue.
00:51And, you know, here are more the poetic and prose,
00:56stories that really reminisce in my life,
00:58you know, not only as an adult,
01:00but as a young adult growing up and reading, as well.
01:08So, as a disclaimer, I must admit
01:09that I am one of those people
01:10that frequently gives away their books to their friends.
01:14That being said, a lot of my favorites
01:16are not on my shelf right now,
01:18because they're in the hands of those who I love.
01:21One of my favorite books that is not on my shelf
01:23at the moment is one by Alan Watts
01:25called The Wisdom of Insecurity.
01:28That is one book that I frequently find myself
01:30coming back to to read.
01:32It is just kind of a gentle reminder in life
01:35of, you know, all of your insecurities
01:37and the things that you kind of deep down already know,
01:40but kind of gives you some sort of reassurance,
01:42like a hug you're reading from an old friend
01:44or a mentor of sorts to kind of get you through life.
01:51If you didn't already know,
01:52I'm also a writer and poet myself,
01:54and actually one of my favorite books right now,
01:57No Shame, is my book film for her,
02:00which is, you know, a collection of my life
02:02over the past three years,
02:04instances and moments that were put together
02:07through poetry, prose, short story, and film photography.
02:12And it really is about the mundane in life
02:15and all the in-betweens,
02:16because I think a lot of us tend to focus
02:19on our highs and our lows,
02:20that we seldom reminisce on the moments
02:24that we didn't think to be as special in our lives.
02:29But this is a book that is a collection of that.
02:33One of my other favorite books
02:38that I actually started to read during quarantine
02:40is one called My Year of Rest and Relaxation.
02:43And that, I must admit,
02:46was probably one of my most interesting reads
02:50during quarantine,
02:50simply because it kind of coincide
02:53with being in quarantine.
02:54It is about a woman who is, you know,
02:57dealing with her own set of mental health issues
03:00and problems and ties hand in hand
03:03with a not-so-good psychiatrist,
03:05and she takes it upon herself to sleep for an entire year.
03:09It was one of those books where I could not put it down.
03:11I was certainly, like, stuck to it for an entire day,
03:15and I finished it an entire day.
03:17It was very, very, very good.
03:20So my favorite childhood book,
03:21I think, comes as no surprise to anyone.
03:23It was pretty much anything by Shel Silverstein,
03:26but I have a copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends.
03:29This was, you know, obviously your first introduction
03:32to poetry as a kid, and it's very imaginative,
03:35and that's what I loved so much about Shel Silverstein
03:37is it was fun and funny and just all sorts of madness
03:42that was going on.
03:43I'll always have a soft spot in my heart
03:44for Shel Silverstein through and through.
03:48Another book I read during quarantine
03:49is this one by Ocean Vong, On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous.
03:54One thing I love about this book
03:56is how I can relate to it in some way or another.
03:59Ocean Vong wrote this about his own life.
04:02He is a writer, a child of immigrants,
04:04and he is also queer, and this is just kind of
04:07a letter to his mother who cannot read
04:11or really understand English,
04:12so it's almost unsure if she'll ever read it.
04:15It's almost unsure if she'll ever read it,
04:17but it's kind of like this personal memoir
04:20into his life growing up and these instances
04:24that kind of made him into the person he is today,
04:26and it was not only well-written
04:29and just extremely put together,
04:32but you can find parts of yourself in this story
04:35that I did not expect to find myself in.
04:39My favorite genre of book, which is surprising
04:41that I didn't mention any of them,
04:43is books by French poets.
04:46I think it is very important as a writer
04:49to obviously read up on the subject of what I do,
04:53but really try to understand as to why poetry
04:56is so important to people,
04:57and I find that that beauty comes a lot from French poets,
05:02and I can only hope and wish one day
05:05that I could amount to that greatness,
05:07but until then, I will just read them to life
05:10on my bookshelf and hope for the best.
05:13Now, the next book is something that I read
05:14when I was in high school,
05:15and it kind of reintroduced me to my love for poetry,
05:20and it is Bluets by Maggie Nelson.
05:24Here she is.
05:25Maggie Nelson is one of my favorite writers,
05:26and she is just this profound poet,
05:29and Bluets was my first book that I've ever read by her.
05:32So there are 240 reasons in this book
05:34why the color blue is so significant in her life,
05:36and it is just poetic profoundness
05:39and something that I also like to reintroduce into my life.
05:43Every once in a while, a good friend of mine
05:46introduced her to me, and I haven't looked back since.
05:49Now, who am I to say that I'm a poet
05:51if I did not introduce, obviously,
05:55the love that I have for Patti Smith?
05:58As we all know, Patti Smith is someone
06:00who is just so in touch with her own life
06:05and her own experiences,
06:06and she has the most interesting life story
06:08growing up in New York City,
06:09and we're all familiar with Just Kids and The M Train,
06:12but one book that stood out to me the most was The Coral Sea.
06:15I read this, actually, when I was on a trip to Portugal
06:19with my father, and it is filled with, you know,
06:23excerpts, poetry, prose, you know, her life,
06:26and it kind of also goes hand-in-hand with Just Kids,
06:30talking about Robert Mapplethorpe,
06:31who was her then-boyfriend,
06:34and also this iconic photographer who we all know and love.
06:39Thank you guys so much for watching my shelf portrait,
06:41and if you are interested,
06:42make sure to check out my new book, Filmed for Her.
06:45This is my second book of poetry that I've ever written.
06:48My first one was one titled Flux,
06:50and this is very, very special and important to me,
06:53and I hope maybe one day it'll find a spot
06:55on your library at home.
06:57And don't forget to subscribe to Marie Claire down below.
07:00Bye.